I can not deny that each spearo dreams about shooting a World Record Snapper. Bigger than you ever shot before and bigger than your friends have ever shot. As spearfishing becomes more and more popular, “shooting a world record” is a pretty hot topic. It is doable for more people than it ever was before, even with a polespear (http://www.iusarecords.com/RecordsWorld).
Summer 2014, I am using the Leo Pro Polespear for a while now and the latest version simply rocks. After making the change from speargun to Polespear it felt like going back to the old days. Being upset at yourself that you were not able to get close enough to the fish. Wishing you had your Speargun with you. I made shots that were terrible and I hurt a fish and was not able to get it on the boat. Spearos laughed at me. But the more I practiced, the better I became hunting with my Polespear. More and more often, I was beating spearos with their spearguns.
At the time I started using the polespear intensively, there was no registery for spearfishing with a polespear. I shot big Grouper, Snapper, Wahoo, Barracuda and even Sailfish with my Polespear. Once and a while I checked the Spearfishing World Records on various fishes, just to compare.
We at SpearfishingToday shot several fishes that had more weight than the current World Records. We did not submit and we never doubted to do so. Until now….
This week myself was spearfishing North East of Cancun with a dear friend. We left at 8am and at 4pm I had not shot a single fish. The water was considerably colder than normal and visibility was not like we are used to. Using your polespear the whole day and just waiting for 1 good fish means you have to control your mind. You have to have your nerves under control.
My watch told me I had over sixty dives already that day, and I decided to do one more spot and then call it a day. That last spot is a so called “anything can happen” spot. 18 meters of depth. The captain throws out the anker and we jump off the boat. I look down and see a lot of sand, and even more sand. Far away there was some coral.
I decided to dive down anyway, “anything can happen”, remember? On the way down I hear a scary sound. I recognized it immediately, big Snapper in the area. It is a sound different than big Gouper, but as scary (guaranteed increase of heartbeat).
Arriving at the bottom I see this Cubera Snapper checking me out and moving away, not that nervous, but for sure not meaning to welcome me in his territory. I put myself in horizontal position and pulled back the band of my polespear. My eyes were staring into the sand. I had to stay calm and avoid any excitement at any time. This Cubera Snapper was over 20 kilos for sure.
The Snapper moved slowly towards me and stopped right in front of me. Its full broadside was super close. I was thinking… “How do I get a killshot on this huge fish?” I decided to move the pole slowly into position, and before the Snapper knew what was going on I shot it right behind the gills. I grabbed the pole and tried to get under the Snapper to avoid it might get off the polespear and to avoid the tip of my polespear would bend. That did not work out unfortunately. The total dive time of this dive was 1.48 minutes.
On the surface, the captain was as thrilled as I was. We could not believe it. His first words were “Leo, this MUST be a World Record Snapper”. The only time I was as thrilled as today was when I shot my first fish. This Cubera Snapper shot with my own Polespear, f(&·/)(& amazing.
Back on land, we put the fish on the scale and it said 27.99 kilos (almost 62 pounds). At that time, my friend found out that the current World Record is not even 11 kilos. Woooooooow. “I think we have a winner here, Leo”. We took a million pictures or even more and then the inevitable question came up. Submit or not to submit this world record…?!?
I decided to take a diet coke and give it a thought. 100% of the people around me were pro submitting. “Will be good for the business,” “At a party you can say you have a world record,” Etc. My guts feeling said “no…”. Let me share my thoughts with you.
Spearfishing is in my opinion a great selective way to get fish. It is the way fishing should be done. It’s fair game. Besides that, spearfishing should remain a fun activity. Do I join spearfishing competitions? No. Do I want to submit a world record? No. This is not what spearfishing is about. Of course, I love to show off as well with a picture of an impressive catch. But to stimulate submitting a World Record Snapper by polespear might change the reason why we all spearfish. To catch a dinner in a very selective way. So far I am alone in my thoughts. Pero asi es….
Leo
Check it out yourself: http://www.kelleraquatics.com/paquete-pro-leo.html