00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is me Eat podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug bitten in my case, underwear listening Hunt podcast, You Can't predict anything presented by on X Hunt, creators of the most comprehensive digital mapping system for hunters. Download the Hunt app from the iTunes or Google play store. Nor where you stand with on X Yeah, I need tell everybody, uh, like about how cool it was and I got that big yellow tail, and like how jealous you were and and everything like that. I was just stoked because this seemed like you were really struggling with all that saltwater that's getting into your snarkle, and I was just calm and chill and never got saltwater in my snarkle. I don't know what you were doing wrong, but you'll probably learn. You'll probably get that level of experience when you won't get saltwater in your work one anymore. Well, when you dive as deep as I dive, for as long as I dive, the depths have a pull on you. And you come back up and the depths pull on you, and that makes your snorkle go under the salt water, and then you drink a lot of the salt water. Um probably read about that and some scientific But if you can't really hold your breath at all, and you can't really go down and you have to just be at the surface, you probably get pretty good at keeping your snorkel abubble water. But I don't have any practice. Come always down super deep? Got it? Uh? Greg? You I feel like you don't even need introduction because we gave you a shout out one time at the Live Sacramento show. You did did you get any business from that? I have no clue. No one came in and said, hey, I heard your name. Okay, do it then talk to introduce yourself. Greg Fonts, owner of the Free Dive Shop, distributor for Rob Allen, ocean Hunter and Master Carpon fans, as well as lightly lightly accomplished competitive spear fisherman. And I'll point out a full time fireman. Yeah, dude, fireman. I need to talk to like whoever negotiates with the fireman union because I feel like you guys you're talking to really you're actually talking you you negotiate on behalf of the fireman. Oh, you're doing a great job, because I've made a lot of firemen. That's a schedule. If I could go back in time, I would be a fireman. What do you guys work? You guys work like two on thirty off or something like that. I can't talk about it. It's too you don't want a competition, you know, want people moving in on your business. Yeah, it's like twelve twelve hours on thirty days off. Just think for everyone at the media the office went to that schedule. Oh my god, it's nice being a fireman. Um Sacramentos where your dive shop is. Yeah, we's Sacramento in particular. Yeah. So people that want people that listen to this and get all inspired to get into beer fishing can go down and talk to your wife. I understand, Craig, yep, me my wife, Jason. Those are the primary people probably talk to you on the phone. You sent me a video once explaining how something worked. I mean to ask you about this, and you had on an apron pants less apron and pant and pants and no pants, and I was, what's going on there? I was just wondering if you're gonna pick up on it? I did? Did you? Yea even sold my wife? There you go. I'm like I feel like I feel like I feel like this I believe this gentleman has no pants on, no pants, And I was wondering if you're gonna say anything. And you spent a lot of time like that just to see if you would say anything, and you didn't, So I didn't say anything to my wife. Yeah, and then it just never happened. And the problem was the shot. The shot was a little lot of focus, so I didn't know, like you know, I know you have a lot going on. So you were oh, no, I took, I took no, but ever occurred to me either, just be that you were just messing with me. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, because I was having a hard time. Um, I'll just come out and say, I'm look an inspire. I feel like I wasted my life instead of doing all the things I did, I should have spent all that time spear fishing. And now I'm like an aspiring spear fisherman who I've misspent my entire life and I'm only now getting back on tracked what I should have been doing the whole time. Um, you wear pants too much? And I was, and I had a gun and I couldn't figure it out. And I sent Gregor question and he's sitting there in the apron and he turned around. I'm like, I thought it was like a spear fishing thing, but I didn't understand. And I like that. I like that, um good. And then George the ship's captain, captain of the not yours, which is not a yacht. It's a large fishing boat. Correct three year old fishing boat, a thirty year old fishing boat. And you're just a hobbyist pretty much. Yeah, I just show up and play. But you know, you've never been in the You've never been like in the business of spear fishing, or are you. I competed in one Nationals, which was quite a comedy of errors where it was at Leo Creole State Park here in California, with um my good buddy alex Or knowing another buddy of ours, Mike Walker, and we had been probably spearfishing about a year and a half or so, and we finagled some some dive club to sponsor us, because we had to be sponsored to get in this thing. So we found a dive company or dive group in Florida gave us a rubber stamp. We entered the contest and ninus saying you guys asked no, but we did not come in last It was great, Yeah, it was it was It was interesting. So how many how many participants will be in a speaking of there? That's probably where we introduced Alex. He'd probably be able to speak on that. Mm hmmm. Pleasure to be here. Introduce yourself. You're you're a competitive spear fisherman. I'm truly officially retired from competitive spear fishing. You don't go anymore. I've run my damn it, and now I'm too old. Oh how old you like in the autumn of your career as a spear fisherman. Yeah, it's coming gone, Like what happens? How old are you? Dude? So I'm just coming in man, I'm like, and I'm already older in you. You need to be a millennial at this point in order to to take it down at the comps, unless you're in Florida, then you need to be a millionaire because only the boys with the big money get to play in those comps because those are big boat comps. So I'm already like too old to ever be really good, to be really good, no, to be recognized as one of the elite amongst the elite in the competition. Circles. Yeah, okay, because what happens, body, this isn't what it was. You just don't care anymore. I'm not understanding you gotta be more clear in the beginning, Like right now, you're at the beginning and you're amped. Oh I I'm with you, and you're at the point where you're ready to go. I want to I want to see what I'm made of in comparison to everybody else. See George and I we did that. We we we said we want to see what we're made of. And so we got rubber stamp from this club in Florida, and we went out and we showed him what we were made of, and what was it that you were made of? We we we finished second to last, finished last out of fourteen teams. And you know what, we just went in to serf. Serve just piled us up. Kayak weight belt lost. I'm paddling out there. I don't have a weight belt. I've got to do the whole competition with. I got my anchor from my kayak. I've stuffed it in here, borrowed a couple of weeks from him, stuffed him in my pants. I had to overhaul competition with a big rip in my wet suit, was freezing with an anchor stuffed in my wet suit as my weight belt. And that's how that's how the competition started for us. It was just all downhill from the pretty much. Okay, what year was that? Was that? Two thousand seven? I don't even I couldn't tell you. It might have been seven, or it might have been nine. That was our first U S Nationals. My one and only I really got the bug and I went, Okay, this is cool. And I took the time to go and meet some of the the bigger tournament players here in northern California, and I had a couple of guys took me under their their wing and really started to teach me how to prepare, how to learn, how to learn, how to set yourself up to perform at a high level in spear fishing tournaments. Everything from learning the ocean, learning the fish, um, creating a strategy, understanding time. Time is really important and I went through a through that for a long long period of time. Dovin multiple nationals, qualified for the U S national team in two thousand fourteen, went and represented the US in Peru, and after Peru, went, Okay, this has been an awesome run, and I'm going to transition out of the I'm doing this for sport and more into the soul spear fishing side. And it's been a great transition, and I haven't been happier about I mean, I couldn't be happier about it. Yeah, to be honestly, I'm not. I wouldn't be drawn to um any kind of competition like that. Yeah. It In every sport there's the good and the bad, and fortunately I was surrounded by a lot of the good and that that's what for me made it so fantastic. I think the thing that one of the things I wanted to ask you guys all about this is on people's mind. He used to be on my mind. What's your what's the psychology you have for uh sharks? Because like when we're messed with that, I mean, we're we're a little south of Great White We're in California right now, but we're a little bit of south of the Great White area, right the Great White Shark area. We're not because it wasn't lost on me yesterday that we're sitting there in the water, gutting, bleeding fish that are flopping around. You got them tied to your waist. Uh. When I asked George early on, I was like, what about the sharks, and he said, there's nothing you can do because you don't even know it until it happens. He's like, there's no point in thinking about it. It's kind of worrying about a mountain lion, right, yeah, which I don't even think about. Right when he gets you, it is going to be over like that. Yeah, it's the same for us right now. Before we started this trip, one of the largest Great Whites that has been sighted was on the backside of Anna Kappa where we were warming up. It was where we started. You guys, to tell me about that. It's not important. So what's your what's your viewpoint on start? Like, we'll go the same way we did introductions. What's your view like, how do you cope with the idea of sharks because you had a great white take a swipe at you? I did? I did. I was about two miles north of Albion scouting for a tournament. Tell people where it is totally familiar. So if you go into Mendocino County, if you know where Fort Bragg is, it's maybe twenty minutes south of there in the Great State of California, Great City of California, up up in northern California, and I was scouting for a tournament. My dad was on the boat and this is one thing that uh, I don't do is my dad was bringing up sharks the whole way up, and I'm just like, that's just you don't do it talking about it, Yeah, because you guys don't talk about now we don't talk You just don't talk about It's just one of those things you don't talk about. And the whole way up he's he's bringing it up a little bit, and you know, it's my dad, and I was just trying to shrug it off. Uh. So we get in the water and they always say, truck, trust your instincts, right, And like that day, I was like, I feel at loft, but went scouted anyway. Uh sixty five ft of water coming up from a dive where I found it was actually Alex. You'd appreciate this. It was Alex's Lincott hole. He wasn't in the tournament. Verifying verifying it is it is one of the best Lincot holes in the othern California, explainably described to people lincock hole real quick. Truly it is perfect. It's a perfect scenario. So this is in about sixty five water um, not too much around it, so it's actually kind of hard to find. So you can't just like happen upon this thing. Just it's an area you wouldn't really dive all that much and uh jumped in and