Well it wasn’t a good forecast for the Sunday of the Alliman with gale force winds and a big swell running all week not helping. But the brave sport secretaries of each club voted for the comp to be on and on the dawning of the day a dozen boats and nearly forty divers turned up to compete on what turned out to be a pretty good day.
After the safety talk the boats motored slowly down the four knot channel to Pittwater and the open ocean. Weigh in was at 1:30pm sharp and luckily all divers were back in the ring well before the cut off time. The weighing and scoring commenced and as we were next to the huge dog park we had a lot of interested persons and their canine friends to see the fish that came in. One cute pooch modelled the Aussie spearfishing team cap (available from me for $25, please support your team!) and another cute little Maltese helped Gordy with the scores! (See pics).
The ‘Adreno’ Most Meritorious Fish winners for this competition are Ben’s (STG) big bream for the senior category and young Eddie Sherb (SSD) with a 48pt Reef Leatherjacket, prizes will be presented before the competition at Long Reef. Remember anyone can win win one of these prizes but only if you compete!
The annual state spearfishing titles was hosted the Metro Zone and there were a number of locations earmarked in Sydney for this two day competition on both sides of the Harbour. Divers came from all over from Coffs Harbour (Cheers Brian) and up from Kiama (Max).
Sunday dawned with heavy overcast conditions and rain as the divers gathered in Robertson Park next to the historic Watsons Bay hotel. The safety talk was conducted and the divers jumped into the boats and headed out slowly to outside the moorings where the event start was made from Matt Poulton’s boat.
The rain was a dampener but as the forecast promised sunny conditions later in the day the fifty brave divers headed out into Sydney Harbour hoping for good conditions. As it turned out the conditions were great slight sea light winds, 15 – 20m visibility outside and up to 10m even in the Harbour even though it was low tide.
All the boats and divers made it back by the 1:15pm finish time and the fish were lined up at the weigh in table ready for the scoring. At this stage a crowd gathered to see the fish and ask plenty of questions. There was also some fish donated to the onlookers which made us very popular! Continue reading Alliman Shield 2016 – 1st May – Watsons Bay
The week leading up to the comp saw perfect diving conditions flat calm crystal clear warm water. Wazza took full advantage of these conditions leading up to the comp doing a lot of home work and having a serious game plan for the day , Ellis for boaty and list of spots as long as your arm. It certainly paid off, finishing a country mile ahead of some serious competition . The St George boys took out the next 3 spots ( Merv must be smiling as he looks down )
Then a well deserved 6th to Troy fishing with 5 up in the “Haines” then Oly who has won this comp more then any one else And Pete Baker just edging Joe Out. Good to see the captain win. Joey placed 10 th and won the intermediates, Conner Elliot had a blinder finishing 11th out right and winning the Juniors convincingly, followed by Zeb and Darcy in 3rd . Christian won the Sub Juniors and Zac Merlo on his first ever comp, runner up Sub Junior. Living up to the Merlo family tradition. And almost forgot Eddy won the Grand masters again beating Ben Allan by a few fish scales. Thats a fair range of age, from 13 to 70 all competing on the day.
There was over 40 people sign on and all weighed in . There would have been a few more but the weather forecast was bit “how you going” so we lost a few who pulled the plug and cancelled. Sorry you missed out on a great weekend guys. But that’s what comp diving is about, diving the conditions on the day. The comp was well run , there was plenty of BBQ chicken to eat , and great prizes to be won , I was wrapped , won a wet suit that’s perfect for the youngest son. Special thanks to Lee Dalli for doing a run down at the last minute with some great prizes from Adreno. Lee deserves a special mention for all the work he puts in with no fuss or carry on , Thanks Lee. Ray Powell DiveR Australia donated a pair of the worlds greatest Fins DiverR , this time won by Conner Elliot for a thumper of a Boar fish and for such a good overall performance.
Roy from Agro-dive supplied at lot of great prizes and a special thank you to Adreno for there donated prizes. And thanks to Joey Conner for doing the scores a job well done. For two young guys there do so much work. Great stuff.
Due to the current weather forecast for strong winds the Far South Championships has been changed to be held on the Sunday 24th April. Same location being the Narooma boat ramp for 7.00am sign-on
The forecast looks better for the Sunday with little wind and a reduced swell.
