Matt Watson's spear tagging concept

The idea is to offer an alternative for spear fishers; the idea is to revolutionise tagging research; the idea is to reduce the killing of unwanted fish; the idea is to change how spearfishing competitions are run.. but the idea is the easy part. 

This idea didn’t just pop into my head, rather it evolved over a number of years. The first time I thought about ‘spear-tagging’ was when I was working on the Ultimate Lady.

We were placing satellite tags into marlin that we caught on rod and reel, and almost all of them left the scene of capture immediately. So the question had to be asked: was this a natural movement, or was the fish trying to get away from the scene of its capture as a flight response?

To try and find out we decided to free-tag a marlin with a satellite tag, and along with our underwater cameraman Graham Mackereth, we fired a tag into a marlin after some well-documented trial and error. The action screened on The ITM Fishing Show over a decade ago.

That was a special case for a specific study, but I wondered if it could become a better way of tagging fish, where there is very little disturbance or stress for the fish. But to become a valuable source of research, it would have to be adopted by the masses.

For that to happen, it would need to be accessible, easy and enjoyable, just like it is for rod and reel anglers who tag and release billfish, tuna, kingfish and many other species all over the world.

At the time of that first satellite spear-tagging, I was not a spear-fisher. In fact I’d never been spearfishing, so not only did I not have the experience and knowledge, I just didn’t understand the sport or the motivation to get in the water and shoot a fish.

Some years down the track, I swapped my underwater camera for a speargun and I gave spear-fishing a go. I instantly enjoyed it and slowly gained some understanding of the motivation to shoot a fish. It was challenging yet relaxing at the same time, and incredibly rewarding. Getting just one snapper was a thrill and it still is.

And so I became able to understand the urge to pull the trigger, even when a fish was not needed.

We see this most commonly with kingfish. They are big, impressive fish and they swim right up to you, making them an easy target. I can count on one hand the number of kingfish I have shot, despite having many hundreds swim into the range of my gun. But I accept it’s much easier for me to pass up a shot at a big kingfish when I’ve been lucky enough to have caught many on hook and line.

But many spearos can’t resist the urge to shoot, even when they have no need for the fish – and sometimes even when the fish is inedible. Unlike rod and reel fishing, release isn’t an option after spearing a fish. Nor is there much time to make a decision on whether to take the fish or set it free.

More and more people are getting into spearfishing and typically it’s the newbies who are the most trigger-happy. In addition, many experienced spear-fishers still need that big fish pic to build or enhance their profile. But hey, rod and reel anglers are the same.

It’s common practice these days to get a pic for Instagram or facebook before releasing a fish. And for the record, I have no problem with this. If a pic is enough of a trophy, or even if it’s just to brag about and the fish gets released, great. But obviously for a spearo to get the same bragging picture, the fish must die.

So I’m still not a spearo, but I have done it enough to understand the motivation. I see limited value in preaching restraint, so instead, how about creating a way for spearos to pull the trigger and still get images for bragging rights if they don’t want or need to kill the fish?

I’ve come up with a system that is simple and can be adapted to all spearguns. Here’s how it works. You have a GoPro camera mounted to the gun, or even on a head strap, but otherwise it’s just a normal spear gun. You shoot a couple of butterfish, a john dory or snapper – enough for a feed.

Then a 30kg kingfish cruises in. You pull out your spear tag applicator from your belt and attach it to the end of the speargun (it takes about three seconds to do this), or you may already have attached it after you decided you had enough fish.

You fire at the kingfish. The tag goes in and you have the footage on your camera. I can assure you it’s a huge thrill and incredibly satisfying.

Step One: select a fish to tag.

Step Two: fire at the fish.

Step Three: watch fish swim away with tag.

Step Four: reload and repeat. 

Prior to spear-tagging, I had tried just getting the footage and not pulling the trigger. It’s nice to get footage, but it’s not the same feeling. Hitting the fish and the tag going into the fish says, “I got you!” Furthermore, it’s a fish out there swimming with a tag that hasn’t been dragged to boat.

I’ve documented all of my spear-tagging on film, from the prototype that was made from a piece of broomstick jammed on the end of my spear shaft (that tagged two marlin on it’s first trial run), through to the systems I’ve made for both flopper shafts and slip-tip shafts.

The tag applicators can take all three sorts of tags and I’ve successfully tagged kingfish, snapper, trevally, giant trevally and several marlin – not to mention the moki, parore and drummer that were my test targets.

Interestingly, I have returned to spots and seen the fish that I’d previously spear-tagged still in the area months later. And already I’ve made too many interesting observations to list here. But most importantly I’ve noticed is that the fish seem remarkably unbothered by being tagged underwater, as is evident in the footage.

The first marlin I hit was at the end of the gun’s range and the spear-tagger glanced off, leaving a scratch down the side of the marlin. As I reloaded, the marlin doubled back and I shot it again. This time the tag went in and it didn’t even alter its course.

The next day I saw the same marlin again with the tag and the scratch on its flank. This time it was feeding with several other marlin, so I tagged a couple more of its mates and all of them were completely unbothered and continued feeding with their new yellow tag attached.

Words are pretty inadequate when trying to explain what all of this was like, but you can see for yourself if you check out the incredible footage for free at ultimatefishing.tv, or on the Ultimate Fishing app.

The spear-tagging applicators have an international patent pending and Matt is exploring ways of getting them manufactured and distributed cheaply, or maybe making the invention open source. For any expressions of interest in the invetion, please contact [email protected], get more info and see footage at ultimatefishing.tv.