really the lincod hole itself it's perfect. You kind of go down and it's like these two rocks lean on each other and there's there's an entrance in an exit, but to your left there's a tight hole. And a lot of times what people think link I had, you know, want these big, huge caves. What they want is maybe a cave that goes into a very tight entrance. You know. Some of some good link cod holes are only you know, the entrance is only maybe eight or ten inches high. If that they like squeeze in there and really like to be secure. Yeah. I always think to myself, if a seal can't get its head in there, then it's a perfect spot for a link Huh. Right, a predator can't get in, but they can finagle their way in there, then you know that. Okay, this is this is to let me interrupt your story. Uh. As a lifelong rod and real fisherman, we don't uh. You guys deal in such a different level of detail about what's going on below the water surface. Where we might say that's a great spire to catch a link, or that's a nice rock pile to catch a link. COD, a spear fisherman knows the whole that that son of a bitch lives in in the rock pile. We we know the detail of the reef, especially the people. As you get into it more, you start carrying market Boody's and gps is, and you'll not only mark market on GPS, you'll probably go into your little notebook later and say, this is a westerly or northeast facing hole enter from this direction, look left. You know that much of a detail. So yeah, you might say a rock pile, but we know which hole in that rock pile that link is in, and we know the prevailing swell. Link cod won't typically face the prevailing swell, so we don't waste time in the prevailing swell. We work on the lee side down and around a corner where it's always down and around a corner or tight. If it isn't, I don't want to get blast in the face. Yeah, if it isn't a prevailing swell, and it's going to be a very specific a fixed sheltered rock piler or set of rocks. Yeah yeah, all right. So you go down there and I get the link cod hole is a link cod hole and other link cod like it's like a bear den or good bear den bears. The bears all die and then new bears will come and those bears will find that den in use. Yeah, you can shoot a line and have a link in it, you know, a couple of days later. Uh. Usually the big you know, like this, this particular hole um is perfect and usually has big females in it, and that's usually typically what you find in there. You won't find like a small male or anything like that. This is a typically a big female link cod hole UM. So basically swimming down, going to check this thing. At about six or five ft you go and it's an entrance and it has a left hole and a right hole. So I look in left and I didn't see anything. And you look in and at the very very yeah flat, you have to have a flashlight hunting these things. Because we're talking. I'm probably in the main hole four ft five ft and this hole that the we're working on, you the bottom of the holes, all the whole entrances at about yeah, so then you go and so you're in this hole and then it has a whole little left which didn't see it initially. Then I looked way up and this hole is probably I don't know, eight ft nine feet back and this thing is tucked all the way back in just looking then I pushed out of that hole a little bit and then there's actually a bon Yeah, there's a bonus kind of a bonus nook in the same hole, and there's vermilion a lot of times tucked in there. And actually when I found this everything time because I actually followed a vermillion to this hole when on this particularly when I how you found out about it. No I knew where it was, but as I was heading down, I was like, oh, nice vermilion. Oh oh, it's heading right into them where I need to go. Perfect um, So yeah, I found the link there and then uh, vermilion to my right pop out that there's actually exit. You can pop out the backside of it. So you went through the hole. Yeah, it's kind of like a really tight arch that has kind of caves. It go not caves, but like small small holes to go left and right. And uh, what's interesting about this is if you look at this hole from the top, let's say you just dive down thirty because the bottom and the rocks are virtually the same color, it looks dead flat. It's very hard. That's what makes it so special. It's a lot of people could swim over this and they'd never know. You have to get on the bottom in order to see it. If I start like a spearfishing company, I'm calling the whole hunter. Yeah, go on. So there we are. This particular day there was really good viz um, which is not typical of the North Coast. It was probably thirty ft of is or so. So go exit. That's way ability for North cos it's great um and kind of on the way up, I was just just shaking my head like, yes, that's what I mean. That is like to have. I mean the laying at the time, I think was around the twentysothing pounder it was. It was a studling. Is this in competition or is this pre pre competition? What's your old man doing. He's on the boat, was hanging out. He's so bless his heart, he gets violently csick. So that's why he the skilled palamine patches that we had Yannie test out. That's that's kind of what he uses. Um, Yanni people got the suppression Johnnie like he's all tough stock and everything. Dude, water due falls apart. So he's he's fine, he's he's just sitting on the boat waiting and uh, for some reason, which you're not supposed to do. But for some reason, I looked up saw the boat and I said, well I might as well. Okay, why can't you look up? I'm doing great hosting right now because we're hitting a lot of little diving tips along the way. Why can't you look up? In general, you shouldn't look up because site one, it messes with your your throat and your airway, your hyper extending everything. Um. So, on the way up, it doesn't matter so much. But uh, if you are making a deep diving coming back up and you look up and you're just going ship, that's a long ways up. You're psychologically just putting yourself down. So you just kick up and like like you kind of learned on this trip. You start feeling that positive buoyancy point where you get a free right up once you that's a great feeling. And I took your advice and didn't I took it even though it wasn't diving deep just to just to get in there, just to get because like hy form, bad habits when you're just starting out. So once you told me not to look up, I just decided, like, I'm not even deep anyway, but I won't look up. Yeah, it's just again the light, just when you're looking straight. Once you do it a few times, you know right where you're at. That's by the amount of light pouring through. If you're having a particularly feel, you know, from visibility to just kind of what's going on, you'll get a different feeling for the depths. And then all of a sudden you feel like rising up and you just chill, stop kicking and free right up. So there you are. So there, I am kicking, and for some reason I looked up and I what's going on? I might as well kick up to the boat and stuff kicking. Normally just kicked straight up, do your recovery breast and then kick wherever you're gonna kick. For some reason, I kicked to the boat and as I was reaching up, um, as my dad describes, a twelve by twelve boil pushed up about a foot around me and I was grabbing the boat and knocked me off the boat. I got back on the boat, turned around and it was you know this just it looked like disturbed water and like a rapids, just this huge, massive boil. Um. And the first thing that Dad says is do you think that could have been a whale? And then we started talking. I app the back side of it and everything else. Um. So again, but like George said, so he changed his mind. I think the only reason probably the visibility was good and I was coming up next to a large object right I was. I probably faded out against the boat. Um because it happened right when I was reaching for the boat. So he changed his mind, thankfully, and thankfully I didn't come up straight up. Else I probably would have either gotten bumped or nailed, or who knows what would have happened. So but I liked it. E went got right back in the water. I did. I pulled the anchor and my dad dropped me on a linkod hole about half a mile away, was anybody in there that was empty? That was empty? And then after that I kind of gone, you know, half a mile is just not far enough. So we ended up going out of the tournament zone about three miles and I ended up getting the limits of everything and packed it up for the day. I went home. So, yeah, you got get in the water. One of one of my good friends got similar thing happened to him, and it was it was a little more of a process to get back in the water. I think that the parallels between um, the parallels between hunting and grizzly country and hunting and great white shark country, there's a lot of parallels where it's like it's just not gonna happen, but when it does, you hear about it, and it's just in the back of your head, and there's this sort of like you be a little bit fatalistic about it. And then you also feel like everyone's telling you all the chances of getting attacked by a great white shark, or like you got better chance of getting attacked three times by lightning. But then you're like, but you're in a very select high risk group, and and like archery hunting for elk, you're in a high risk group because of the things you're not doing, like and the other parallel being you have to do everything wrong. You're not making noise, you're making elk calls. You're like slipping around. You're out at dawn, you're out at dusk. You know, you're in the vicinity of elk. Grizzlies like to be in the vicinity of elk, and so in spear fishing, it's like people could be like, oh, you know, beach goers have zero chance to getting hit. But then you're like, you're you're you're going where the fish are. Seals go where the fish are. You're dealing with dead and you're acting like a seal realistically, right going to the sticking your head into a hole and right for the picking. Uh. And this is something that we've kind of talked about in North how is if you we we are starting to push and some of it's just training and some of it's just you know, learning from other mentors, but we are pushing into deeper realms. Right. You know, you talked to someone twenty years ago, very very few, if anyone, was was hunting in sixty seventy ft water. Well, now you know this last Nationals depth, It's just it's putting you off of you know, traditionally the people say points are bad for sharks. There are certain areas are bad for sure. Well, yeah, this is pushing you off those points. You know, a couple of hundred yards plus just like a a place that we scouted for know your Nationals. I mean we were I think this high spot was like half a mile off shore and it dropped off the shot you know it was there was a high spot and maybe fifty ft but we're doing a lot of diving to what did we name that spot? So I think because really when we were scouting for this, it was eight to ft swell, so we were the whole thing we were planning on being offshore. Um. And we were actually with Dennis Hostlers and what five time National Change, seven time National Channel man, he's snuck two more in there. Um. So we're working this and we had to use a live boat because we couldn't anchor up because everything was the swell was was way too far up. So um, yeah, boat means that there's a dude running the boat anchor. Yeah, kind of like we did this morning because the anchor or the this current was running too well. I think we end up diving or dumping Alex off. And then when you guys tell the shark tack story, the way, is this a shark story? What are you guys talking about? Yeah, this is a little side chat between but this is about putting yourself in a situation where you are in the shark zone. Scientifically, about the great white chat. We're