Upcoming trips/Events:

  "Vanuatu 2010"

Date 3rd October - 10th October 2010

Itenery, Fly Auckland - Port Villa - then Epi Island.

Stay in bungalo type accommodation from here we have a 34ft Blackwatch game boat with a crusing speed of 25knts. This boat will head out to different reefs, drop offs, banks and bays for each days diving.

The Island of Epi is a volcano with most of the sites never been dived before, join us on this expedition now!  

Your meals are taken care of each day both on and off the boat.

5 days diving 8hrs each day. 

Total price package includes airfares - ex Auckland, accommodation, boat, spear guide, DVD of trip and meals = $4900

See video footage from previous trips on our "video page" or browse our photo gallery! 

For more info on this amazing spearfishing destination contact us now!   

"Aerial Reef" home to some of the biggest fish ever! The world record stand up Black Marlin was caught here by a fishing friend Alen. You will encounter large schools of Kingies, Trevally, Kahawai with record size Pink Mao mao also large White pointer sharks Makos and even Orcas have been seen here. This is not for the faint hearted but well worth the experience.

Trips run on demand with a max of 4 divers cost is $200 per person. Contact us now to organise your trip. You will have the advantage of being guided with many years of spearfishing experience in this area.    

Past trips:

Bay of Plenty. Jan 09

We had a great weekend of diving although that 20kg kingfish somehow eluded me again! We were at Astolab and instantly surrounded by big schools of Kingies with some pushing the 30kg mark. Then a frantic fishing boat shouting and waving their arms pointing out to sea. They then came over to us in a real panic saying they saw a Shark!! I dont think they were expecting Kolts responce of "SO" and then seeing us swim in the direction of it! Anyway I got a good shot into a big Kingie and finally thought I had broken the 20kg mark. It was buggered by the shot and didnt put up much of a fight I could see that the shaft was not engaged properly and was bent at 45 degrees. Kolt dropped down to try and get into one of the even bigger Kingies circling underneath when the unthinkable happened - my shaft fell out! Luckily (for Kolt) he managed to put in a second shaft and landed the fish weighing in at 23.5kg Looking at my shaft the slip tip was still on and the slid ring had not budged in fact it was jamed in place. All I can think is that a scale or shard of bone had wedged in it. Equipment failure at the worst time... I dont know what I have to do to land that big Kingie? Shot another around 16kg so wasnt a complete Catastrophy.

Writen by John Bridges. 

       John and his 16kg Kingie                                Kolt with his 23kg Kingie or is that Johns?

Great Mercury Island.

A couple of our local guys Nick Williams and Joss Lloyd headed up to the Mercs last week and had a sucsseful few days.

Day 1

Left Napier boxing day at 9am. Was a battle up there with holiday traffic but eventually we made it to Dave Mullins batch at 3pm. With no further a do we dumped the Fyran in the water and headed for Great Merc. After finding a likely spot we jumped in. On my second dive I saw a good looking gutter ahead so duck dived and low and behold a 6.6kg snap was sitting in it, my new personal best. Josh wasnt so lucky snapping a fin around the same time. We then moved to another group of rocks. Josh headed off for a snoop and I was going to try my luck on the weedlines, after picking up 3 good John Dorys I headed back, at the boat Josh had a rather large grin on his face and there was a rather large snapper on top of mine - it weighed 10.8 kg an absolute monster! After a few photos and congrats we headed back for the night.

Nick's PB Snapper to date 6.6kg                      Josh not to be outdone pulled this one out of                                                                            his a.. PB @ 10.8kgs

Day 2

After an early start we were at the boat ramp having trouble, the fuel hose connector had self destructed, luckly Nick S had a spare one at Dave's (thanks a million Nick) After a quick repair we were off again. To sum it up we tried a lot of spots saw alot of fish - Tarakihi, Trevs, Kingies, Big Bronzies, Red Mullet, KY, JDs etc. By the end of the day I managed another 3 big JDs up to 2kg 1 small snap and we got our Scallops.

Day 3

After a quick discussion we decded the first group of rocks we dived was our best bet so headed there again. Shortly after getting in Josh came to pick me up in the boat he had shot a nice 6.4kg Boarfish and said there were more. He wasnt lying! And I finally managed to naile a nice male at 4.2kgs and a female at 2.8kgs. We also managed a JD each. Before heading home we tried to get some crays with Josh getting the only taker. We then got some Scallops and headed home.

In all an Awesome trip with great conditions and up to 20m viz!

Cheers Nick W.

  Josh with his first Boar Fish and a JD      Nick William's First Boarfish

BlackHead 

The conditions for diving Blackhead are hard to get just right as it is a very exposed and is a remote part of the lower east coast on the North Island of NZ.

Finally a report came in that it was "Diveable" this was enough to get a group of guys together and check it out for ourselves!

We trailer the boats down to Pourere where we beach launch into a rock pool and from there navigate out through the reefs  to the open sea and head south.

20mins later we are off Blackhead point with the sounders going looking for spots that will hold fish.

The area has large channels of rock that sit on the sand and rise up sometimes 15m so it feels like you are swimming down a narrow street with tall buildings on either side.

The vis is about 8-10m so we are very happy spearos as normally 3m is the norm!

Terekihi, Trevally, Blue cod, Blue Moki, Kahawai, Kingies, Butterfish, John Dory and Crays where all seen and some selected for the xmas Bar b qs that every one was keen to have over the festive season.

Each dive was productive. Once on the bottom there was always something coming up to see what had just landed on the sand the Terekihi being the favorite flavor of the day as most of them were a healthy size.

Nick Williams even found a large Common Roughy which arnt all that common.

