Conversation 036 - Fish

Todd: OK, Michael, you are into spear fishing!
Michael: Yes, I enjoy going spear fishing
Todd: OK. Can you talk about that a bit?
Michael: Yeah, sure. Spear fishing basically is a sport that you dive under the water with the aid of flippers, wet suit and weights but you don't use oxygen at all it's all, you hyperventilate before you go down to get your oxygen levels up then you dive down...yeah, and then you have to... you sometimes hide under rocks or actually stalk the fish, and when you see a species that is edible and of legal size you can catch the fish.
Todd: Oh, Wow! Now spear fishing, does that mean you throw the spear!
Michael: No, you use spear guns which uses surgical rubber to propel the spear you just pull it down to cock it. It's kind of like a crossbow without the cross piece at the front.
Todd: So do you ever see sharks down there?
Michael: Yeah, you occasionally see sharks, it depends on where you are. You see a lot of... there are some sharks called wobbegones which are harmless sharks and they are actually quite friendly, and they won't attack you, but if you've caught some fish and you keep them on your purse and the blood goes into the water it can attract bigger sharks, and a few times when we've been spear fishing, we've actually had the sharks come down and take the fish while we're there and it's a little bit scary but the sharks themselves are... they just sit there and watch you in the water. They're kind of like dogs, they, it's scary because they follow you, and they look at you, and you turn around and they'll be sitting there looking at you so most of the time we like to, when we catch the fish, to keep the blood out of the water we put them on a float that floats a fair way away from actually where you are fishing as a safety precaution but if, you know, you see too many sharks you just get out of the water...but no, it's nice and exciting.