half mile offshore on a series of high spots pinnacles with drop off on the outside to two feet, and it's if you were to look left and right parallel with the coastline. There's nothing out there that just open ocean both ways. And that's what people didn't do decades ago. I forgot that's where we're going with this. It happens the spear fisher. We're pushing and there's there's more Great Whites than there were ten years ago. Correct, Yeah, allegedly they've been protected since the about the mid nineties. So there rebounding, rebounding um and we don't worry about it. It is what it is. I think, what was the last time someone in the state got killed by a Great White? That was Randy Fry and I don't remember of the year, but it's probably been fifteen years. That's the difference between this, and that's the difference between this and our stuff, because every year someone gets dusted off by grizzly couple, a couple of people year year. I can't speak to Great Whites taking people another fashion, right, swimmers or surfers or anything, but people in your community, people in our community. The last one that was fatal was Randy Fry. I think shark attack fatalities in general are extremely low because there's a difference between an attack for food and and a bite for curiosity and great white for defense. I mean, yeah, that's a big one. Great Whites they nibble for curiosity. Yeah, they do. Uh what's called a test bite. It's a it's it was very gentle. It's a very gentle hit you at twenty test bite and that's enough for human flesh two be a killer. So that means what to you? Nothing? I mean, what can you do about it. I've got medical kid on the boat, or always have a medical kid in the kayak, that kid on the boat. Most of the people I dive with could handle something like that if it came down to it. But Again, if you're going to think about it and it defines your day, you're never going to get in the water. Yeah. I was surprised that the degree to which I wasn't thinking about it because you guys are probably passed this. But when you're in those kelp forests, you know, I made the mistake. Recently watched and they had a great white to had a camera on it and the the Kelp forest, which is some cool footage. Man, water right, this cruise is just working your way through the Kelp forest. Man, it was unbelievable. Um. But it's like it's it's kind of it's just spooky in there, especially in the waning light when we were out last night when the sun was going down. That's called the magic hour. Oh, and it's just like a spooky atmosphere. It's so funny because you're like in spook land with your head down in the water and it seems like you're the only person on the planet and there's like shadows and it's dark and it's a kelp forest and there's little canyons quiet, and then you lift your head up and look, it's like sunny California. Man. It's like people out like sailboats and ship Then you put your head back there like wow, it's always scary, and I'm like, oh, I'm in California. It's always scary. Back and forth. It's so intimate with the And then that when you found that baitball at dusk going out there and those rays, the eagle rays cruising around you guys saw ego rays. Actually that's sorry bat rays. But it's like, if those aren't ghosts of of evil people, I don't know what they are. They're evil and you die come back as bray at dusk we have that looks like that like a joker smile. I liked him, but I'm like, how that's evil personified. That's like a ghost coming through the water. Yeah. I got in front of that wall, right, we have that big wall of Blacksmith that we're defining where the current was starting to pick back up, and we were sitting in front of that. I made a dive, look back at the bait wall, looked around, looked up, and two coming right over the top, just outlined silhouette right over the top, and they just they moved through the water so smooth. It's just it's insane. They're just haunting the ocean. They're like ghosts sent to haunt the ocean with spookiness, and they like the flashers. Oh they're spooky. Does anybody eat them? Who eats a ray in the ocean? Some people like? Not people like what. Some people actually take like a cookie cutter and we'll punch. No, I've never done. I've cleaned some. I don't know if they have a natural predator. The tastes like scallops. Well, I mean hammer heads specialized in him. You don't have those right here, right, don't have this here? I thought j'ven all a great white sharks targeted them, But those might be sting rays, not bad race. I don't know. So early on, I uh took a couple of leopard sharks, which are actually really good eating with spear, And then Alex was out on a trip with me and I'm like, man, you know they're right up in the little rocks, you know, ten feet of water. Their cruise around in the in the stuff. And he's like nope. I'm like, why not, man, it's it's good table fair. You should get these. He's like, nope, I've made my I've made a deal with the sharks. I'm not gonna screw them. They're not gonna screw with me. And he's never taken one, but he just said, nope, I'm not gonna screw with them. Yeah. It's been a good bargain so far. And I've been in some good sharky waters, same with Greg. Been in some big time sharky waters. But you guys lose your catches two sharks occasionally. How's that play out? Fast? Fast, and violent? Depends on what type of shark it is. Like, give me a scenario when you lose your catch too shark. By the time you started that sentence, too, now your catch is gone. Yeah. Yeah, it's that fast. And it depends on how many are around, you know, if it if it's one, sometimes you can kind of fend them off of your catch, but if it's more than one, it just can become like a true freeding Fanzy. I was offshore of Texas and I shot a really big amberjack and there's a lot of sharks around. And once that, did you already know the sharks were around? Yeah, we're targing. Well. I mean, you get comfortable with sharks, you start being able to, you know, learn their body language, like any animal. You know, they start putting their pectoral fins down, humping their back, swimming a little more erratically. It's you start getting a good idea of when it's time to leave. Um, something like a tiger shark that's a little more calculated. They slink in and out of his ability. So sometimes you just get in there's a big tiger sharking, and it's just let's move. But um, but you don't like to be in the vicinity of a tiger shark. Yeah, so I was let's change a whole other stuff. Like I was on a pinnacle out of South Africa and there was four different types of shark on there, and um, there's but there's a pretty big tiger shark. And you know, most of the sharks you can just you watch them, you know, okay, that one's but this tiger shark would come up, fade out of his ability. Three minutes later he'll be right behind you and within six ft you. Yeah. Yeah, they're just very very stealthy calculated sharks. Um bulls. Bulls are just super aggressive. I mean, there's there's a lot of aggressive sharks, but yeah, there's just a few. They're a little a little more of a handful. Big is the is the tiger shark to uh fot somewhere in there was a pretty healthy when they get bigger than that, But that's big enough to Like I said, they're very stealthy. So yes, you kind of kind of decide if you want to deal with them or not. That particular pinnacle, I made the bad, bad move. I shot a kuta um and it was just yeah, I actually landed the fish. I got the fish on the boat, but I was just I threw the fish on the boat and jumped in the boat right away, and it was just like, oh God. And then I ended up nothing happened. I mean, I had a couple of people in the water kind of helping me out, but I probably shouldn't have pulled the trigger in that circumstance. But um, you learn to deal with them. It's just there there, just like anything. So when they take your catch, they'll come right up to you. Yeah, I mean there there's times where you do not defend your catch. You just like that when I was talking about Texas and that was one of those things I shot, you know, around a dred pound class amberjack. We're actually targeting wahoo and it's in a wintertime off of Texas and there's just a lot of sharks in there. They're very aggressive in it. So I shot a big amberjack. It was big enough where I thought I stoned it. I didn't, and it just did one or two tail twitches and sank under the mark. And once that happened, it was just amberjack handoff. It was just shark to shark to shark. Like five minutes was my float being dragged around by the sharks. Yeah, that's the worst. That's the worst part. The fish so wet, your fish is gone. We shoot cable in this situation, like a like a five pound multi strand cable, and when it's no big deal, they take your fish. But in the meantime that cable gets in one of the shark's mouse because as they just devour, they're running everywhere and now you're a gear is just going and that it can take twenty minutes to get your gear back and you all you want to do is fish. So my floats going that way. I've got to wait for the boat. My buddies laughing at me, and my float is just running off because the shark is now panicking. It was eating the frenzies over and now it's panicking because it's caught up in the cable or the cable in its mouth. They eventually spit it out, but that could be a mile a mile and a half later, Like, come on, man, just take the fish. Let me have my gear back so I can get back in the boat, get back up current, and I can get my own fish. Um, Gregg, you said it's on interesting to me yesterday where you talked about, uh that free diving or spear fishing. I can't remember what you were saying. Reveals all the things that are wrong with your body. Absolutely, absolutely, like all your problems on the body check. Just go free diving and you're like, man, that hurts and that doesn't feel good, and I drink too much coffee and you're like heart problems, breath problems, long issues. It's very tax everything. And that's why as you kind of go through the sport, you kind of you do this isn't this trip wasn't the best example. But um, when you start pushing, you know, if you're going to do a serious hardcore dive, you tailor your you tailor your diet to that trip. Something. If I'm doing a lot of deep diving. I will basically hydrate in the morning, maybe a little oatmeal, do a lot of stretching, and I won't eat till dinner. I might have a light, light, light snack, but it's just hydration all day. Um. And that's that's to defend from, you know, acid reflux. That's you know, it's just as far as changing metabolism, your stomach having to digest everything. It's just it reveals kind of everything funky or how your body reacts to different things. And I can drink coffee all day long. I go have two cups in the morning and go free diving. I will have the worst acid reflex ever. That's two things I noticed is we I had a cup of coffee one morning, we go out, and the reflex, as you explained, is because you're you're spending all your time upside down because you dive head first, and it's really it's hard to dive at an angle. Well, you shouldn't. Generally you should not go and you can if you if you like. No, I'm gonna tuck under this kelp and dive down an angle into the reef. That's fine, But generally, depending on what you're doing. You want to try to go straight up, so you're supposed to do that. I started, I started to think it was just easier to go straight up and down. I mean it just when. Again, it depends on what you're doing. If you're if you have a link ond hole or you know a reef to check at eight ft, you don't want to go to an angle because you're gonna add how many feet? It's the most efficient way down. But the thing I noticed, and when you're gearing up to go down, um, it's like a there's a relaxation, calming of your heart and a breathing sequence. You go through. One cup of coffee. I was