Alliman Shield – 1st March 2015 – Kurnell Botany Bay

It dawned a perfect day for the second round of the Alliman Shield. The sky was clear and the wind light as the forty three intrepid divers signed on for the 8am start. The safety talk was given and the divers signed off then all made their way to the beach and into their boats and all made their way out towards the heads, although I noticed a few of the sneakier divers stopping off at places like Watts Reef & Bare Island Bommie to get the estuary species.

The water visibility was surprisingly good as it has been very ‘green’ in recent weeks. Generally there was a layer of dirty water but once under it opened up to a clearish 8-19 metres of good fishy water.

The end of the competition was at 1:15pm and most of the boats were back in plenty of time. All Clubs organised their weigh in teams and the scoring was started soon after the finish time. Some great fish were presented including an 11.67kg Cobia taken by North Shores Phil Sheppard who said he found the fish somewhere south of Marley lying on the sand in 10m of water, why don’t things like this happen to me! Phil also got a nice bream that went 1.1kgs. Evan Leeson (SSD) showed his class with the biggest fish of the day a 12.67kg kingfish and a beautiful 2.69kg Samson Fish. His Sans Souci brother Ben Bayfield with a stunning 1.485kg snapper and a thumper 2.090kg dusky flathead. Eleven year old George Manolias shows he is going to be a great spearo with a 1.245kg Salmon and a 715g goatfish. Some other good fish pictured were a pair of nice flathead taken by San Soucis Alex and Scott weighing 1.725kg & 2.465kg respectively. The Dragons old gun Rob ‘No Tears’ got a 995gm tarwhine and a 1.050kg king wrasse, both very good fish.

The star of the day undoubtedly was young gun Aaron Puckeridge (SSD) who amassed a massive 1176pts and 22 species! Well done to a fantastic young spearo and a quality person that his father Ian is rightly proud of. The top ten divers on the day were:

# Name Club Score
1 Aaron Puckeridge SSD 1176
2 Gunther Pfrengle STG 729
3 Derrick Cruz SSD 704
4 Rob Tierney STG 659
5 Evan Leeson SSD 650
6 Ian Puckeridge SSD 643
7 Ben Favorito STG 542
8 Paul Marsh SSD 455
9 Gary Baxter STG 449
10 Parry Gryllis SSD 438

Special mention today is for the father and son divers, and the sons showing up their dads. Not only Aaron & Ian above but Thomas & Darren Mercer (STG) who scored 372 & 261pts respectively and don’t forget young Luke Colys who has his old man Mark’s eye for fish and has the same quiet demeanour. Then Big Macca’s young boys Jarrod & Brad both sub juniors and both diving well with Jarrod getting 378pts for the day.

It was a great day of diving, with a lot of the public showing interest in the fish and the competition in general, some of them got a feed of fish for their trouble including old St George members Col & Andrew (son) Boomer who popped down to say hello.

It was late afternoon as the last of the ring & the scales were packed up and the area cleaned when the big southerly blew up driving everyone from the area.

Next comp is at Little Manly on Sunday 12th April 2015, meet at the beach and see you all there!

Lee Dalli
President
Metropolitan Spearfishing Zone