Two very nice Triggerfish caught off Cabo Girão

My first grouper

My first grouper ! Yip, I finally managed to increase my list of species caught. Though one thing is for sure, these fish are not easy prey. My first encounter with one was an interesting one.

I had never seen a grouper before whilst spearfishing. I had heard that it was possible to capture them here in Madeira, but never imagined doing so. A couple of weeks back a colleague from work had told me that her husband had captured a nice barracuda, along with an amber jack, and grouper. I was surprised to hear that a grouper was amongst the fish caught. Luckily for me she had taken some photos.

Photo Below : José with nice barracuda and Pedro sitting close by


Friday the thirteenth, funny day for spearfishing. The weather has for the past days been fairly good with the occasional lightly clouded day, but today proved to be the worst. Cloudy days can make visibility poor if the water is not too clean, and today was no exception.

As usual I entered the water from the Camara de Lobos port and went straight to the wave breakers trying to search for sea bream. Through past experiences, this has been one of the best places to capture these fish but to day would prove me wrong. 10 minutes of searching and it was time to head into deeper waters.

As some of you may have noticed through my earlier posts, my spearfishing season started off quite good, landing some nice amber jacks. Though for the past couple of weeks there has been no sighting. pity, since a really enjoy seeing these fish and even more so putting a spear through them. Nasty ! as a friend of mine would say :)

Past the point and off into the deep, to search for jacks. Surprisingly it was not amber jacks that were on the run, but lots of sea bream. Last week I had lost a spear because of one. These fish like to duck into holes and wait there till danger is gone.

Then Grouper ! Grouper ! what a surprise ! All the while this grouper had been swimming with the sea bream and I had mistaken it for some other species. I did not really know how to approach this fish, so I tried the "easy slide in", meaning I took a deep breath and slowly descended, trying to be as still as possible. Upon reaching the bottom I aimed my gun at the grouper who was still some distance away. Slowly it started towards me, and in my mind I was thinking, wait he will come to you, he is almost there.
Right ! no way buddy ! better luck next time. The grouper pulled a 180 on me and even more disturbing he kept coming back but never close enough. Up we went, quick breath check and back to grouper stalking. It was then that I started to understand this fish, curious but careful. After a game of cat and mouse, I decided that no grouper was worth blacking out for, so I left Mr. G to his business.

With so much sea bream around I turned my attention to them. I picked up this technique from watching spearfishing videos. Small sea bream will lead to big sea bream. Besides the fact that they like holes, they seem to believe in bumming with one another, meaning they like grouping together. So the small ones will lead to the big ones. True to my theory I managed to pop three sea bream, Mr Big, Mr medium and Mr small.





Upon searching for Mr. Tiny guess who decided to join the party. Waiting in a whole, with a big fish smile was Mr. G. This time he was cornered, no way out but still in the defensive position. I am one of those spearos who prefers to take a side shot instead of a head on one so I waited for him to turn but being a stubborn creature he did not.. A man can only stay down so long, and so I decided to risk the shot, bang the grouper was down but not dead. My biggest fear now was loosing the fish, so I quickly grabbed him by the tail and headed up. This was a slippery bugger, never remaining still, so I took the safe option and subdued the grouper.

Smiles and shouts of joy, my First Grouper !!!

Playful Dolphins

This week Our Mary was able to catch some footage of Playful dolphins. These dolphins are commom to our shores and can be found in huge numbers.

Marlin Fishing video

It´s that time of year again. The time where you pack away the small guns and bring out the cannons. Finally the blues have reached Madeira Island.

Our Mary has had a wonderful start to the Marlin season landing two Blue Marlin in a spand of one week. Both fish weighed in at about 700 to 800 lbs. Even more so, Luty managed to capture some of the action on film. Below is the video.

Gone Jack Crazy !!

Seems as though our spearfishing has really " gone jack crazy ". This weekend resulted in another two good amberjacks. Mine weighed in at 1.7 kg and Luty´s at 1.3 kg. Also had my first double score with two yellow jacks on one shot. Great stuff !!

Jacks on the run

Last weekend I had my first sighting of what I like to call " big fish ". It all started after meeting with Luty for a quick coffee on Saturday morning. As usual our general topic would pop up, it had been almost six months since we had last dived together and both of us were eager to get back into the water.

After pampering the ladies with a bit of good Saturday shopping it was off to Camara de Lobos, our local spear fishing spot. Upon arriving the sea was a little crisp with the occasional big swell, but we were desperate to get into the water and so decided to dive.

After getting geared up it was off down to the beach. As I arrived I reached for my mask and with much disappointment noticed that I had forgotten it back by the car, ten minutes lost of spear fishing, what a waste. When I returned Luty was already heading down to the water.

Visibility in the water was fairly good, just the way we like it. Twenty minutes into the dive and Luty lands his first Amberjack, a fairly small one. Knowing that they usually found in pairs or schools I dived down only to find parrot fish all over the place but no jacks. Luty 1 Beto 0.

More searching and running low on hope I turn back to look for Luty´s float and find three more fish hooked up. That’s when I really started to dread heading back to land with no fish. We had then decided to go to the deep (which for me is +- 14 meters) to look for more jacks and again no luck. Luty had spotted some more jacks, but in the distance far from a shots length. Only one place left to go searching. I started ahead of Luty towards "a rocha" as we like to call it. Taking a deep breath I headed down to about five meters and then suddenly I was surrounded by a whole school of jacks. The most I had ever seen, over thirty fine specimens. I was so excited that I didn’t know where to shoot. Bang! I missed! I couldn’t believe it. After breaching the surface I gave the loudest shout I had ever done to call Luty. With in seconds Luty had a fish skewed on his spear. I quickly loaded my gun again and headed down. Taking my time, aiming for a kill shot I managed to land one right in the centre of the fish and wasted no time in bringing him up to the surface. I then made sure the jack was correctly subdued and headed back down to try for one more, but as quickly as they appeared they disappeared.


On our way back into land I suggested we try another good spot for jacks but Luty suggested we take it easy on our first real dive. Out of the water we had a couple of good laughs, disputing who had the bigger fish. When it came down to it they both weighed in at 1.4 kg each a tie !!

Flower Festival

This photo was taken from a carpet of flowers which was made for the upcoming flower festival which will be held on Sunday 22 April. Hopefully with some luck might manage to get some good pics.