okay, and I was having some acid reflux. I'm upside down. All your ship from your stomach is coming up into your throat. A second cup of coffee, and I like a second cup of coffee. I realized that I could because you're laying there and you're so focused on your heart. I could feel the second cup of coffee. Yeah, I'll down. Man. I was gonna tell you not to drink the coffee. But I thought, slowly, like that second cup, I actually which I was so aware of it, so aware of it in the terms of how my heart was like just to try and to like call my breath and get my heart down. And I think that's one of the reasons in free diving you kind of start learning more about your bodies because you're it's it's like a type of yoga, right, You're focused on your breathing, you feel everything, You're kind of and a whole different mindset and um, and you're kind of shut off really right, You're trying to shut your mind off and slow your body down. And that's kind of where you start learning a little bit more of what works and what doesn't, because you know something like acid reflex, which if you're just running around throughout you might just burp up some stuff and go about your day. Where this is I mean it is, oh yeah, into your snorkel. Yeah that's a drag, man, if you don't lose it. Yeah, well yeah, and then I then I outright then I outrighte bombited like I'm talking full barrel, full barrel, Like dude, drank too much alcohol, having a bad flu. It wasn't pretty vomiting and it was coffee color. Did you notice that? And then I slipped right in and took fish right out from under off. It was nice. No, man, I had some full on vomits because I was drinking saltwater and I was probably a little bit seasick, which I didn't realize happened when you're riding in the waves, but mostly drinking salt water, drinking too much coffee, probably dehydrated, puking all that junk off to it is miserable. And that's one thing hard. You know, when you're traveling a lot, spear fishing your first day or two a lot of times can be a breaking per because you're traveling, you're a little off, you're generally dehydrated, you're tired. It's just a lot of things all at once. But yeah, I feel that it's a kind of fitness that you'd get that would be applicable to a lot of other stuff. Like there's some fitness that doesn't really matter, Like it matters. It's cool, you know if you get like your you do enough weights for your neck gets all thick and ask some people think that's cool, right, but like it doesn't translate. But I feel like spear fishing fitness. Yes, uh, why you why you give me the labban smirk because I want to hear there. They say, yes, yeah, we know, we know a lot about fit, but it's different. It's not aerobic, it's anaerobic. What do you mean. Yeah, when we're running, we're aerobic. It doesn't translate to like it doesn't. It's not broadly applicable that fitness. It helps if you're a good aerobic uh fitness, it goes along long. That's a good point, man, you're not. The goal is to not get all high, right, So the physical strength and your aerobic strength allows you to recover faster and essentially stay in the water longer. And the aerobic strength helps your heartbeat because your heartbeat goes through massive changes in the dives. The moment you hold your breath, your heartbeet goes down, you make your dive, your a million reflux kicks in. Your heartbeat goes down further. As you turn to come back up and you hit the surface. Your that first breath, your heartbeats pikes. For example, you might start your dive at typical Let's just take you for example, you probably started at nine beats per minute. I have no idea, that's your guest, yeahs per minute, Greg, and I might be able to get down to about seventy five because we're moving a lot right in the water. You're probably a ninety. You went down, you probably dropped from ninety to the high seventies maybe low seventies through your first couple of days here, which is pretty significant. When you hit the surface that first breath, your heart was probably back to five within seconds, cycling, cycling new air, cycling out nitrogen, and then recover. Greg he might start a dive at seventy five and might get down into the high thirties, low forties because of training. A million reflects and he hits the surface, his heart read will will spike, cycle through, come back down. So you're aerobic strength's huge for that right, tons of pressure on your heart and your lungs and your vascular system. Yeah, you know, okay. Kind of what I meant to was, um, I had an observation recent Let me backup. I had observation, we see where No, I'll get there, I'll get there. I've had a lot of knee problems, and it got worse and worse in my head because I thought I needed a knee surgery. So then all I could think about was how bad my knee hurt. But then I go to an rithopedic doctor. He does his old magic, tells me, in fact, I don't need a knee surgery. My knees look fine. I probably have like a some band that runs from your hip. Yeah, He's like, you know, you can do some pt but that's it's tugging on there and that's why the pain drifts around. And you could do some stuff and it's tight. And then all of a sudden, about two days later, my knee problems gone. I said, to the honest man, the membrane that separates my brain from my body is not very thick. And Yanna said, there is no membrane separating your brain from your body. So when I mentioned the fitness level, I think one of the things I'm thinking about is the level of that would be applicable to other things in life, Like hunting is the level of uh. There's a high level of GUR, like GRR. There's a high level of girl, a high level of focus, and a high level of um willingness to subject oneself to something that some part of your body is thinking, let's just stop doing this and go home, Like it's so much easier to not go spear fishing. It just it's easier to stay on the boat and catch ocean white fish, chunks, the squid, the honest face. The whole first day was looked like that, just like why in the world would you put? Why in the world subject yourself to this? Because when it clicks, it clicks, and it's really good. But I mean the ability to like do that's thing. And and watching you guys the first day we got in so to get us up to speed, we went out on't you guys explain that what we did to practice the line explain the line grabbing. Uh, before you explain the line grab and I'll say that right away. When you guys got in the water, I just noticed that when you guys are you guys are calm and methodical on land. Yeah, which maybe you're like very organized, very methodical. I've never been called organized. Ties your stuff is organized. You have organized brains. Okay, you're like very you're purposeful, you're you're you're you're pragmatic. Um, you guys seem like like highly capable at a lot of stuff, right right, thank you Like you're not like you for instance, you don't drink alcohol, right, which is like a thing you've decided. That's just like you made a thing, like was there to gain from it, was there to lose from it? Like you run calcular, like you're calculating in your head, like your life, and you seem like that and you get in the water and it becomes more amplified. You guys are so like calm and slow and deliberate and purposeful. Even when you go to put your hand to your nose to plug it, it's like you've done that ten thousand times and you thought about how one pinches once. Everything just seems so like I do it this way, and it's because it works good now, it's what it feels like. It's just like I get the one. I'm like, right, that's my like in my head, it's I'm going. You guys are going. It's like in the water. Yeah, I feel like the hump For me, it was three days. The first day was a lot of that, Yeah, there's too much thrashing going around, and then by today I'm just like, yeah, just chill, you're in the water. We drove up on your link perfectly flat, relaxed. He'd return, He'd return to the womb man. If you kick your fins, like if you make like a ninety instead of leaving your feet kind of I don't know what that position is, but your toes down below your ankles. That seemed to drag my feet down, and as soon as I would kick my like with my ankle with my ankles, that would make my feet come up right up high. Yeah. It's a lot of its body position kind of figuring out where how to sit and what's comfortable. You guys said you like to lay like a like a log drifting in the ocean. Hopefully when you're looking down. Yeah, um, yeah, I want you to explain the hand pulling down thing. But to get to another point about the calmness is I learned how to look at you and know when you were going to dive because you look like a like a dead seal. Yeah, Like your arms you're kind of like you look like a like a somewhat like a passing glance. So I'd be like, oh, there's a drowned person. Oh yeah, just sort of like floating in the ocean. Your arms that kind of go down, and I'd be like, oh, Greg's gonna dive, and you just look like you're like totally like giving yourself to the sea. Yeah, I mean that's to get your heart rate right. But then if I got close to you that I could hear the weird breathing like the cleansing breast, but the cleansing breast, yeah, and then I can start to listen for that. But yeah, you first just looked like it like you were dead but going or whatever you're doing hopefully slower than that blowing a sailboat, baby paper sailboat without making the water ripple. Yeah, But then there's those little somewhat hyper breaths he does. He has a cleansing breath routine. I don't do that. And the thing that you, guys, something about breathing that really stuck in my head is when you take your last breath that you're filling like three stages. Yeah, you're like filling your balls with air, imagine, and then the stomach and then you top it off at the tippy top of your chest to be chopping your shoulders back. It's a great way to It's like you just imagine, just like this empty can evity filling from the bottom up with air. I went up liking that quite a bit. I know when I do it right, there's no resistance. My stomach just floats up. My chest opens up right, lower thoracic, upper thoracic. Uh. Little scapulic Rotation's word. I like scapulic rotation. And if you could see it, you'd really understand it. And it comes up and then my neck feels like it gets a little And when right when I'm pulling that snorkele out, my cheeks just puff and it's just one sack. And when I make that dive and I know, oh yeah, I clear hands free. Did you notice that? And you get a little bit of that now? And then I do I mix it up? Yeah, tell the name of the two ways? Clear friends A line valsalva yea, I've been friends. I think you're a friends. Now your friends friends, I'm hardcore friends. Then man, so yeah, but you do you're a little clear at the surface. You start at the top and never stop clear clear clear. You don't wait till your like years are going to blow up, and then decide to clear. Explain how we started out our trip started off the trip the long ass boat ride, long boat ride. Drank a bunch of coffee. What you're not supposed to do? You had a big breakfast and large fishing boat, and a large fishing might have passing glance resembly yacht. Maybe we might have dabbled in the untrained I might look like a yeah, I think the definition is thirty nine ft. Anything over could be classified as a yacht. Just a bunch of dudes. Uh. So we put a line out for you, and this is not typical of a spear fishing trip, um, but it's a great way to warm up. It's not typical, No, I mean your average you're teaching, you're teaching your mentor there you go, oh um, And sometimes we will if you're if you're planning on doing deep diving on your spear fishing trip, you might spend ten minutes throwing the line out and doing some pulldowns. But for you guys, we set up a buoy at what was it thirty two ft? I think it was the bottom somewhere around