Modifying fish with Joethefish... A new record..

lol that was my first eel, and a pretty small one if I'm honest... he was in a hole stuck his head out for too long! lol. Have had a couple since then but the not my regular fare.. they tend to destroy whatever equipment you have used to get them.. but they do taste good.. well mostly!

Thats a conger eel.. flesh is firm and meaty, good with black pepper.. only has a cartiledge spine running through it which unless removed can make it kind of gelatonous (sp?) and not to my taste.. in portugal it could of been a moray eel too although smaller they ae usually more colourful and a darn site more aggressive.. conger's get to 40+kg's in the uk biggest one we have ever had was over 30kg's took two of us to 'pursuade' it from its hidey hole and destroyed every bit of gear we used on it ;D I've pretty much given up hunting them, the meat is nice if treated right but not worth the hassle!
Oh an swimming tends to be helpful doing this.. I can happily swim 5+miles on a good days hunting mind you ask me to run a mile and i'd die!

Excellent stuff - I grew up on the coast - swimming in the North Sea - must be some serious hard work sometimes fella.
You hit any 'exotic' locations yet?

still haven't got round to eating the catch i got when i came down to you, shame i didn't get wet getting it

looks fun but tiring, gonna take you up on the offer one day

wow, that is a crab and a half!

Taste good?

Lewis

Thats exactly the reason... lol that photo found its way into my little sisters school project and from there to the school walls (I used to be a student as did the guy to my left) and from there to all sorts of other websites/boards lol.
As for the crab he yielded a huge volume of meat.. tasted very good and still a load left for crab cakes tonight... mmmmm

Heres a video to freak you out a bit.. not me thankfully! but basically competitive diver who blacks out.. you see his safety iver spot there is a problem and disappear underwater to fetch him.. when on the surface he is unconcious and not breathing (this is the bit I mentioned about the body not trying to breath underwater) you see them blow on his face to try and trigger his body into taking a breath before mre drastic measures are called for. Luckily he made full recovery and was saved by having safety divers etc. If he was alone it would of been a different story!


On a moderately lighter note.. i anyone has ever watched or seen competitive freediving you'll notice as the diver surfaces everyone shouts 'BREATH' this is because they are so intune with NOT breathing they can forget to breath after surfacing and need a reminder before the usual breathing without thinking about it thing happens!
Oh and the Static WR breath hold was broken the other day.. (thats holding your breath face down in a swimming pool.. not really a good spectator sport!) the new world record holder held his breath for...
11:35. Yes thats 11 mins 35 secs without breathing.
news article here:
www.deeperblue.com/newsfull.php/2062

So how is it done.. how do you hold you breath for 11 mins plus and not die.. or how do yo dive down to over 100m and still come back!?

Well basically its within all of us.. same as we can all run but not everyone can run a 10sec 100m lol
Scientists call it the mammalian dive reflex (MDR from now on its too long to type!) and believe its a left over from evolution and is what allows sea mammels such as whales and dolphins to go so long without breathing.
Basically through experience and practice the MDR kicks in.. it slows your heart rate conserving oxygen, blood stops flowing to your outer extremities and concentrates around your heart lungs and brain. again conserving oxygen. Couple this with relaxation, smooth fluid movements etc. and you can go for much longer than you think. Professional freedivers can basically turn this on and off at will.. I once saw a UK freediver flatline a hospital heart monitor while holding a conversation with doctors about freediving and what happens to his body! Many of the top freedivers can record heart rates of under 20bpm.. thats a beat every three seconds or less! They do it through a combination of the MDR and deep relaxation.
The MDR can I suppose be compared to runners getting in the 'zone' or feeling their lungs 'open up' after a while (anyone who runs will know what I mean) this is due to the aerobic/anerobic pathways swapping over. As a diver my MDR kicks in after about half hour of diving/being in the water.. by this time i'm fully relaxed and in my 'zone' diving becomes easier I can control and lower my heart rate consciously to a certain extent (down to 40bpm is best i've recorded) and hold my breath for longer periods.
What other cool stuff can the human body do?
Well with depth comes pressure that must be equalised in the air spaces of your body.. ears are the one most have felt.. pinching your nose and blowing against it will equalise the pressure in your ear canals to a certain extent but very deep this is too great a pressure to equalise, so instead of something going pop (like an ear drum) the body is capable of flooding the air space with liquid.. kind of like the plasma in your blood. The same has been recorded occuring in the lungs.. where chest squeeze due to the pressure of great depths is overcome by the body 'flooding' the lungs with liquid which compresses much less than gas.
Some freedivers use a technique called packing where they take a deep breath to fill their lungs then force more air into them to overfill them using throat and chest muscles.. this obviously gives them more 'capacitiy/air in their lungs for the dive but the lungs then take up more space and can actually flip the heart upside down and out of position to accomodate them. Freaky!

