Spear Fishing in New Zealand: Giant Kings and Hungry Sharks

 

I’m haunted by the image of a large fish emerging head first through a mist, snaking in that way that a large fish swim, toward me, mouth slightly agape, breathing, lidless and watching. I have tried to tell my free diving friends about this, I dream about it, my mind makes stories of every variation from the same beginning when I close my eyes, they always laugh it off, not wanting to engague in any conversation founded on unsterdy ground. I’m not loosing touch, it’s not that bad, I’m simply in the spotlight of a memory, it will fade, maybe faster if I exorcise it. It’s a short and uneventful tale, but I think I have to tell it, if only that I can stop it from replaying in my dreams.

 

We left the bay of islands in the north of New Zealand on a two week cruise of fishing, diving, and general hapless merriment. In the first bay, anchored just south of Cape Brett, I shot my first king fish. My friend had just shot a silver drummer and swam back to the dingy. We were diving outside of the small harbor mouth around a sentinel rock that protruded 20m above the surface. The seas, though small, were just enough to generate a break on the outside of the rock. The white air mixing with the sea created a cloud of obscurity. I dove in the small channel between the land and the isolated rock island to the bottom, maybe 10m, and looked among the ample kelp for something interesting, not really knowing what could be found. As I raised my eyes and began to ascend a large fish hovered in my view, suspended against the green backdrop, glowing white and bright green and yellow. She stared at me, sidelong, frozen and drifting. Without blinking I shot her in the side.

 

My spear gun was rigged with a 3m, 150lb leader, which was permanently affixed to the wooden gun. In the past I had run the gun in breakaway mode, in which a fired spear would become disconnected from the gun and any speared fish would be tethered to a buoy, allowing me and the gun to swim freely to the surface, retrieving the fish later. But for this trip the gun was rigged so that any fish would have to be fought, at the moment of spearing, to the surface. Since I had never speared a big fish I wasn’t really sure if I could fight it to the surface. If I couldn’t I would have to let go the gun, loosing it to the fish, though he may die at some future point, floating to the surface, trailing the object of his demise.

 

At the moment I shot this fish I was able to think through all of these possibilities, but no hesitation came to me and the consequences were accepted, in excitement. As soon as I felt the pull of the fish I began to swim to the surface, I was some 6m down. Normally I swim slowly, conservatively, so as to use as little oxygen as possible, that I might stay under longer, that I might keep from using all my air, that I might keep from passing out. But now I pumped as hard as I could. Kicking my meter long fins with intention, facing the surface and gauging if indeed it was getting closer. For a moment it seemed that the fish was my greater and that I would not be able to make way, that she would own the gun, but slowly, perceptibly, but just, I became aware of the lit surface of the water getting closer. When I made it to the air above the dingy was close and so I shouted my friend to come over, the fish tugging and flopping in my arms like an angry serpent.

 

 

The two weeks passed and we dove in amazing locations. Almost every time I was in the water I saw king fish. Anchored in the Poor Knight’s Island Marine Reserve, a no fishing zone, there were schools of them taking refuge in the shadow of the hull, knowing somehow that we were not allowed to shoot them, that this was neutral territory. Only 10 miles away they would never stay so passively close and seeing them, although common enough, was always in moments and passings, as they came to inspect and quickly removed themselves into the mists.

 

Yellow Tail amberjacks live throughout the pacific, they are called by many names, and prized everywhere they are eaten, especially in Japan where they are often used for sushi. They live as long as a teenage human and grow as big. They are sometimes farmed but not in as great a quantity as salmon. I must have eaten one at some point, though I can’t recall a specific time. A more attentive fisherman than I would know all about them I’m sure, but sport fishing culture has never really attracted me, so I have remained ignorant.

 

 

In the two weeks we moved about the islands we ate well; several kingfish were cut into plates of sashimi, or seared as steaks, or, when we were too full, and lacking refrigeration to keep the bounty, fillets were traded to other yachties for cold beer. Leaving Opua we twice foraged the scallop beds, coming home with our legal share of 20 ashtray sized shells each, that yielded hunks of white flesh the size of extracted eye balls. We crawled on low tide rock islets plucking green lip muscles, and found more crayfish and paua (abalone) in the backs of forgotten windward caves than could be eaten in good conscious and health.