there, um, which the deepest what you've ever been as what fifteen ish? I mean in my head, I'd be shocked to hear that I dove, because, like I said, in the lake where I grew up, the deepest place in that lake was twenty three ft. And I don't know that it was the deepest hole we went, which is done by buckskin bend. But you were now and then dived down pass the drop off and stick your hand and experienced how cold the muck was on the bottom of the lake. But no, I hadn't. I had definitely not dove board. So we set the line it, you know, basically one atmosphere, probably eighteen feet maybe it was the word if I really was going for it. Yeah, And and we put the put the wait at about thirty three ft about an atmosphere. And the big thing with that is that's where you experience your biggest lung compression. So it becomes at about that point, that's the biggest part where you're equalizing will become harder. Um. So basically set up a booye with a line going down to about thirty three ft and what you do a bunch of weight, a bunch of weight on the bottom, and you need at least twenty pounds. You should have twenty pounds that are a little bit more pounds, and the boys just drifting with the weight on it drifting. We we tied it off to the boat because there was a slight current, so it doesn't float off. I mean, it doesn't need to hit doesn't need to hit the bottom. You can just hang the weight off. Generally, yeah, you generally you don't want it on the bottom. Um, you want a little off the bottom. And you start by not even kicking. And some people actually not even wear the fins at this point. They'll just jump in, no fins um and slowly start, you know, doing your breathing process. Getting water on your face kicks in that mammalian dive reflex, slows everything down, and you start pulling down and you start equalizing basically every other poll. Right, so you're pulling clear, pull clear, like every time your hand comes off clear. Yeah, basically clearing anyr way down. And that basically one for you guys. A big thing was um we had we had talked about clearing with the friends method before, but that was to try to see how you guys were clearing and to do it inverted. Yeah. Right, you can walk around all day upright. Yeah. Well yeah, I mean, Ben, we've been friends and all the time in the office and everything, we're friends friends friends, but we weren't friends and we were hanging each other by the ankles and friends like that. Yeah, upside down and add pressure. Body starts to do a couple of different things. Check me if I want to walk the listeners through what I'm talking about, and check me if I want to mess up. Uh. To clear property while spear fishing, you need to learn how to pop your ears by not without moving your diaphragm. That's that's correct. I mean, what do you mean He's correct? Absolutely true, it is. But there's even if you go further into the into the like competition world, there's even debate about how efficient the friends technique is. But like for your everyday recreational person, friendz will is basically okay, just let me just do it again, Like, don't don't parse hairs. You know, parsing hair is picture taking the hairs and slicing the hair four times. All right, you do it? You tell people. Okay, So what you don't want to do or what you advised me to try on a conference call is the other? Is this another mentors the mentor moment. This is the fourth problem I've had my mentor. Now he's backing out on things he explained to me because he's imagining his spearfishing buddies doing that. Yeah, but well yeah, that's only part of the story. As a listener, you nailed it, okay, So picture that you, the listener, take a moment, grab pitch your nose, and just blow with all your might into your ears. Pop lately, blow blow lightly to your ears. Pop, Why you give me the lavian smirking. It's just watch you do this? Okay, And you got that cute voice calling you plug your nose. Imagine that if you're doing the friends wal technique. Correct, you are doing with your throat what you do when gurgling mouthwash, you're shutting off. You are isolating with your epiglottis your lungs. Yes. Yeah, there's a horrible YouTube video that Greg loves that explains I don't think I loved it. It will explain in depth what's going. Greg loves the video and loves watching the person does a good job explaining what it is. So I didn't think, so I didn't learn, I didn't understand it. So I had a conference called Greg, thank you yet plug for your dive shop. So you so you're gardening mouthwash? So most people struggle with being able to know what their soft palet is and how to isolate their EPI glasses, and for me, the simplest way to explain is that you know, you know, if you are gurgling mouth wash, you are controlling epiglass. Right, You're basically shutting everything off. If you weren't, you either choke on it or go into your stomach. Right, So it's basically shutting everything off. And that way you can use your basically um EPI glass and you're you know, you're upper respiratory system to clear your ears. Yeah, if you will, the listener can take their tongue, explore the roof of their mouth and if you go where you put a diaphragm, call, that's your hard palet. Go back and there's a little soft area. Why do you give me the smirk again? I'm right now, I'm working my tongue. Bring your tongue back and there's a soft spot back there. If you are doing the Frinzal clearing method, you close your gargling deal, take your tongue and you're kind of driving your tongue up into the soft pallet and creating a little that that's like the feeling that I had and like you're like it's basically air pop in your ears and you're not doing anything with your chest. No, and that that's the big thing is you're basically you want your soft palate, which is if you put your tongue even further back, there's that soft part and that's your soft pellet, and you want that actually in a neutral position. So if you do an example of if you can't isolate your soft palets, if you're doing a nettie pot um, if you can't kind of separate a thing out that netti pottle, either the water will either go into your mouth or go down your throat. If you can isolate your soft palette, it will go in one nostril out the other one. So it's it's learning all the different parts of your your neck, your throat, your soft out, your sinus, is all that other stuff. And the reason this is great, the reason don't so funny. If you keep diving, you won't even remember any of this. I don't know, I got no idea what you guys are talking about. You just clear I just clear it. But clearing is the obstacle. So when when we first start, it's the number one thing that people separates me from having all of the fish in the ocean be dead and I could clear, there would be no fish left in the ocean. You can't clear. Yeah, thank god, thank god. George scuba dove before he free dove technically and scuba diving. You start to create good clearing habits. You got all the time in the world. Damn hurry, it doesn't matter. You're still creating. The clearing takes as long as a fingersnap, right, So you really don't think about how it's hard to clear it. It is not even something. The one time I think about it is when I get plugged up and at three three it's going my ears like oh yeah, and then I've got a graph for a beginner. But it's in the beginning. It's and I I'm trying to do my dive and I have to stop waste precious seconds to turn my head upright to catch a bad If I really had a hard time catching the clear, I gotta like snake around, give my head up right, catch a clear, and then get back into my groove. And that to eats of your time, And that goes back to the point of man, it sure is a lot of work. Yeah, it eats up your time, and that's what keeps you from finding all the fish and shooting them. But I would I would say you did awfully well though, despite and we should probably give you some props eventually, but we might wait. I don't want to gonna want to get into that. Um, I just wanted to be that I'm an aspiring spear fishure. But that's the number one anyways, friends are Clearing is probably the number one thing that will stop someone from being successful and free diving. And if you can't clear, you cannot descend, and it is what will stop you spear fish, but not you guys. Once told me that, like my whole life, people have told me they can't clear. Mhm. But just the thing you have to learn how to do. Yeah, I mean, it's it's something I think when in our early conversations is said, hey, put your hand on your diaphragm and clear, and you said your diaphragm was clearing. You know that's that's not gonna work. Yeah, explain, just we'll leave this, we'll put this rest. We'll start talking about how you guys hunt plagic fish. But um, why why can't you just use your whole diaphragm? Explain to people what happens? So basically, if you're using your diaphragm, you're using your diaphragm to put pressure on your lungs to move the air up into your basically throw it into your um station tubes to equalize your ear dry. So if you're upside down, one air floats right, so your your air is going to be against your diaphragm. You're having to push it. I think something like it's a it's a long way to push it down to get it down to your head to equalize your ear drums because it wants the goal the other direction it does, and it's trying to go up through your fins basically two toes. Yeah, so um, it'll urt a lot of times. It will work in very shallow water, but not as as you go deeper it will not work. Yeah, and right now you've worked your top thirty feet, you've learned a frienzill No, no, okay, you're you're working on friends. I got better and better and better, and then my ears got weird and funny. Now this is what's going to happen when you break. When you finally break your sixty ft mark, we're gonna have to teach you how to do a mouth fill, so all the air it's available in your mouth has now compressed. People that are very good, that can control the epiglottis, will hold that remaining air in their mouth. People who don't control the epiglottis, where does the air go? Gravity pressure? A lot of time it gets pushed into their stomach and you lose the air. Now you've made your dive, you're down at sixty that's sixty six mask. You've got now add air to your mask, and you have to add air back into your mouth in order to equalize all your open air cavities. So you do what's called a grouper. Like a grouper call right, and that's something not not everyone. I don't. I don't grouper, call it depths until you have to get until you get really deep. But some people have to grouper call it sheller depths. Yeah, And I pre load my mouth with air right around sixty six. Always preload, So I've got plenty to deal with. Thinking point right around six where you getting the air from in your lungs, but it's compressed. So we do this group or call. If you were to close your mouth and take a little breast, you got little pressure and now make a group of grunt from your stomach and push it in your cheeks. See that you filled your cheeks. That's a group of call. And then close the upper glottis and now you get to use that air to make your mask comfortable and continue clearing. As you work your way out, your starts wanting to suck your eyeballs out. Oh, it's miserable, miserable. It's it's miserable. And what depth is that happening depends up the wall of your mask. Yeah, it makes a big difference. But for me personally, when I'm diving, I'm preparing my mouth fill adding adding additional air into the mask, and then from there it's smooth sailing. I can then clear comfortably up to problem. But I hit about a hundred. If I don't have enough air in my mouth, I physically can't do another group er gulp because everything is so compressed, I can't get enough air out. So if I don't preload and I've got to stop my dive. Um. I've talked a lot of times over the years about