The sea offers a strange freedom. A mask and a deep breath are enough to find yourself "hosted" in an environment that offers generous peace, images and loneliness. A loneliness full of magic, flooded with blue.
If we add a snorkel to this image, then a small door opens in front of us… That of spearfishing...
Who better to "introduce" us to the world of spearfishing than the man who managed to make his hobby a profession, always with respect to the sea, and already having three world records in his quiver?
"Mr Spearfishing", Municipality of Adam, spoke to newsbeast.gr about spearfishing, his YouTube channel and explains how he manages to sell a fish 100 times…
- Let's start with the simple… I know you as "Mr Spearfishing", who is the man behind this title?
I am the Municipality of Adamis and I am a passionate amateur underwater fisherman! I am 34 years old and 25 of these years, I am exclusively engaged in spearfishing.
- How did your love for spearfishing come about?
The love started initially with fishing, as a child, for 2-3 years, during the summer. I quickly made the transition to spearfishing, at just 9 years old. My parents enrolled me in the swimming pool from the age of 3,5, because I had already fallen 1-2 times in the port fishing with abstinence. So since I was a child I had a very good relationship with the liquid element.
- Why did you choose this type of fishing and not one of the many that exist?
I have chosen underwater fishing, because the first time I wore a mask, 6 years old, I was just enchanted with the underwater world! It is the only kind of food collection that forces you to leave your human nature behind, to stop the basic function of respiration, so that you can enter this so different universe, where you can not breathe but you can "fly"!
- You have made every person's dream come true. Did you manage to make your hobby a profession, even at a young age?
First of all, it did not start with the goal of vocational rehabilitation. Along with the passion for spearfishing, over the years came a second passion… The video recording, which brought with it the passion for editing! So for 13 years now, I have been videotaping my fishing and uploading videos to YouTube.
- Your videos have a beginning, a middle and an end. In other words, every video is a short story. You show the journey to your destination, your preparation, fishing, emergence and finally cooking and σι tsimpousi!
In the short films that I make every time, I try to convey to the public all the processes that constitute underwater fishing. That is, the journey to get to new places, the diving together with the underwater experiences of the day and if we are lucky with a fish, the final process of what we call underwater fishing… That is, cleaning, cooking and eating the fish at a table with family or friends! Year by year all this grew and so did the cost of owning and operating the electronic equipment. I came to spend a large part of my salary to maintain the equipment and fishing and I decided I had to do something, I went in and managed to get back some of the thousands of euros I had spent! For many, the easy solution is to catch and sell a lot of fish. I thought it was a better idea to catch a fish and sell it 100 times!
- What do you mean to sell a fish 100 times?
I used an ancient Japanese fish print art and started printing the fish I caught. This print then goes on sweatshirts, macaws, towels, boards and cookware for the time being. Although as a printing method it is widespread around the world in clothing, there were no prints of Mediterranean fish. So I thought I would be the first in the world to sell Gyotaku Mediterranean fish in print. So as an idea it was original worldwide and if it did not "catch", I was ready to accept failure. I made my business move at a time when, after a decade of operation, the channel was now the largest of its kind in Greece and had gathered a potential clientele of 50.000 people from around the world!
- That is, you are a successful "canal manager". Your channel currently has more than 66.000 followers. From what I have noticed, day by day this number is increasing. What different do you offer to your followers from the many channels that exist and have similar content?
The channel is growing simply because people like what they see. So people choose to watch my videos over and over again and participate in them, with the result that the YouTube algorithm recognizes this and promotes my videos to the recommended ones. As with television, what counts is the time you hold the viewer. To keep the viewer, you must have good quality image, sound and something to say… Offer the other a story that will make him want to experience it himself. For years the spearfishing videos at YouTube, it was just fish shots and music playing from behind. Nobody showed how he got to the sea but also what happens to all these fish that died! Other channels in recent years have also shifted to this structure of videos and also enjoy rapid recognition and acceptance by the public.
- "As long as you respect the sea, it respects you and" gives "you". I have heard you say in your videos that "I want a fish for lunch, I will catch one". And you do. Big fish pass in front of you and you do not hit them. It's something that makes an impression…
This is my philosophy because I was quite lucky and from a young age I had people next to me who taught me respect for the sea and that it does not belong to me but to everyone! In general I leave the small ones fish who have not participated in many breeding cycles and I hit the big ones. The existence of many large individuals in a species means that the population of the species is in healthy numbers. So in species that large individuals are rare, it is best not to subtract more than 1-2 per year. As adults are very important in the reproductive process and because of their more "ancient" DNA but also the large amount of those they produce.