 

Needless to say when we slipped into the water for our last dive we knew we would be happy if we came home with nothing. But I had this uneasy feeling that I still wanted to find a big king, I kept seeing him in the vanishing point of the underwater haze, I kept thinking of his eye, looking at me like a giant seagull straddling an upside down crab, the intent and wide black eyes of a predators. Kingfish are opportunistic predators. They look for congregations of fish, of debris that might give them the advantage, they follow other predators or large fish and wait for the right moment. I could always know when a big fish was around because the schools of small fish would swim around me in a circle, maybe to hide in my presence, I can’t be sure, but when the schools start their slow circle around you, the king always appears.

 

 

On our last dive in New Zealand we were spread out in the shallow pass between Rangiahau Island and Great Barrior island. The boat was anchored in a nice little bay on the south side of Rangiahua and we had anchored the dingy in the pass. After a few hours no one had shot any fish, although I had been approached by a pair of young kings (princes?) I didn’t get a shot off before they swam away. I had the feeling that there was a big fish around but I often had that feeling and we were getting cold and hungry. The others headed back to the dingy and since I could see the boat not far away I decided to swim back and keep fishing.

 

Another 20min and no sign of any kings, so I headed back toward the sailboat. 50m from where we anchored I came across a large school of silver drummers that began to follow me. There was all of a sudden lots of little fish too, schooling in circles every time a went down to the bottom. I had the feeling, there was a presence hiding in the mist, just beyond my view. Tired and cold I starting to have trouble staying down, so I surrendered, mentally, and headed toward the boat. The captain was in the dingy getting his wetsuit off and the two girls that were with us were already on board scrounging up some food in the gally.

 

At the dingy, I held onto the side handle and pulled off my mask. I thought about pulling myself up and flopping over in defeat. But this was the last dive, and I already had this feeling of remorse, and regret, like I was walking off the court after my last game, destined for retirement and endless days of faded glory. I gonna go down one more time and shoot a Kingy, I told the Captain. I don’t even know if he responded, maybe he just laughed. I slipped on my mask and floated next to the boat, preparing for my last dive in New Zealand.

 

Slowing my breath and thinking of the blankness, I readied myself for the deep. We were in a little less than 20m and the visibility was maybe 4m. I was staring into a green glow, the light from the surface beaming through the water into the emptiness. I breathed out all my air, squeezing the last bits from the bottom of my lungs. Then slowly I brought in the biggest breath I could, sipping on my snorkel to fill the top of my chest. I lifted my legs and dove straight down, my long fins following me like a periscope on a diving submarine.

 

I gently kicked down the first 10m and then drifted, feeling like a slow motion base jumper, one arm at my side with my feet together above my head, pointing the gun toward the bottom. As the yellow dirt of the sea floor resolved in my view I starfished and came to a stop. Already a school of blue and yellow fish were spinning a wide circle around me. I tipped my head back and pulled into an upright pose, hanging in the water, my fins just above the ground, floating like an astronaut descended to a new and absolutely alien world for the first time.

 

Normally I spend only a few moments at the bottom and then begin the slow accent to the light and air above. But this time I felt comfortable, warm and unthinking. The best dives are accompanied by a feeling of great peace, like drifting into thought, sitting in a chair on porch on a still summer evening, a spell that you only recognize once it’s broken. I don’t know what I was thinking, emptiness, comfort, green, I stared into the mist and like casting a spell with meditation I evoked the fish. First he appeared as a large fuzzy mark in the otherwise smooth canvas of my view, and then a head and a nose resolved, he was coming straight at me, level with my face. Slowly I broke from my trance and realized that I wasn’t visualizing a giant king fish, but I was in fact underwater at that very moment, that, although I felt I should wake from my dream, and gulp a clean breath of bedroom air, I wouldn’t, because I was already awake, and I must thus awaken and react.