how houndsman like people that hunt with hounds have more hold more units of information in their head than most other kinds of hunters. Okay, there's more units of info in there than other kind of hunters. Uh. I do think that, Uh, spear fishermen have more you have more units of information packed in their head than normal fishermen. I'd agree, because there's just this whole other added thing about staying a live Yeah, a lot of body checks when you're underwater. Right, did you find yourself when you were diving? Kind of going how do I feel? No, but I found myself every time I got in the water feeling like I must have forgot some part of this pleasantly surprised sort of getting the water and be like, oh yeah, my ships here, got the weight belt on the crowds straps. Good mentor historical kind of once you got in. Let's say you got in your mojo and you're out there and you're making your dives. You were out there for a long time. I saw you swim maybe a mile along that reef line and you're working your deal. Well, I'm lost in the world then, but at what point are you diving and going Okay, I feel really good right now. Yeah, that would strike me as I would take note because it was the unusual feeling to feel good. I'd be like, wow, I feel okay, this was? This was? Did you never have a dive when you didn't think about diving and you just dove? No? Was it always very deliberate, a little bit of dresd like not looking forward to it? Why am I like? Maybe I'll just stay at the surface and be like no, because that's like giving up and dying. I need to go back down and like messing my ears. I'll just keep listening to the Darth Vader breath going. Do you do you feel like the Darth Brader when you're breathing? I'm like, why am I breathing like that? Just beat a chill that would for like three breaths and then I cash myself. Yeah, the Darth Vader. But no, I loved it, loved it, But no, I'm not. I would take note if I felt comfortable a little bit paranoia of the unknown. It's like going through brush. It's like going through thick brush underwater to be in the kelp. It's like the two things you don't want, like in jet life generally, like you don't want to be stuck underwater and you don't want to be in thick rush. But here you are underwater in thick brush with a ceiling above you that somehow you have to penetrate when you come back. Oh yeah, you're underwater trying to scout out a place where you can come up and get a breath, looking for that sunbeam, looking for a sunbeams up through there and get a breath of air. Oh man, okay, talk about hunting plagic. So this is interesting. We kind of covered whole hunting. Hole hunting. Yep, it's its own thing. There's a there's a lot of different styles hunting, uh, pelagics or a whole How how do you you tell me? How do you guys divide the world up? I would say blue water and reef are the big is a brief lit deep brief, deep brief, and then blue water blue water. Let's start with reef people, a rough rundown on what reef hunting is. Let's call reef six and less. Yeah, yeah, sixty ft and lass um. Depends on where you're diving. I mean, it's every every location. The cool thing about the US is it has so many different regions with different species of fish that it's just nothing's the same. You can go northern California is different than Southern California, which is different than you get down into Bahs, a whole another thing. The northeast you getting the striper and dog and all those fish. You go south of there, you getting a whole another set of fish. Florida has both sides that are different sites of fish. It's just I think in the US, the Hawaiians are probably the best reef hunters. Sixty ft and less fast fish. You you have to learn a lot of different techniques based on what you're hunting in in in Hawaii, because it's so sunny and there's such good visibility that you learn to while you're looking down. You learn to look for shadows because so you can stalk fish, so you can put your body in that shadow. Have you ever been on the highway driving along happy as a clam and there's a highway patrolman under an overpath sitting in a shadow, and you're like, I never saw that guy. Same concept. You stick your body that shadow. I hope you don't get bit by an eel and you wait, right. The Hawaiians are phenomenal with that. Yeah, Hawaiians in Florida, Yeah, Floridians really good Floridians fall more in the deep brief. I mean the Hawaiians of course have a great deep brief. Um. And then doing that kind of hunt, because we did a fair bit of it. You guys. Also you're kind of scouting from the surface a little bit if you can, or you dive down to find the nooks and crannies. You'll go explore. But knows you a lot of times will be looking down and you have a pretty good eye for it. Yeah, because I would watch you looking down when it was good clarity, and I wouldn't see, and then you'd go down and vanish into a hole or vanish into a ledge that I wouldn't recognize. I wouldn't see that, I wouldn't see the ledge. I wouldn't realize there was like a little hidy hole down there. Yeah, you get an eye for it, Um. I guess I'm I. There's there's a couple of different types of spearfish, and when i'm I'm the one that I will kick a lot until I find I see what I like and and what I can read really well, and then I'll stop and work the area. Some people will just methodically inch by inch work or reef I'll kick until I see something I like, whether it's bait or a certain feature underwater, and you get trained kind of going, you know, the eel grass is laying this way, and you know, you learn how to read it what sways back and forth, going, Oh that's a hole. You know, I'm gonna go pick up that hole, or you just get an efe for it. It's just like anything. It's just like you up up in the mountains. You know, you have an eye for you know what you're looking for and what specifically you want to hunt in. Yeah, like little pockets are the hold stuff. Like in one, you went down, shine a flashlight into it, came and got me, and then we went down together and shine a flash I was like looking into a cupboard. Yeah, and there was a sheeps that hide in there. Yeah. Yeah, And that's uh. You just learn how to read certain reefs and and how to hold on. I mean, I would say divers from northern California are very very good hole hunters because that's that's what we do all day, and that's where you know the good fish are in the holes. The whole hunter ground and pound ground. Okay, move on to plagic. This is the thing that was pretty interesting that we did there. Now we're working with some attractants. We're not chumming because that's all shark thing we're not cool with, but we're using the attracting right. So it's like people generally don't want to chum in shark areas. You'll you'll cut early. It just depends. I mean yellow tail. I don't feel chumming for yellowtail over like a flasher works much. Yeah, it depends on what you're going for. And again, some things you just have to keep simple. Floating flasher nice and simple. You throw it out, it doesn't steal. And you have a little throw flasher that you throw and it hits the surface. Explain the floating flash because people are gonna trust me. People not know what the hell you're talking about. Like three people will imagine afloat that looks like a chicken. It does, it does, and that's filmed with foam, So your chickens filled with foam. It's got fishing line on it, and hanging from that fishing line are some flashers. It looks like a bunch of fishing luers. Looks like a little spin spinner bait blades exactly and on the bottom. Some like it. What's that thing that we put on the line behind the banana when we're fishing, called a flasher. It's called the flasher, dodgers and flashers, And we like to put a squid on the bottom for decoration, to hide the weight. Oh, that's what he's on there for. And you got a pom pom on the bottom of yours. Yeah, mine's a mine. Looks like a miniature baseball from far away. It does look really good. Yeah, it's a teaser that slays him. It also does really well on my engine prop, doesn't that? Captain george them? So you go out and hang this thing in the water and we float with it. Yeah, like riding the current. Riding the current, relaxing and looking for signs. This is just hovering over the suspended string of Christmas ornaments hanging off. They're suspended vertically at about depending on the visibility. Oh yeah, we should talk about that. We put it at a certain height on purpose. It depends on what you can see right on the viz and where we think those fish are going to be. We didn't tell you, but there was a thermal client at about thirty We wanted to stay above that thermal client. We wanted to say above that thermal client for a couple of reasons. Number one, we didn't want to spook all of our bait. Our bait were great. You see how happy they were. Tens of hundreds of thousands of tuna crabs, the tuna crabs and yeah, and then the bait bait and then the bait bait. They were happy, they were relaxed. If we kept making repetitive dives underneath them and coming back up, they would get agitated and disperse and disperse, and they would mess up our whole mojo there. So we stayed on top of above all that. And that's really good. So we've got our hanging flasher, and then we utilize a throw flasher, which is again our little fishing lure. But we throw it and then it floats down and it reflects very very slowly, like one ft two ft three ft right, and it goes down and it shines, and then we dive down and we get it. We pick it up and we look up town left, right, and then in they come. Now that the art of blue water hunting is being able to see your fish incoming and being prepared for them. Really good blue water hunters can pick out, can start to pick out changes in the in the there the water before the fish actually get there, so we see dark shadows and that allows us to be a little we can make an adjustment, so we can cut an angle a little better. And because this thing is not going to be stopping now and they're moving fast, they blast through. Yeah. So in our blue water we got yellow tail and a bonito. The yellow tail was in a school. I think he had a group the yellow tail I saw I had a group of twenty other fish with them. Bonita, No, the yellow tail. You saw a school with twenty yellow tail? Oh? Did you too? No mine, which I'll get to trust me. It was a two pack and they were lost. I'm just wondering where, where and when you saw that? I didn't hear about this. Twenty pack of yellow tail was right at dust glass what we were doing last night at dusk with the with the ghosts of the evil people swimming around in the ocean. We had multiple schools come through. The first school that came through came through so fast there was nothing that I could do about it. I just let it be. Came back to the surface, read through my flasher, relaxed, flasher, went down. I went back down. Then that school came back around, and I took that first fish, hauled the back of the boat, got him up quickly, threw him in the boat, and went back out. When I was rebanding my gun, I threw my flasher and the school came back around, but this time twice as fast. They were smoking through the water fast fast, and I couldn't get my gun loaded fast enough. So they did their deal, and then we continued to stay in front of the bait. Right the bait kind of created like a vertical wall, and that was where the two currents were merging. And it's a beautiful thing when that happens. And you shot that tasty little oh, that little benito, Yeah, and he comes halling as through. Now that was a school of three. Four came in super quick. I was on the surface. I just rolled the shoulder and let the spear fly. Didn't no aim, no, there's no time for any of that. It's purely instinctual, slice him right through the gut. Unfortunately, the spear went all the way through, and they go so berserk that he just wrapped himself up and I