We had a few guys shot their first Terekihi as they could be found in about 10m also nice Blue cod were put in the fish bin.

We dived a couple of other spots on the way home getting some more Crays and Paua for the Bar B.

So all in all great day out somewhere a bit different and untouched.

Josh with Tarakihi                        Josh with his Cray. Well done!          Ben's Mixed bag.

 Robin's Mixed bag and Blue Cod

  Beach launching is always a laugh...         Nick with a couple of his best catches for the day.

SPEARFISHING TRIP VANUATU 2008

We flew out of Auckland airport leaving behind us the cold wet New Zealand winter - Destination Port Vila, Vanuatu. We were on our annual spearfishing adventure. This year was to be a bit different from previous years as we had Pete's 34ft Blackwatch a fast comfortable boat and our accommodation was organised on a small island situated around the back of Vanuatu's main island "Efate" called Kakuhla.

Some good friends had been lucky to dive some of these out lying areas only a few weeks previous. They may well have been the first spearos on some of these dive sites. Their stories of huge Marlin, Mahi Mahi, big Doggies, Wahoo and lots of shark action had myself Kane Grundy and the others in the team Guy Wood, Alan Daly, Kolt Johnson & Frank Walsh just amping to slip into this blue abyss with its 100ft visibility and 26oC water in search of our own adventures and trophies of a life time.

Once Pete's boat 'Shogun' was loaded up with all the fuel, food, previsions and beer that a team of excited spearos would need for a week away on this small remote tropical island we were off! Everyone just fizzing to get a taste of what was to come. 

Our weather was just perfect as we headed out of Port Vila just a slight breeze helping us along.

Our first dive site was Moso Fad. Guy was in the water in lightning speed knowing that it gave him the best chance at anything hanging around. Only minutes later muffled through his snorkel he gets out a yell "Mahi Mahi heaps of Mahi Mahi". Very soon after that Kolt was also tackling one on the end of his spear. It was zooming around all over the place! Flanking it was a big bull Mahi Mahi which swam straight at me I was armed with a camera bolted to my Riffe speargun and found it very hard to try and shoot with a big bulky camera attached to it and subsequently missed my fish but fortunately ended up with a funny sequence of footage.

This dive was to set the scene for the next few days as we just couldn't miss, apart from me so I gave up with the camera attachment. 

Other fish such as Wahoo, Doggies, Coral Trout, Emperors, Job Fish, Yellow Fin and even a Marlin were caught or seen.

Every day was a new adventure and the weather just superb! We found a number of new dive sites as well as an old WW2 bomber plane in about 30m of water. We managed a dive on a pinnacle 7 miles off shore that came up out of 600m to just 3m below the surface. Scotts Rock this was just teaming with life, talk about extreme! This pinnacle if it was to poke out of the water would be nearly impossible to stand on due to its shear nearly vertical sides. Only hardy coral grew on its faces as the prevailing current and frequent storms would never let most corals attach.

The doggies could be seen circling below at about 15m but for every doggie was 5 sharks of all shapes and sizes, Oceanic white and silver-tips, Greys, Bulls, White tip reefies and even a huge Hammer Head showed it self. This along with a steady current tested all the divers abilities to land fish. But these challenges along with the amazing underwater topography and abundant fish life made it one of those adventures of a life time you just will never forget. 

Large schools of Barracuda would be seen cruising the current ahead as you approached them they would arch up and do a swim by their eyes staring at you probably wondering what was this strange 2 legged fish doing here. Schools of Big Eyed Trevally hugged the shear cliff faces of the pin as bright blue and yellow Fusileers swarmed around the top of the pinnacle like a cloud around the summit of a mountain. As you swam further into the current with the pin behind you huge schools of spotted and blue Surgeon fish would engulf you to the stage that it got dark and you could not see out past them. It was truly an amazing place! 

Pete and his decky Tom did a marvellous job keeping everyone safe while diving this pin, navigating his boat backwards when guys needed picking up or dropping off.

Some of the other memorable days was like when we headed back to a sea mount we had found the day before this came up slowly from about 70m to 18m and had a steady current washing over it, fish just love current. Once we sorted out the direction of the flow we had a full day just drifting it over and over again with everyone landing Doggies. Guy also getting a large Green Job fish which is a very challenging and respected fish to land for spearos as they are always elusive and cunning.

On another day Kolt landed a nice Yellow Fin Tuna out at the FAD after it had been chased by a large Marlin that Alan had tried to take for a walk - bit like a bull dog on a leash that just took off busting his gear.

On the last day only minutes before Pete was about to pick us up out of the water and take us home, we drift dived an area not far from Port Vila. I had seen a few Doggies cruising along the bottom below and was armed with a new Riffe Euro gun instead of a camera. Lying on the bottom at the edge of the reef scanning the rubbly area that stretched out in front of me. 5 nice doggies appeared from my right and slightly above, I had to arch up and lunge at them as they would soon be out of range. Boy was I in for one hell of a sight my huge Riffe 2atm float just came hurling past as I was approaching about 15m on the way backup. It didnt stop there it just kept flying along 15m under the surface this was pulled down by the sheer power and speed of the fish as the area was only about 30m deep and thats how long my float line was. The float looked like the rag on the end of your oversized trailer load. 100m on I finally caught up to it and as I am bringing the large doggie to the surface 2 sharks were trying to get their teeth into it. Alan was very noble and fended them off as I secured it in my grip. 35.5Kg was a good trophy  to end the trip with.

Big thanks to all those guys that made the trip, well done!

Keep an eye on the collum "upcoming trips" if you are keen to join us on our next adventure!