Spearfishing Season Opens This Weekend

[aarchdale@coresleep.com]

Anybody on here going to spear some fish this weekend? My brother and i are heading down to Norfork lake for a little tournament.

[Kayser]

I want to get started on spearfishing, but really wish there was something closer to STL than Norfork and BSL.

Question- do you scuba or freedive?

[aarchdale@coresleep.com]

We scuba, yeah there isn't a whole lot up that way. The clear waters in Arkansas are hard to beat. And you can only shoot rough fish in MO

[hoglaw]

Not many folks that free dive spear fish in fresh water are there? I've done it once in salt. We were off the cost of Panama in the Secas islands. I'm told Mick Jagger has a place there, but we camped on a little uninhabited island in the pacific. We didn't do open water free diving for the big pelagic fish or anything, just shooting little snapper and grouper on the reefs. I did get to see a real deal goliath grouper that was hundreds of pounds, but we wouldn't have tried to stick him even if we thought we could handle him. I'd love to go in one of our clear lakes at some point. One of my coworkers spearfishes Norfork regularly.

If you had a scuba tank plus a speargun on your boat in Panama, it was bye bye boat. Very strict free diving only laws there.

[aarchdale@coresleep.com]

A lot of guys that go for stripers will free dive. The find a school on te electronics and hop in real quick. Stripers are smart and know what's up when they hear you breathing underwater. If they see you they don't stick around long. Sometimes walleye are curious and will come check you out. The large and smallmouth aren't scared at all the will come right up to you, you can almost touch them. It's amazing the size of bass you see in bull shoals. You can't shoot bass though. It wouldn't be much if a sport really

[hoglaw]

That's pretty awesome free diving down to a big pod of stripers in open fresh water.

[MOsmallies]

First of all, good luck this weekend aarchdale... I hope you give us a report and pictures after the trip.

Secondly, a small part of me wishes spearfishing would be legal on some of our ozark streams. Only for rough fish (Carp, Gar, Drum, etc.). With a specified season, creel limits, and highly enforced by the MDC. If it were open to streams, I would love to get involved in this sport. I see so many large carp and gar that would be a blast to chase underwater. On the other hand, the majority of my being is happy that stream spearfishing is illegal. We already have enough issues with unethical and illegal gigging taking place on our smallmouth populations. I would imagine that spearfishing on our streams would just give our state's abundant hoosiers more opportunities to break laws and kill smallmouth illegally.

Lastly, my brother in law used to free dive in the gulf, chasing wahoo and cobia. He actually held the Louisiana state record for wahoo until his buddy bested him a week later. He gave it up a couple years ago after he lost a buddy to a tragic spearfishing accident. I miss hearing his stories but it's probably best since he now has two small children. Here's a few of his pictures...

[Kayser]

I would love to try dropping in on stripers, but I'd probably have to hire a guide to find any at all, and success would probably be limited, at best.

I'll just save my ETO and money for a trip to the gulf, I think.

[aarchdale@coresleep.com]

It was a tough weekend, saw millions of huge large and smallmouth, nothing under 25 fow. 1 walleye and a few flat heads but it isnt flat head season yet. Water was so clear 35 foot vis. also saw a couple crappie and some red ears that were absolutely enormous

[MOsmallies]

Awesome pictures and some nice cats! Thanks for sharing.

Paul

MOsmallies