pulled him up. Blessed. He was what eighteen inches long? And we ate him in a bath of soy sauce and top of teal with some lapino soaked in lime juice. So good, good the yellow tail. Now, I'll tell you my I'll revel you with my uh you can, I'll tell you about the yellow tail story. We were that, like I said, they were lost up against the cliff in how many feet of water? I'd say fifteen twenty was right in the range, but most like your fish was laying in about the ground in fact, And I look and with a nineties sell me send me a gun. And I look and I'm like and they come past me, and I'm like, you gotta be shipping me, and uh they're big, Like, well, how big was when I got Here's about fifteen I'd say in that fifteen ish range. He comes past yellow tail man like a sickle on his tail, and they come past, and I turned and they go out of you, And I'm thinking to myself, I have never in my life caught up with a fish. And I almost was like, yeah, never mind, but I'm like, yeah, I'll try to go over their direction. So I started swimming and catch up with them. Something must have distracted him or something, and they cut left and I shot the one you ment was right there. No, I couldn't find my mentor. Had my mentor been nearby? Um the rest of us heard someone screaming, had my mentor not done what he had done to me earlier when I was drowning, which does not be around. In this case, my mentor's lack of attentive cost him a fish. I did put you on that line, though, I said, swim in front of Yes, you did, because the other the other yellow tail in the tupac. This is really startling to me. It was like, have you guys ever hunted Canada geese? Or a double will come over and you'll hit one of the geese, and sometimes you get like three or four pass throughs by the other goose because they made for life, or to put it, they it's a little bit more complicated. Or let's say someone were to uh shoot a yearling deer. Let's just say and or let's say somewhere to shoot a dough with the yearling deer and then watch the yearling. One could imagine how it might hang around for a while the fish his buddy is just like cutting cookies around me. And at one point time I'm not joking, it past eighteen inches in front of my face, and I'm thinking, Man, a good mentor would be would have just shots, like could put a box of spear gun darts into this thing nowhere to be found. And um, you should feel pretty lucky about that experience because it's pretty It's knew it's insane special the second a half, and I knew that it was special. Um when trying to hail, uh some help to get the other fish. That's what I was originally after he'd get the other fish, and then uh, wanting him to not pull off the spear the whole thing. But once I finally got my mitt on him, you were feeling good too. It was really cool to get a big fish that's good raw that doesn't happen to a freshwater person, big fish that I have been ordering the flesh of for the past twenty five years. And no, when did I start eating like when did I start having like where with all to go to a sushi restaurant. I've been eating the flesh of for twenty years fifteen years and sushi joints and to have that some of a bit in my hand by the gill cover the throat special way where you grab them like up in the paralyzer. Yeah, squeeze, you get them like your hand is. You got your thumb and one through the gills on one side, your four fingers through the gills in the air side, and you're holding his his comma, his hamachi comma, his throat. And then I was like, I cannot believe I got this fish at that point, which is about twenty minutes after I shot. And he did everything right. He took the time, bled it that we did all that later and then after bleeding it, gutted it and then right on ice and it was good. The perfect pathway to your plate. You need tell when you're telefishing story. I only got one. Well, well it's one long one because I shot two, only recovered one, cheap, said, But my mentor stuck with me the whole time right there. Yeah. Yeah, you're like a like a dog in heel him being the owner. Yeah, maybe I don't know what chips are down when you needed them. Yeah, He's like, come over here, I got a fish for you right here. I had to kind of follow if I wanted to spend time, I mentor I had to kind of follow him around. And I go over there, and this is the kind of spear fishing I like, because you just I'm at the surface going and I looked down and I can see there's like a calico bass two sheeps said, and he's like, shoot the sheep said. I'm like, I don't know which one that is with the stripe on it in the big lip. I'm like, oh, I can see him from here. So I swim down shoot him blasted. I don't know, alexlo to answer that question. You were getting that deep and uh shot him easily and it just went through like the tops of his shoulders and it didn't stick, you know, like the whole blue out at the top. But I was watching him swim over. He immediately like goes in the direction the fish swam and he weaves me over and the fish is going into a crack, and he's like, all right, now you gotta swim down and getting that crack, you'll see him in there. It's dark, but we'll see a silhouette and shoot him again. I'm like, yeah, right, having So I take like another two minutes swim down. As since I get to the crack, I can just kind of get look underneath it. I gotta go and I go out. So I never even looked into the crack. Really, Alex went down. Did you see him again? I did? I did, but then he squirted out. Yeah. We had We had lobster in there, there were urchins in there. It was a mess inside that hole. We caught a fish sheep said today that had that dart hole on him on the top that a halready healed over. Oh yeah. And then someone and then someone in our party shot a sheep's head that also had two ft leader coming out of his mouth in the hook and his tongue. Did you see that? Yeah, that was calico? I thought, wasn't it? Okay? What was that? Yeah? It was a calico. But I forget who shot the one that had the rusty hook and hunka model coming out of him. No, that wasn't mine. You didn't shoot that with the fishing line coming out of it. I must have been your mentor. He likes he likes a fish that are hurt, track sick fish. You might not want to eat your yellow too. So we we didn't swim much farther. We swim another minute or two and there was another chief set, So I think I actually went down that one, and I didn't get a shot. The first time I was down, he just kind of squirted behind some kelps. I came up, got got what do you guys call it, rested, recovered, recovered. I went down again, set up, almost had a shot, didn't get a shot, and I just waited and he just he just swam right back around and turned around and gave me a nice I don't know. He couldn't have been five ft. He wasn't as far as away from the tip as the gun is long, that's for sure. It was beautiful because I watched it from the surface and when he went down, in my head, I'm sending him the vibe be patient, because he went down and it looked like he just was gonna go full speed and they might have gonna just be patient, be patient because the fish, they don't like pointing things at him. And then he stopped and he was patient, and that two seconds of patient, the fish just put on the brakes, turned sideways, gave him the perfect shot, penned him to the bottom of the ocean. Fish went shot, went through the shoulder, right out the brain stone perfect yanked him out of the bottom, and now I swam up to the top and then yeah, that was your that was your. That was it. That was my first kill. Yeah, but he got more than after that day, this one fish man. Yeah, you know, we hit we hit a sweet spot when you guys left us and we decided to peel in and stop at another hole. And uh, I had sheep said like I could have shot from the surface, And then I was almost like, well, this isn't right. I'm supposed to be diving down, you know. So I let them pass, and then I think I actually saw later once I realized, like what the calico is. It's like green with white spots on its back. Once I had figured that out, I was looking back on my memory, going, oh, I've seen like those fish and I've not been shooting them, you know. I just kept looking for something bigger. The day that we were sea bass hunting, I think I saw one. It was a giant fish. So I kept looking for like, this is true, this big stuff where I should have been shooting the Yeah, that's what saves a lot of calico bass lives. Is my inability to accurately judge them. That is an art because a lot of them I'm like, I don't know, buddy, and let you slide. But no, first I'm clearing my ears. Last two dives I did today, I just felt like it was just constant, just coming out of my ears the whole time as I was going to the bottom. The clear never stopped as I went down, just clearing up, clearing up a storm. So I got that feeling good about it. Gotta fish this pretty successful trip. So you feel like you're an aspiring um for sure, I would like to do it some more. Do you feel like you wasted your life? See, that's what I'm struggling with, is that I wasted my life. I used to think that being like a mountain hunter. Like I used to think that being a mountain hunter was interesting. I still do not as interesting spear fishing. No, it's a good challenge, man. That's that's what's great about it. It really is. Like. The thing I like about mountain hunting is that a lot of things about it. One thing I like about mountain hut listen to this, So I got an idea. If you if you, if you took your mountain hunting to like some see it's not necessary to do this, but let's just say you have to somehow incorporate like climbing big walls, climbing up big walls where you could fall off and die, and then you had to shoot the mountain. Go. That would be a little a little more like this what I liked about mountain hunting. There's there's three things I know about spear fish and being the new one, riding a bike in Manhattan. In mountain hunting are three things where there's just no we're I'm not saying for everybody. It's three things where I just think about what I'm doing. Mm hmm. I'm just thinking about There's enough stuff going on, like topography, weather bears, what you know about animals, right, the burning of time. It's like a just I do those things and I just do that and then my mind's not doing anything else and it's very soothing. It's just like I'm just doing that. Yep. I'm not like I'm not engaged in any other bullshit in my head. I'm not like, oh man, I should call my mom more often, you know what I mean. I'm just like doing the thing Um, and that's why I like mountain hunting. Riding your bike in Manhattan is just too dangerous, but I enjoy it. But and then now spear fishing, man, but I think that, like I kind of like the food from spear fishing. I don't know how dare dare I say? I almost kind of like it better than eating venison than eating stuff you get mountin hunting, because you know what, a lot of that stuff is pretty damn similar. Yeah, you don't really you don't acquire any food biking in Manhattan unless you stop at Joe's Pizza. No, you started getting them water dogs out of the tanks of hot water that the guys with a little trucks are little carts are selling. But no, discard that when I'm just saying, that's one where you're just no room to think about other stuff. But uh, I kind of like the food from this from this is pretty spectacular. And you guys, that's another they I wanted to ask you before you wrap up here. Um, do you guys find like in hunting there's a lot of people that don't they hunt, and you think, like hunting is like a way to like get food historically, right, it's probably kind of got into the whole activity as folks. Um, there's a lot of people like the hunt. They only give a shit about the They only give a shit about the food. You know, in your community, there a lot of people who are like big time spear fishermen that don't really take care of their fish