Heres a little experiment for you. sit in front of your screen now and take a breath, one deep reath and hold it.. chances are after 15-30secs you will feel your stomach cramping/twitching and your body will be screaming 'Breath' so do it! lol don't want anyone passing out and wetting themselves (yes this does happen.. I speak from experiance)
What you felt was your diaphragm twitch and it was the build up of CO2 that made you want to breath.. you can strengthen your diaphragm to make it twitch less and train your body to get used to CO2 and therefore quell the urge to breath.
One diaphragm exercise is to exhale fully then try and suck your stomach up into your rib cage.. I saw a freediver (Tanya Streeter) do this at a demo to such an extent her spine was clearly visible from the front.. ;D
Practice trains your body to accept higher levels of CO2 before telling you its time to breath and its perfectly possible to train it to the extent you pass out before you get an uncontrolable urge to breath.
My first ever attempt at holding my breath was done on my bed and lasted about 30secs... within a month I could do 3min plus.. it took another year nearly to reach my best time.
As for diving when I first started 4m was hell.. my ears hurt and I could just about get down there and come straight back.. but things quickly improved and I was diving 10 or 15m then over time I hit my best of 30m.. One day I had a close encounter with some fishing line in the deep water and sank to my best ever of 46m.. but hell no never again!

FInally a couple of stories of what can go wrong..

In my early days of diving I was immature and took risks I wouldn't now.. I went to Greece and took my mask but not my fins. I was diving in clearer water than I was used to following some squid.. soon I was far from land and diving to the bottom at about 8m.. then it shelved off to about 15m.. I didn't notice and swam down thinking it was much the same.. now at 15m the human body or mine at leat doesn't float.. it sinks like a stone. I hit the bottom had a looka round then tried to swim up.. having no fins meant I didn't have enough ppower to propel myself off the bottom and overcome my negative bouyancy. This is bad.. I was stuck at the bottom kicking like f**k and going nowhere. Needless to say I eventually managed it but surfaced on the verge of blacking out I was seeing stars and had tunnel vision. From then I didn't dive alone, or without my fins!

Three years ago I was on the bottom off portland.. only shallow under 10m.. I use a float to mark my position its attached to me by a line so boats ( i'll tell you one about them in a minute) and my buddy can see me. Somehow I managed to swim under some rope without noticing and when I tried to surface it all tangled holding me fast. I was literally inches from the surface.. I could reach above the water with my hands but not my face. Gladly I didn't panic and cut my line with the knife I always carry for that reason (and gutting fish!) and surfaced safely.

As for boats.. my flag has an international warning flag on it that means diver below.. boats shoud know this and stay at least 30m from it. Sadly not everyone does. I was diving in Looe swimming with some seals and spearfishing there were boats nearby but I had my float and flag.. one boat waved at me as he passed with his kids waterskiing behind. I carried on diving, on the bottom I could hear the boats.. sound carrys very well under water and sounds a lot closer than it is.. this was usual so again I wasn't worried.. I surfaced after a long dive to see the boat that had waved at me about 10m away heaing full blast in my direction.. I dived under immediately as he passed over me.. I missed the prop by inches the wake blew me to the surface where I was promptly hit by the waterskis. I was hurt.. both legs and back cut, most my gear broken and about a mile out by a set of rocks.. a bit dazed I floated for a while as the boat stopped.. he turned back.. picked his daughter up (who obviously fell of her skis) then shot off.. leaving me there. He knew full well he had hit me as his daughter landed on top of me and was floating next to me unhurt when he picked her up. I was shocked at how irresponsible he had been and was for leaving without a word. I was in no state for the swim back to shore.
Luckily a fishing boat had seen the incident and came over to pick me up and took me straight into the harbour where his boat had gone. We found him loading it back onto the trailer at the slip way. Adrenaline had taken over by now and he was rather shocked to see a wetsuit clad man appear over the back of his boat.. i'll leave the next bit out. But suffice to say it ended messily in a court case where he was eventually given a fine and community service for wreckless endangerment or something similar.

FInal story now.. I was diving a nice spot.. a wreck in 18m of water the bass line up on one side of it in the current.. I usually dive down out of site swim to the lip of the wreck and peek over at the bass then take one if there is any there.. that was my intention that day, swam down fine.. no fish around (usually the wreck is teeming with them all over) swim to the lip to check for bass.. put head over the lip.. HOLY CHUFFING BUBBLE BLOWING EXPLETIVES a 4m Mako Shark (little brother of the great white.. looks the same just skinnier and much faster)was swimming full pelt up the opposite side of the wreck straight at me (yes this is in the UK) needless to say I was slightly scared (understatement! ;D) I turned aside and put my gun between me and it.. I think the movement spooked it as it did a quick turn and circled away.
I dd a mighty good impression of Jesus walking on water as I swam back to the boat.. lol. Saw him a few times since that day but never acting like that.. he was either mighty cross or mighty peeved and I was definately in his sights! A few scuba divers had a run in with him a few weeks later with two of them being physically 'bumped' by him.

Has any of it put me off.. not a chance!

Awesome work

Reallt respect this kind of fishing, as i love diving anyway :-) - i'm not a fan of angling but there is something about spearfishing that makes it fairer :-)