This year’s NSW State Titles were held by the Norah Hammerheads Spearfishing Club, the new kid of the USFA NSW. Receiving plenty of help and keenness from Hammer’s members and the other NSW Clubs there was plenty of talk about the event leading up to the weekend. In the week before the 2 day Championship the weather reports all started to look extremely bleak and many people wondered if this would be another year when Poseidon would stir the oceans up, too large to dive, the State Championships is traditionally a rock-hopping event, a true test of skill, stamina and discovery. On the Friday morning the committee made the call to have a 1-day competition based on the forecast of dangerous swell warnings for the Sunday, the Saturday it seemed would be good for diving.
The day started at 530am with a small swell and no rain! Many helpers arriving early to help set up for the day. The Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party brought their boat along to act as one of the two safety boats for the day. Once the area was set up “Uncle Bob” started signing people on and next thing we know there have been 45 divers sign on; including 4 Ladies with 4 Juniors, and several distinguished gentlemen.
750am Justin Elsey held the safety briefing and at 8am sharp the NSW Titles commenced! Many divers headed towards the Lighthouse while others headed north towards Lakes Reef. Visibility ranged from under a metre to 10 metres in some places, and though it was challenging conditions 36 of the 45 divers weighed in fish!
All divers were back by the 2pm finish time and there was plenty of quality fish to check out and everyone was keeping a keen eye on the scales as they tried to figure out who would walk away the victor.
The weigh in completed, (we would like to say special thanks to the Sea Lions, Seahawks, Dolphins and Neptune’s for their assistance in the clean-up and pack away) everyone headed to Norah Head Sporties for dinner and the presentation.
The 2025 NSW Ladies Champion is Shelley DeCourcy of the Norah Hammerheads, Shelley won the McComb Spearguns custom speargun which doubles as a trophy with its custom plaque.
Open 2025 NSW Champion is Josh Green who under challenging conditions managed to weigh in an extraordinary number of quality fish.
NSW Pairs Champions – Josh and Lachlan Green
NSW Teams Champions- Josh Green Lachlan Green and Sam Morgan.
It’s our understanding the last name Green works wonders in the green coloured water haha.
We had plenty of prizes to hand out from our sponsors, the participants’ were blown away by the generosity and quality of the prizes, thank you to – McComb Spearguns, Osprey Spearguns, DiveR, Dive Cave, Adreno Sydney, Knife Merchant, EKF, Shark Eyes, Dive Imports, Throw Flashers, KHJ photography, Wettie NZ, and, Online Dive Gear.
The highlight for me was when Chris from the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party won the Osprey speargun then gave it to Joe one of our Hammerheads Juniors. The junior we call “Spewy” hugged and cuddled the gun with an ear to ear grin the rest of the night.
Thank you to all involved.
Mark Banasiak – presentation
Shawn Anderson – safety boat
Chris Dorahy- safety boat
Kristen – photographer
Bob McComb – sign on / sign off and weigh master.
Justin Esley – scoring program and competition organiser
Brett Carter – event organiser
Vince Bertolli – sponsorship organiser
Craig , Therese, Stuart – BBQ experts.
Beau, Rob, Spewy, Andrew and all the others for cleaning the fish that were donated to Coast Hands to feed people in need with fresh local seafood.
And, of course my family for putting up with it all for the last months or so.
It was a pleasure to host this year’s NSW State Titles and we look forward to doing some more feature USFA events in the future.
Alex Bond
President
Norah Hammerheads
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