and and like eating and give it away or is it most people pretty respectful that say, I'd say they're very Um, Like, if we're going on a big trip with several guys and there's a couple of guys that don't get a fish there, they're like right there, hey, you know, and like wanting fish, I mean they want everyone wants fish. Everyone takes care of their fish. So you got do you feel that you guys are typical or atypical in that you're always making all kinds of like preparations with the fish and eating it this way and this one's good to eat that way, I mean, and like this one's for this, This is great for tempera, this is great to eat raw, this is great to broil, this is great to grill. They've all got a lot of your bodies have that kind of way about them. Yeah, definitely, Um, just in how they're cook how they're prepared, eating them fresh as in raw, you know, just a little quick freeze on them, or any seasons, like are the spices sauces that we've made today when we're just on the filt table, you know, as we're cutting them, you know, you're you're ripping, you're rubbing the ribs with a spoon, and we had sauce right there and just eat it and it was just good fresh. You're good cook man, You're like a good cook, like a good like working man's high level cook. Well, I appreciate that, you know what I mean? I hope. So it's like approachable, like simple, just really good stuff. It's good. Do we get good? So? Dude, Yeah, I'm a yachtsman, fisherman, fisherman. I think the community as a whole understands that the catches only half m truly, truly. I don't think you'd go into any community and run into someone that's actually going after game fish, pelagic fish and already not thinking about how am I going to get this iced? How am I going to get at home? How am I going to get it prepped? What is it for? I think the community as a whole is is solid when it comes to that because you got that. That's thing like with spear fisherman, you're targeting um kind of like a lot of the most high qualities sought after fish. I know why you like spear fishing because all I mean, I'm like, well, I like like what I talked about the adventure of it, but you missed one one major point. It's just there's a little jar and that goes down. But it's a target rich environment. You have a lot of choices, and that when we talked to our new spear fisherman, that's really the biggest thing is you're gonna see a lot you've got to You guys pass up a lot of stuff. We pass up hundreds, if not thousands, to select one or two or three or four that are what we specifically want. That's thing I noticed about you guys. I'm kind of like, let's shoot them all, you know, let's go, let's go. But you guys are kind of like, just it's letting him go. Yeah, soaking the scenery, enjoy it, and then turn on the hunt when you need to turn it on because something may scoot out into a hole and now it's scenior. He's done. Now it's good time. That's the fish we want. How am I going to get to him without him running? You know? That's target rich environment. Yeah. You didn't think we shot a lot either until you started cleaning fish and that cooler back there. No, there was a handful in there. But no, you guys, you guys let a lot of fish slide. Yeah, that's the best part. My buddy George here says, Yeah, it's like bow hunting, only you've got targets all day long. Yeah, like you're saying, otherwise you work all season first shot, but I can attend shots today. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, I like it. Man. I'm gonna start plotting out my next outing. I'm thinking Baja. See that's where I like. Well, that's where I mess around. That's where I like. He dabbles, No idea we go down there in family vacation. But when I go on family vacation, I always go somewhere where I can where. Oh, I always go where I could fish. And now we go somewhere where like where I can go. Dabble, dabble. How'd you like the ocean white fish here? Great? Just that was rotten in land though good haven't eaten him yet? Like cleaning them. He's playing nice. Yeah, they like catching them, but it's gonna be your favorite, you think, So that's that good? Look like a nice filt? What? Why are you laughing? That's the best fish out here? You can't compare to yell tailor. But I mean those are plattic. We're not talking platt We're talking reef fish, ocean white fish? Are you doing that because George doesn't want people to know about them? It's it's our secret. Actually there's only one guarantee spot too. Um okay, final thoughts. I mean I could go, I can. This could be like a ten part series on spear fishing, but one I love really really interesting to me. Man wasted my life? Yeah, I agree. I think looking through binoculars. Yeah, I think looking through a pair of binoculars for an antler that you're trying to pick out in shrub brush is cool. But imagine trying to pick out all these fish when they're cruising through the kelp the same thing, only you're a lot closer, with a lot more opportunity. I don't have to hike us for really, Yeah, you have to swim at you. Guys don't realize it because you just used to it. It is extremely demanding, extremely demanding, long day of spear fishing, you sleep really well. What was your average time between putting your head on your pillow and being gone? Just like in three and three nights. It's really demanding. And then other stuff that you don't even think about, like you kind of drifting with the current or whatever, and you look in that boat, it's like a million miles away. You start kicking through the kelt and you look a while later and it's like that scene of Monty Python or the dudes running that the duds running the animal, the bogus farther keeps getting farther away, and you're like, what, so I would get round. I'm thinking I'd turn over my back so i couldn't even see the damn boat, and I'd kind of get a bearing and just go, and I'd be like, I'll allow myself to look in ten minutes. A couple of times what he was doing. Yeah, I noticed a couple of times when I drove up and you actually gave me the way some people give me the nice wave, like hey, I'm here, cool, I'm gonna head on your way. You gave me the like come here, monthfucker right right here, right now, because I I octopus said, strip of my snor and mentor was nowhere? All right? You got any final thoughts, Alex, Yeah, I'll finish off our little final thought process here is that you got to experience the first of the first, which is which is the stepping stone to uh and it's a universe of chasing fish that can take you around this entire globe and you'll of the sum of bit just covered in water, and you'll meet some of the best people, and you'll go to some of the most amazing places, and you'll uh pick up some of the best cooking and recipes from different cultures and just the regular guy that's flaying your fish, and UH, it's pretty special. So I'm stoked to have you in our spear fishing culture. Thank you, ma'am. That's it. Like one of our buddies JP said too, it's not all about the fish. You know, the same thing around a hunt camp brain thing. You get get a group of guys common interest doing something that you can get outdoors, you know, see see nature, see the splendor out there, and go get some great table fair. You know, it's awesome. It's like a real team component to it too, you know, yea through your problems. You could put you know, five six guys on us, you know about for three days, and I mean I don't think we had one that was pretty entertaining the whole. Well, you did break a very important part on my boat. Let's see, I broke about ten things. George hasn't found two of them, and we're not gonna talk about it. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna blame it on Yanni after they leave here. But you recovered you recovered two anchors aluminum anchor which you found store credit. I found it. I recovered, you found it. I recovered I spotted it and pondered it and thought about damn, the anchor is down deep. Any concluders, Uh, welcome anytime. I think this is the start of your journey. I think you have a good intro into it. Anyone that's looking to get into sport, just remember, do a little homework first. Try to find a mentor, at least do some research on the internet and talk to someone that's done it. There are some risks to it, but at the end of the day, it's a very very amazing sport. Are people in your community going to be annoyed that you're letting that that like by now by taking out like a couple of loud mouths, that you're like ruining the whole thing because now every time Dick and Harry is gonna pick up a spear gun. I think I think the sport itself will weed out a percentage of those people as you saw today. Um, I mean to tell you to the US in the world and when you talk about like New Zealand, Australia, Europe, South Africa, that the US is it's pretty far behind population wise of spear fisher, spear fisher women, but spear fishing in general. Uh, and I will find out, I guess. But yeah, no, it's it's a growing community anyway. It's it is a very kind of slowly growing sport, consistently growing. And I know a lot of guys that are like into mountain hunting that are real curious about spear fishing. Yeah, I mean, it's we all kind of like make each other curious about it. But yeah, don't you think, Johnnie, It's like in general, just like a round the guys we hang out with We kind of like talk about spear fishing more now than we might have once upon a time. But that's true, Rob, Jeremy and Sergio. I want you to come to South Africa. Really all you have to do, all you have to do is pack a bag. All the gear there is waiting rifles. That's Rob Rob from Robert Jeremy, Jeremy Williams and Sergio campus is it worth it is? It's good, It's pretty good. But is it better in here? It's it's a better in California's different, different fish. That's the thing about different set, different set of yea, you can drive two hours from here in totally different plug your plug your company again. Uh, well you guys don't talking about Ultimate Spearfishing. Ultimate spear Fishing. Yeah. Ultimate spear Fishing is a new project. It was a magazine out of South Africa. We're relaunching it on a website. Is the website live? It is live, It's being updated continually. But yeah, it's it's got quite a bit information about basic skills and spear fishing. Was originally um, like I said, based out of South Africa and South African divers as a whole are are some of the best and most hardcore divers out there. So yeah, there's a lot of good information on there um and you're bringing the digital bringing in a digital there's a lot of the print articles online now. Then we're kind of updating it with new contribution throughout throughout the Ultimate Spearfish, Ultimate spear Fishing dot and then your outfits called one Again freedo shot dot com and yeah, we do both rob Allence spear fishing Gear, Ocean Hunter and myster Carbon Fins. So that and people just from around the country by at mail order too. Yeah we're I mean, we're we're mostly a wholesale company, but yeah, we do. We do have a retail outlet in northern California and that was mostly to address kind of the local spear fishing community. And people can call you up and be like, oh, my thing doesn't work. Thing doesn't work. Yet. We're good at fixing stuff, good at troubleshooting, good kind of basic tips on where to go, and I dove quite a few places in my lifetime so far. So yeah, I know a lot of people kind of throughout the world and throughout the community. If you're traveling somewhere, I can kind of point in the right direction or give you some pointers, all right, Greg Fonts, Greg Fonts, George, don't you know your damn last name? Oh yeah, I just know George, not yours. Right, I love it. It's okay. You're welcome back into your time, whether you know my last name or not. All right, Ryan Rain very French. Thank you all right, guys, thank you very much. Thank you. Se