The South Coast Champs held at Ulladulla was an outstanding success for the Southern Zone. Great weather, well run with a record sign on – 20 boats ranging from Alby’s refurbished 6 meter Haines down to vintage 1960’s Tinnies and the proverbial rubber duck. The SCC was run in conjunction with the Taylor Shield. 55 signed on for the SCC and all divers weighed in. There was a good representation from the Neptune’s, the Sea Lions, Barracudas and of course the Workers. It was the traditional 2 day format, with a quality fish format. 5 hours on Saturday and 6 hours on Sunday. The seas were virtually flat with only a small ground swell to give a bit of white water. Not a puff of wind for the 2 days. Visibility was a varied feast, from plankton rich cool 3 meters to a much warmer 15 meters or more. Spoilt for choice at Ulladulla some boats travelled North and South, near and far while others stayed put and fished the local bommies to great success ( if you could dive the murk.)
The 64th hosting of the Canada Cup was held on Saturday the 13th of February at Terrigal on the beautiful Central Coast. The comp was held on the Saturday due to Sunday being Valentine’s Day. This gave divers a chance to spend the day diving with their mates freeing up Sunday to spend with the other half and stay in the good books.
Another new year has come around and therefore timely that I make mention of some good things that will continue on benefitting all spearos. In the USFA we are fortunate to have many talented members who willingly volunteer their time to assist in the running of the Association.
The One Up One Down pairs events were well received, why would they not be as any new members are invited to dive and be paired with some seriously outstanding spearos who choose to give up their time to assist newcomers to the sport and show them the ropes for a few hours. Continue reading USFA 2016 address to Spearfishers
A touching presentation speech for the Wally Gibbins Trophy read by David Birch at the 2015 USFA Awards night.
Walter Hammond Gibbins was born January 16th 1930 in Sydney. In the early 1940s he harpooned leatherjackets from the jetties of Sydney Harbour to feed his family before entering the water with his homemade mask, snorkel, belts, a scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus) system and speargun to chase bigger game so successfully that most speargun manufacturers use his speargun design even today.
Wally Gibbins – 68lb (30.8kg) Fairy Bower 1952
Wally’s adventurous aquatic life was often compared to the leading French marine explorer Jacques Cousteau. He was a pioneer diver who spent thousands of hours exploring fish, shells and underwater salvage sites. He filmed many of this exploits for TV or films along with a team of high-profile names, including Ben Cropp and Ron and Valerie Taylor. Wally pioneered the trigger mechanism still used today in many guns.
He caught his first shark, a wobbegong, at Middle Head in 1947, and shot and landed the first man-eating shark in Australia – a bronze whaler in 1950. The capture of a shark by a skindiver (rather than a man being caught and eaten by a shark) created headline news. He also caught with a spear a 400-kilogram tiger shark at Sykes Reef near Heron Island in 1963.
In 1948 he helped form the Underwater Skindivers and Fishermen’s Association at Long Reef , winning spearfishing competitions for the next 10 years, as well as the 1952 contest between anglers and spearmen. Wally single handedly caught more fish than all 37 anglers who had fished from the shore or boats. The rest of the spearos that turned up that day, may as well have stayed at home! Continue reading Wally Gibbins
The inaugural State Championship was held at that great, usually fishy, accessible location on the Central Coast, Norah Head. A rock hop event, the location was chosen as it offers a variety of depths and fishing ground and safe leeway depending upon the prevailing wind at the time.
As I arrived at the sign on location early I had time to check out the area and was pleased that the event was safe enough to hold with just a light SE wind puffing away. I begin setting up the area when the Montgomery “brothers” arrive on the scene, talk about keen! Still 90 minutes until swim off. Steve Montgomery had just come back from a USFA members trip to NW Island and had embraced the calm, warm and clear waters of the tropics spearing some great fish while Hayden Montgomery (no actual relation) is a frothing young spearo who at 15 has already captured an abundance of great species that many spearos even three times his age are in envy of. The two lads ripped in and helped me set up which was greatly appreciated.
Josh Green and Zane Hutchison Junior Champions
With half an hour to swim off many more “Sea Lions”, members of the local spearo club, had rocked up Bailey Ives, Zac and Pat with a mix of the usual suspects from the Sans Souci Dolphins – Mudcrab Marsh, Paz, Cohan and the Alliman and Canada Cup champion the Handsome Mexican Cruz; good to see some Neptunes from Newcastle (the Green clan) and South Coast Barracudas Joe Hyzdal, and the current NSW champion and king of the south coast Jack Lavender. Jack had really enjoyed the previous social pair event the USFA had run where he had keenly offered to swim with a young newcomer to offer many tips and techniques.
