Okay, this one is all hats off to Dan and has become one of my most memorable experiences. Before going on our Hawaii trip, I had asked Dan what he wanted to do and he insisted on one thing: spearfishing. I was terrified of the idea of free diving, holding your breath, and then hunting the fish… but as it turns out, I loved it and wish I was diving longer! A lot of that was thanks to our awesome instructor Kua at Top Shot Fishing who was super knowledgeable and made me feel really comfortable with the whole idea. I do need to work on my diving and not swallowing huge amounts of salt water… but I am happy with the grouper and trigger fish that I was able to catch :) I even (accidentally) landed two trigger fishes in one shot! And an FYI, we were not shooting the fish to kill, this was never the purpose. The fish is intended to be eaten or served in another purpose so that it’s not killed in vain and we were actually targeting invasive species.
A side note: I really do like the idea of spearfishing because it’s one the most environmentally friendly and sustainable way of catching your own food as opposed to going out to your local supermarket and buying a fish for dinner. That fish from the supermarket was likely from a commercial fishing boat, which, as an industry, hauls in hundreds and thousands of fish. I don’t need to go into much detail there but the harm of non-selective fishing and over-fishing in this manner is pretty tremendous. Farm fishing is not at all better: introducing diseases, invasive species, and pollutants in the water. With spearfishing, you target the fish and it’s a conscious choice of whether it’s the legal size (not too small) or whether it’s an unprotected species (not endangered). You catch only what you need. Luckily for us, the fish we caught was all donated. Now it’s a matter of finding a way to continue this back home :)
<3 Kare
P.S. Watch the short video below!