 

 

Suddenly I felt my fingers, the sensation of the tip of my finger on the trigger, I felt the smoothness of the trigger. The fish imperceptibly adjusted his fins and yawed, showing me he long side and staring at me with his deep black eye. It was all as I had seen it in a vision. You can’t judge size underwater, but he was big, bigger than any king I had seen yet, maybe a meter and a half, maybe not, it’s a fish story, the size is mutable. After so long without thinking my brain was slow to re-boot. Shoot! The signal went directly from my waking consciousness to my finger, no time to aim, no time to consider the size, to consider the probability of getting this monster to the surface, no time to think about air. Air? Oh shit I need air. For the fist time I remembered I needed to breath, and at the same moment I felt the first tug come onto the gun.

 

I had hit him square in the flank and he didn’t like it. Immediately both our bodies went into survival mode. He began to swim like hell away from me. Beating and pumping like a pinned viper, and I started kicking with all I had. I looked up, I could barely see the light of the surface, just an indistinct glow. I kicked and tugged, luckily the fish was swimming with me, away and not down. My brain was now on overdrive.  I hit it!  They won’t believe me!  I said I would get a king and I’m gonna come up right next to the boat with one!  It’s amazing.  I’m gonna make it!  I’m not even tired!  It was then that I noticed the spear hadn’t gone through the fish. It must be lodged into a bone, right in the middle, probably a spine. Shit, I might loose…  and as quickly as I evoked the beast with my mind, the spell was severed. With a hard thrash the fish broke loose of the spear and disappeared. Nooooo! I shouted in bubbles. No, fuck, no, ahhh!

 

I popped up 5 meters from the boat and took a short few breaths and then began breathing again through my snorkel. I quickly looked at where the boat was and the dingy. The captain was still getting out of his wet suit. Not much time had passed in the real world. I had the uneasy feeling of disjointed time, like waking up from a midday nap, pulled like a rabbit from its hole into the light of reality. Fuck fuck. I started loading my gun again. Maybe I can go back and get him, maybe he’s hurt and I can catch him. No, it’s not going to happen. Shit. I snapped the spear into place. Looking down at what I doing, I started to get into position to pull the bands back, when I caught something out of the corner of my vision. I turned my head to the left and through the constrained window of my mask all I saw was grey. My whole body clenched and my vision flashed, like someone jumped out from behind a corner with a yell. My wet hair stood up under my suit. Almost touching me was the smooth flank of a massive shark. All I saw was fins and body and shark! It had already started to turn away from me in the instant it took me to recognize what it was. If it wanted to eat me it could have, but it had already decided I wasn’t worth it. He wanted the same thing I wanted, the injured kingfish.

 

I stared at its gills and down along it’s side, it was huge, 3m? 4m?  I saw it’s tall dorsal fin, it’s long pectoral fins, and as it turned to leave its tail flicked at me, as if trying to whip me a parting lashing. Shark! I don’t know what happened next, I blacked out, I panicked, the girls came out on deck hearing a frantic splashing, I was in the dingy lying in a wet pile stammering. There’s a shark! It’s huge. Right there! Of course there was nothing where I’m pointed. No. No, there was a giant king fish and I shot him and I was gonna get him and this fish, and this shark, It was soooo big! No, really!

 

…..

 

Postscript: I have seen lots of sharks, mostly reef sharks, but also a few real sharks (sorry reef sharks but you’re more like puppies, I’m talking about the big dogs), I saw a Great Hammerhead, and some angry Grey sharks that scared me, and once I think I saw a bull shark, but he moved quickly out of my vision so I can’t be sure. This was most likely a Bronze Whaler, it was big, in New Zealand, and not a White Shark. I got a pretty good look at him, he was close, but the viz was bad and my memory plays tricks on me. I should say, I don’t think sharks are the bad guys. Sharks in general are just trying to stay alive, and really loosing the fight to us humans, but they still eat a few people every once in a while, and when one comes and has a look at you, you get a little nervous.