New England Freedive Spearfishing Co sponsored some gear for prizes for the competitors in yesterdays meet. The atmosphere of this tournament is not a competitive as some and designed to get more new spearfisherman involved in our dive community and gives them a chance to dive a fun tournament, meet other divers and spend the day with one of the coolest and most helpful spearfishing communities you can find anywhere. It is truly not about the competition and more about the camaraderie and that is what we want all newcomers to the sport to experience and enjoy.
The wind out of the South West provided a little chop and stirred bottom up making for tight visibility to hunt in. Nonetheless, divers had a great day in the water although it was very tough to find tournament size fish (2" over minimum state regs) . Water temps were still around 54 degrees making a 5mm the perfect suit for these dive conditions.
This important fact should be noted - Almost all divers could find legal but not tournament size (2" over state regs) fish and chose NOT to harvest them. I think this is a testament to the great stewardship of our local spearfishing community to act towards what the rules of these tournaments was designed to do and provide a manner for us to self regulate ourselves for a fishery we so love here in New England. Well done my friends !
Congratulations to Olivier Lauzon finishing First Place with a great stringer of fish including a striped bass and a pair of tautog, Mark Welzel took Second Place and Largest Fish with a 27.5 lb striped bass and Third Place was earned by Jon Stevens who connected with a tautog.
NEF was again honored to be the sponsor for this fun tournament and was proud to raffle of some gear to competitors and congratulations to Shang Jen who won the Mares Viper Pro 90cm Speargun we donated.
Some rainy weather seems to be heading our way tonight into tomorrow so today is the day to get out there and chase fish before your Memorial Day plans gets washed out. Do not plan on Sakonnet Point for bigger Tautog, maybe head North into the Bay to find those spawning fish or some of the spots outside the Bays along river mouths that were holding good fish earlier in the week. Divers are taking bass from the Bay to Block, with the inner bays holding more consistent numbers of fish right now.
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