A spearfishing day in Greece-“Persistence always pays off”
With my friend Christos, aka “The Tracker”, we had already planned a complete day of spearfishing for the 15th of August, right in the heart of summer in Greece.
A great sunny day has arrived. Calm seas and fair winds! This is all we needed!
Just before dawn we loaded our equipment to my friend’s trusty 4×4 and his unsinkable rib and we headed to the marina with great expectations!
We started our dives in swallow reefs to search for dentex, a prized fish in the Mediterranean, and to prepare ourselves for deeper dives later in the day.
Even though the weather was great, and the sea was clear and warm, we had no luck in locating a nice fish. We moved on to deeper spots in search for white grouper, a delicious fish, that is always on our list for obvious reasons!
After visiting two very nice spots, big rocks in a flat sandy bottom, that usually steam with life, for unconceivable reasons, the reefs were empty. Only small schools of baitfish, swimming gracefully against the current. But no predators around!
It was the right time for a break, to rehydrate and get some rest. It was afternoon already and had to think for our next move, the move that would determine the outcome of the day. One last chance before heading back to the marina and call it a day.
Once we got started, Christos had a feeling for a place nearby that we had never scouted carefully before. All we knew about, was a nice formation of rocks that could hold a couple of good size groupers and occasionally a dentex.
So, at low speed and our eyes on the bottom scanner, we proceeded carefully looking even for small rock formations that could “sniff out” larger areas to dive and check closer. To our amazement, we see on the screen, just under our boat, a school of dentex was heading to that area too! I dived a couple of times to check for the dentex, but they kept moving. About half a mile later they finally stop. I was ready to dive as soon as our boat stopped moving, right above the school of dentex and nice rocky formations around.
My friend follows and we try to observe the place before placing a nice shot on a nice fish. I had the chance to see the school of big dentex on my first ambush. On the second one, they didn’t appear at all. We were frustrated. We were lucky enough to find a new great spot, but the fish disappeared. I know well, that when the situation comes to an acceptance of returning empty back home, Christos’ instincts kick in hard!
After continuous mid water dynamic dives, he spots a great white grouper that enters its cave. He gives me the whole picture and I dive with his Draco 125 in hand. Heading down straight onto the groupers lair, she comes out to check me as I was slowly descending. There was a point at which I knew that the grouper was mine. I pressed the trigger and the fish having been hit just behind the head it anchors under the rock. In the next dive, Christos relieves it from its agony and gets its up in the surface!
That white grouper would be a fish to remember, as it tipped the scales at more than 16kg!