Infanta trip

[DavdM6]

So I was recently up at infanta, had amazing viz for 3 days straight, not much fish around but was awesome diving nonetheless. Me and a mate did a lukka shore dive from the slipway around to the river point and then worked some of the deeper reefs on the way back getting some nice caving done and picked up 2 rockcod and a solid baardman on the way back.

The one cod I banged was right up in a cave, didn't get a great shot in and practically skewered him head to tail, ended up having to cut the spear out, as the barb would pop up when I tried to remove the spear, and ruined the fish really (doesn't make for a pretty photo). Is there any technique anyone knows of to avoid this?

Didn't see a single shark throughout the 3 days unbelievably, and was spending 5 hours a day in the water. Very odd.

 

[greydog]

Those are some nice fish, well done!!

Not sure how to remove it either, sometimes when the spear gets stuck in the meat a hard quick pull at an agle does the trick not giving the bard time to flop open.

 

[Hans]

You can undo the line to your spear and pull the spear through the fish!

 

[jensent]

Nice baardie, just note that the legal limit for yellowbelly rockcod is 60cm, and unless you guys are over 6'6" then those are at best marginal.

And you are also only allowed 1 per person per day, so not cool to have two on one person's stringer. Please adhere to our catch restrictions, you will only give spearos a bad name doing this in public. The inspectors are pretty active at Infanta.

 

[Steady]

Two points on spear removal.

1. In this case, I assume, the mono is attached direct to the spear, at the other end of the mono is a stainless steel clip which attaches to your float line. Release this clip from the float line and pull the spear through the fish, keep going until the line is pulled through as well. Don't forget to hold onto the spear otherwise it's bye-bye to the bottom of the ocean.

2. Not in this case but useful to know. When pulling the spear out it helps to pull slowly and rotate the spear slowly at the same time which allows the closed barb to find the path of least resistance.

Hope that helps.

 

[DavdM6]

Thanks for the replies guys, will give those methods a try next time!
And have since read up on the catch restrictions for the yellow belly, was unfamiliar with the species at the time, but will adhere In the future. Awesome tasting fish though I must say, and plenty of meat on them