- Essentially you make money from the sea, without selling the fish…
The sea is rich and every smart and creative person can make a living from it, burdening it as little as possible. Some people, for example, live simply by selling underwater photos, so I thought why not make money selling clothes, with underwater "photos" on? Then came some collaborations with large companies in the field, whose products I "sold" for years through videos, simply without making money. Now I'm happy to have these people as partners and resell their products. Basically apart from the clothes, I sell every piece of equipment I use and the viewer sees it on YouTube.
- Your channel has become known abroad…
The canal consistently had a 15-20% audience from abroad as the underwater fishing community, even globally, is terribly small. So when some videos reach millions of views, it is almost certain that people from abroad will see them and that is why this 15-20% of foreign viewers has gone up.
- What products with the "Spearfishing Life" logo have you created and where can we find them?
I have printed several of the fish of the Greek seas and the χταπόδι. However, I chose from these fish, to put on the market only the species that are mainly engaged in spearfishing. So for now at least I chose to stick to 13 designs with fish and octopus. These fish are the sargos, the sea urchin, the sea bream, the gophari, the sea bass, the lychee, the scorpion, the rofos, the stira, the grouper, the piga, the dentex and of course the impressive, foreign lionfish. All these fish are then printed on sweatshirts, short sleeves, canvases and beach towels and you can find them on my site.
- You hold three world records. What are these; Are you preparing for the next record?
The first was the rib record, which was caught with a sniper rifle. Then I started using polespear which is a more primitive tool, like a harpoon. This is mainly used on reefs abroad, where the use of a regular speargun is prohibited. With the pole I caught a big sea bass and a big gopar later, which were set as a world record. Underwater fishing is not a sport, to train and if you are good enough you will achieve the world record. In spearfishing you can have a world record athletic performance but never encounter a world record size fish. The only "preparation" you can do is to be constantly in the water and leave the smaller fish hoping for the "trophy"!
- Solve a question for me so that readers can understand. How do you, the Municipality, know that you have made a record and how is their certification done?
There are international organizations that set records. There are lists of existing records and so you know if your fish surpasses the previous one. The registration process includes photos, videos, fish body measurements and weight measurement from a scale that has been tested in the same year. All of these are evaluated by ichthyologists of the committee and whether or not they set the record based on the data.
- Listening to the phrase "underwater fishing" and not knowing the details, one imagines something very difficult and especially very dangerous. What is the truth after all?
The truth is that as I told you before, we leave our element and enter a world we do not belong to. For example, if you hit your head at home and lose consciousness. You will wake up on the floor with a carob tree. If you hit your head on the boat and fall into the sea… you will have drowned with carob. So simple and for that in sea you never go alone on or under water. But if it is done under safety rules, it is a wonderful and safe hobby. Because I drive a lot to fish where I want, I will tell you that every time, I tremble more the 300-1000 km driving on the Greek Road Network, despite the fishing itself under safety rules. It is good for anyone who wants to go underwater fishing, to attend a free diving school.
- What is the biggest myth circulating around spearfishing and can you dispel it for me right now?
One of the biggest myths circulating is that spearfishing is a destructive method. The opposite is true, with underwater fishing being the most selective and sustainable form of fishing. As it gives the fish the biggest escape advantage. The spearfisherman will dive as far as he can with his breath and in the seconds that the dive lasts, he will choose and take only one fish back to the surface. A fish that he will have seen with his own eyes and will have chosen it based on some criteria and rules. So in speargun minimizes the chance of bycatch and catching sub-sized fish. Also, the sniper leaves nothing behind when other methods leave pencils, artificial baits, kilometers of line or net that continue to be death traps for years. The method of fishing with the smallest ecological footprint is clearly underwater fishing with scuba diving.
- What are the rules, unwritten or not, that should be followed by someone who wants to go underwater fishing?
An unwritten rule for me, as I told you before, is free diving school. It is what will make you better and more efficient in your fishing and will allow you to enjoy for many, many years safely the sea and its underwater world.
- And to close with a message, what is your advice to underwater and non-fishermen?
My advice is to go to the sea to have a good time and not to catch fish. To feel full and alone that they can travel and enjoy the sea with their friends! The fish they are looking for, sooner or later they will come by themselves and their friction with the sea until then, will have enabled them to finally catch them.