Spear Fishing in the Bahamas

Being from Michigan, I was raised around hunting and fishing, but I never really took to it. Fishing is too boring. You just sit around hoping the fish will start to bite.

Deer hunting is about the same, except that if you do shoot a deer, you are pretty much done hunting considering the rest of your day is going to be spent cleaning the deer and dragging it back to your camp or where ever.

Spear fishing is the best form of hunting for several reasons:

If there are no fish, you move on to the next spot. There is no guessing about it.
You can shoot more than one fish in a day (unlike deer hunting).
Fish can swim better than people, and breath underwater, so it's more fair.
Sharks can eat people, so it's more interesting!

Here is a video of a lobster wishing he had found a better hiding spot. We were anchored with Side x Side who had plenty of lobsters for everyone, so this guy was left alone.

Barracudas are a common sight when spear fishing. They are curious about people, attracted to shiny objects (like the stainless steel spear in your hand), and also attracted to the vibration of a speared fish.

They "stalk" divers. Which is really eerie. I typically just stare them down, and hope they go away. I've seen people charge at them to scare them off. Which I think takes balls of steel, considering they are more likely to get defensive when they feel threatened.

Normally whenever a barracuda came around, we would just go fish elsewhere. I've heard stories of barracudas attacking speared fish. Not a situation I ever wanted to experience.

This video shows a small barracuda. I tried to get a little closer but he started to swim off. As you can see in the video, they blend in pretty well. You generally don't see them until they are pretty close: