Spearos at South Rocks, Gisborne

Spearfishing to me has always been so much more than the ‘evidence’ you arrive home with. More than the glory catch shots thrown up on Facebook to impress your mates, or to use on your tinder dating profile.

It’s about the adventure, the hunt, the moments of adrenaline, but most significantly for me, its the underwater scenery and diversity of sea life you might chance across. Because anything can turn up in NZ waters.

On any given day you might see schools of Koheru, clouds of Pink Mau-Mau, Kahawai, Demoiselle’s, Butterfish, John Dory, Dolphins, Kingfish, Snapper, Trevally, Stingrays, Mako and Bronze Whaler sharks, even Skipjack Tuna or a Sunfish.

Now imagine if you could see all of the species I’ve just mentioned, in just the one spot, on just one pin, in 30m of visibility and everything is at least a third bigger than you’d see anywhere else in the country.

Because that’s exactly what happened with our dive off Gisborne’s South Rocks.

In fact about the only thing missing was a marlin, which I suspect wouldn’t have been if we were there a couple of weeks earlier, this was easily one of the fishiest places I have ever held breath at.

And it's strange that it took me so long to discover, because I grew up in Gisborne, learning to snorkel around the reefs on the Mahia Peninsula. However owing to the combination of frequent swells and milky papa stone, which constantly affect inshore visibility, I never really viewed my hometown as a spearfishing destination. But in the last few years I started hearing these rumours of a reef about 20kms off the coast. Rumours of a reef on a different eastern current line where people said the water can be clearer than Fiji, and the fish life bigger than Texas.

This sounded like somewhere that needed further investigation, and thankfully I found just the guy to help me.

Dean Savage runs Dive Tatapouri, in easily one of the coolest Dive Shop locations in the country. 10 Minutes up the coast, just past Wainui beach, its situated right in the sand dunes. In fact little Blue Penguins live underneath the kitchen floorboards, and daily stingray feeding sessions happen each day right out front.

If you’ve ever had a family member that you’ve wanted to show more of the ocean to; who might not be comfortable underwater; then I couldn’t recommend the guided Stingray feeding sessions they do highly enough. I once had a job travelling NZ trying out all the different towns main attractions and I’d confidently put this right up there, as a kiwi must do.

Dive Tatapouri offer a range of ocean discovery and dive opportunities, including shark cage diving in the summer months, and onsite accommodation. Dean commercially Kina dived the area for 14 years so it truly is his backyard. He has a deep understanding of the coastal waters and offers a fantastic insight into local Maori customs. He also loves to get in the water with a spear, so jumped at the chance to take us out.

Slipping into the waters at South Rock is an experience in itself. It’s an exposed area where it can be tricky to line up a calm sea. But man is it worth it. Now I’ve been in some big schools of Kingfish before, but never consistently like this. Nearly every dive down was greeted by 50-60 fine specimens all rising up in a tiered fashion, with rats up top, and the big bad greenheads lurking down below. I don’t think I had a single drop where I didn’t see them, and some of them weren’t hard to miss, with several green torpedos estimated at over that magical 40kg mark.

The reasons that this area is so fishy is that they are all concentrated on the one small pin of rock that comes up to 12m of the surface from very deep. The continental shelf is just several kilometres further out, and South Rocks is the first area of foul that pops up, making it an absolute magnet for action.

The diving was exciting from start to finish. Whether it was a feisty Mako removing the tail of one of the boys speared fish; or the huge visiting Sunfish being bombed by schools of Kingfish as they literally slammed into its rough skin, trying to rub off their parasites. It was also easy to see why the world record for Pink Mau-Mau was taken here, with huge fat blobs of Pink hanging everywhere in the water column.

Local spearo Ross Gurau even extended that famous Gisborne hospitality by generously swimming down to my speared Kingfish and repeatedly fending off one of the largest Bronze Whaler’s I had ever seen. Something not for the fainthearted or inexperienced. Cheers bro.

Back on land Dean told me the best months for spearing out on the reefs are when the Kahawai and Trevally school up in December and January. He backed this up by showing me a picture of a Kingfish he speared then. Curious I asked him, “how much it weighed?,” and he said, he wasn’t sure as it had maxed out his scales.
You can imagine the look on my face when I discovered his scales went to 45KG’s!! So safe to say I’m already planning my next trip back in December, who’s keen to come?  

To book your own trip check out www.divetatapouri.com