It happened long, long time ago, on 20.06.2009. , and I was searching for a specimen like that for a decade. I dreamed of such a meeting, with a fish who is one of my favourite catches, but in that time i did not have seabass larger than 3kg. I knew that one day this encounter will happened and this is a story about that.

We where going for a spearfishing trip, me and two of my friends, on the north side of peninsula Pelješac, on the south of the Croatian cost. The bottom of the sea is there mostly sandy and murky with a big influence of the river Neretva. Except seabass you can find gilt-head sea bream there, and it can be a prime specimen of fish, even more than 5kg. Offcourse that encounter dont happened every day 🙂

We start with spearfishing in the afternoon, and afer 3 hours I did not see a valid fish. I choose a waiting technique on depths from 1 to 6 meters. Everything was looking nice and promising , but fish did not appear. But even then I knew that everything can change in a one second! The weather was like before a storm (acctually it came later , during night), south wind were blowing , and tide was high.

I was persistant and focused on mine dives, because I knew that i have to predict from where will fish appear and be totaly quiet, and calm while I am laying on the bottom. Even my face is down, and my eyes are looking forward because fish are very sensitive to wide-open eyes. So I was diving parallel to the shore, and sun was behind me, the bottom did not offer any shelter except few huge noble pen shell 🙂 which I use to cover me. About 16.30h I started to see some fish around me, first big mullet appear but i did not shoot him because he kept on safe distance . Then , while I was lying on the bottom, after 45 seconds , I saw two seabas from shore side. They did not notice me, but I rise my head little bit, and than I stepped backward , like octopussy doing when she see a predator like dentex. That movement provoqe the seabasses and they notice me. As a predator , seabas is very curious and territorial, and two of them came for inspection 🙂 I shoot in the bigger one, around 1kg weight, and now I am less stressed because I have enough for the lunch!

I continue with dives , fully focused on my stealth movements. My shallow dives don’t last too long, except when I see a fish in the distance. The average duration is somewhere between 45 seconds and 1 minute and 10 seconds. On some micro locations that “hold big bass” I sometimes go up to two minutes! So,later, on one of my dives, i was waiting on a bottom, on 4.8 meter of depht, and suddenly from murky seawater, after cca 30 seconds flock of seabass( 10 -15 pcs) appears from nowhere. They weighed from 2 to 3 kg!! I just could not belive what I see!! Amazing!! I was aiming for biggest one, but water was murky, and I did not get a real chance to shoot. I said to myself, don’t be indecisive, because you will return home without a trophy. Then I aimed at a sea bass weighing about 3kg and just as I was about to pull the trigger, on the right side, over my head, just a meter away from me, the leader of the flock passes by. I have never seen such a specimen before, it is huge, it must have been through a lot in its life. Although in shock, I turn the speargun and hit it right behind the side fin!! The reel starts to buzz, the line disappears from the reel and sea bass disappears into the murky sea. I slowly loosen the reel and follow its movement. At one point, the line completely loosens and I was scared that it had fallen off the harpoon or the nylon had broken!!?? Luckily that didn’t happen, but the sea bass started moving towards me, uffffff, what a relief! I slowly pull it towards me and look at it, I simply can’t believe how big it is, it is huge!!!
The only danger is that the harpoon’s feather will snap and the fish will escape, but I quickly grab it under the gills, pull it to me and calm it down with my knife. Then I start screaming from the adrenaline, and I slowly realize what kind of fish I’ve caught. The scale showed 7.2 kg!!

Of course, a few days later, we grilled the sea bass with friends and enjoyed the ultimate delicacy.
I will never forget the moment when I saw that capital sea bass, such moments are simply unforgettable!!!!

Simply, my dream came true!!