Although till 2022. I had caught quite a few large leerfishes weighing from 10 to 20 kg, just when I thought it couldn’t get “bigger” or “better”…..that’s exactly what happened in the 2022. spearfishing season…and in the following text I will try to describe how it happened and what my emotions were at that moment….which for sure, I will never forget !!!

It was a normal spring day, the first half of June. I had arranged a fishing trip with my friend Stephan, and we left in the morning time to be in the sea in the afternoon, because the tide was rising then, and the day was quite long at that time of year, so we would have plenty of time to spend spearfishing. We entered the sea and started to inspect the terrain, short dives with a stay at the bottom for about 50 seconds. Yes..for this predator it is not necessary to make long dives like for example a large sea bass, and it does not need to be hidden at the bottom, because it is a fish that is not afraid of anyone, it is the one that everyone else in the shallow sea runs away from -:) Basically, I make a sound ( gu gu gu -:) )before I touch the bottom and look around me. If the leerfish is near, it will come to check what is happening. I can not say that everytime it comes immediately, but…..it happens often. That day the fish seemed to “not be working”, but of course, taught by experience, I knew that this could change in a second. That’s why I persistently continued with the dives, hoping to have encounter with leerfish. I am truly excessive in my persistence when it comes to fishing, the desire to catch a big fish overcomes fatigue, boredom,everything!

After a few hours of spearfishing and about 150 short dives, my faith and hope never left me. Then I met Stephan and he show me a nice 8kg leerfish which he cought , and that gave me more hope that leerfishes are out there…..somewhere !?

Then I change tactic and decide to change the fishing depth, and go to the very end, the shallows.
Of course, in the beggining of my spearfishing it was strange to me that such a big fish can be caught in a meter… two… of seawater… but later from experience I learned that it is possible, very possible. I have caught large sea bass and gilt head seabream below a meter of depth!!

And so I lay down on the bottom, parallel to the shore, and wait. On my left, from the shore, after 30 seconds I notice a large silhouette heading towards me. Of course, it could just be a leerfish, but this time it’s HUGE. At 2m from the tip of the speargun it turns and leaves me literally “mouths agape”!!! Is it possible that it’s that big??? The fish was so big that I thought there was no chance of pulling it ashore. Instinctively, I pull the trigger and hit it behind the dorsal fin. And then the rodeo starts!!! 🙂

The line from the reel disappears in milliseconds, luckily I’m in the sea so the reel has water cooling 🙂 For a moment I think it wouldn’t be bad to stop (or at least slow down) the line, but that wasn’t a smart idea. The line cuts my glove a little and injures my finger!!

After all 80m of line are pulled out of the reel, the leerfish was pulling me on the surface. It was not “speedboating”, but it was pulling me gently, with my 98kg weight and 13kg of lead in my vest and on my belt!!!! I try to call Stephan to kill it with another gun, but he was far away….
Luckily, the connections, nylon and line held up and after about 20 minutes the leerfish gets tired, and I find it in the shallows, and I save it from suffering.

I held it in my hands, and I could not belive how big this fish is !!! AMAZING !!!

Unfortunately, I don’t have a video of this catch because my GoPro camera ran out of battery. Since then, I always have a second camera on my belt.

Then Stephan came to me and saw leerfish, he also could not belive how huge is the fish! We took few photos for memories, and I was enjoying in the adrenaline for few days……all the hard work paid off in the end !!