NSW Open OUOD Champions Jack Lavender and Joe Hyzdal
A briefing of the regulations was given – such as the 4 metre rope the surface diver needed to be connected to, while his dive buddy (the one under) uses a standard length rig cord, swapping to the shorter cord when it was his turn to remain on the surface, that one diver in the pair must always remain on the surface. The restricted species sheet discussed, where only 1 only of some basic species, such as red morwong, were to be weighed in between a pair. The scoring today was 100points a fish and 10 points per kilogram, Simon Horvath very kindly took two juniors with him as we did have an odd number of divers sign on.
Mentor and Grommet Champion Simon Ross and Mal Green.
By 0800 the safety boat with pilot Joe Brennan and co-pilot Nathan Gradidge had launched Al Cooke’s beautiful Haines 600r (a big thanks for lending your tub for the day Al), and we had twenty three of the keenest spearos in NSW signed on, briefed and ready to brave very difficult diving conditions. There was an unusually strong current mixed with cool, dirty water that belied the calm surface conditions and thus for the first time in my memory in a comp every competitor was back well before finishing time.
The hard luck stories are always worth listening to, for a laugh, though I did feel sorry for young Jay Bain and his early exit from the competition due to losing a fin in swimming through some surf attempting to spear a huge Bream that was on dry land, I know, you will have to ask him yourself.
Lachy Green towed his dad Phil around all day, or was it the other way around? Depended on which Green was telling the story. The father and son team came across a nest of bugs and had 4 splendid specimens in their keeper bag. Another father and son team was Rabbit Kyle and his 10 year old son Max, Max is beyond keen and they brought in some nice fish, Max landing two great Red Rockies himself and they looked likely to take out the Grommet section until another Green member, the youngest, Malakai and his mentor buddy Simon Ross brought in the same amount of fish with just a slightly heavier total bag.
Aaron Puckeridge and his float towing partner himself a former NSW champion like Aaron, Ben Bayfield, had an indifferent day and they brought in 5 fish as well, they were both pleased to see an esky and hot meat pies at the weigh in. Josh Green the biggest and probably the ugliest of the Green siblings, and his great mate Zane Hutchison weighed a good swag with 8 fish and they looked the winners as the last group to weigh in arrived, Jack and Joe from the ‘Cudas, they presented a smaller weight though with 9 fish to edge ahead of the Newcastle juniors to be crowned the inaugural NSW One Up One Down Pairs champions.
Class
Diver
Points
Golden Oldie
Joe Hyzdal
980
Silver Oldie
Phil Green
538
Junior Champion
Josh Green & Zach Hutchison
887
Open Champion
Jack Lavender & Joe Hysdal
980
2nd Open
Josh Green & Zane Hutchison
887
3rd Open
Aaron Puckeridge & Benny Bayfield
550
Largest Fish
Rock Blackfish – Cohan Jones
3075gm
Convenor’s Choice
Bream – Hayden Montgomery
1150gm
Sportsman’s Award
Simon Horvath
Young blokes going hard on the dogs eyes
This event will continue, as will its more social format where the younger and new USFA members are teamed up with experienced spearfishers who pass on valuable expertise to their allotted partner.
The overwhelming feedback form the divers repeat several key points:
“It’s definitely safer”
“I relax so much more knowing my buddy is over me, my diving just naturally improves”
“Far more enjoyable way of spearfishing a comp”
“So relaxing having someone right there with you”
“I love it when I see my partner stuff up”
It is a given that when you are relaxed and confident you are going dive better, it’s a given if your buddy is slightly at higher level than you that you will be drawn up to his level by diving with him it’s a given that diving one up one down with your surface buddy right there watching your every dive is safer, it’s also a given that it is great to share experiences with your mates who are right there to witness what you saw.
Looking forward to diving in the next one. Date out soon, keep January open.
Lachy Green towed his dad Phil around all day, or was it the other way around? Depended on which Green was telling the story. The father and son team came across a nest of bugs and had 4 splendid specimens in their keeper bag. Another father and son team was Rabbit Kyle and his 10 year old son Max, Max is beyond keen and they brought in some nice fish, Max landing two great Red Rockies himself and they looked likely to take out the Grommet section until another Green member, the youngest, Malakai and his mentor buddy Simon Ross brought in the same amount of fish with just a slightly heavier total bag.
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