February 11 – Jeudi – Tiputa, Rangiroa

Reflections on spear fishing.

For us from the higher latitudes and areas with really productive coastal waters, it seems implausible that fishing with spears could be a significant or effective means to collect fish. And I suppose if you take an industrial trawler with a crew of six and compare the amount of fish caught per person per unit time, the spear fishing effort looks modest at best. But then again, a coral reef is a very different kind of place to fish. The nature of the corals themselves make using a piece of gear contacting the bottom a hazardous enterprise at best – nets will snag and tear unless set by hand. Another large difference is the fish. Their diversity is tremendous, and while some species are pretty easy to catch by hook, others can be all but impossible. And they all taste different, so if you really want to eat, say, Oiri (Triggerfish), the most effective way to go get it actually is by spear.

And the quantities caught are not necessarily that modest either. I interviewed one professional fisherman in Rangiroa who reported catching around 90 Parai (a species of surgeonfish) per week for the local hotel. Given that these fish can reach two or more kg (5 pounds) in weight, the weekly catch can easily exceed 400 pounds and the monthly catch is likely well over half a ton of this one fish. By one fisherman. Multiply this by some tens of people in Tiputa and Avatoru, and the amounts start to become pretty significant.

So the pluses are these: you get to select exactly what you want to catch and your equipment investment is very small (spear gun, mask, snorkel, fins, plastic tote, a knife). The downside is you better like being in the water. And you better start early, because the kind of skill I see these people exhibit comes only with childhood conditioning and training.

Is spear fishing a traditional technique of fishing, though? I’ve been trying to get some answers about how long the current form with the rubber strap powered guns (pupuhi) has been around here, and how much it differed from the preceding method. The answers I’ve been getting from people in their 60’s and 70’s is pretty consistent among the islands. The preceding technique employed a spear called patia, some 2.5 meters long over all. The first two meters was a wooden handle constructed from Puru or Aito trees, and the last 50 cm was the barbed steel spear. The reach of this weapon would have been about two meters plus the length of the arm thrust used to deliver it to the target. The transition between the two occurred sometime between 1965 and 1970, almost simultaneously on all the islands I have visited.

It is useful to think about the advantages of the modern pupuhi over patia. The velocity of the spear (auri) delivered from pupuhi is faster than the fish escape response, and the reach of the weapon is much higher – up to 5 meters or so. To put it in practical terms, even I can catch a fish with pupuhi. Toss in the outboard motor and the ability to range further faster, the game has changed dramatically since the late 60’s on the spear fishing front. To a person, the current generation of spear fishermen does not think it possible to catch fish with patia today. This is an interesting measure of the number of possible changes.

Perhaps fish behavior has changed. I’m not an expert in this field and so don’t know how likely this is. Certainly fish learn, but often their curiosity brings them to within range of the pupuhi so any change certainly hasn’t been universal. Then again it seems from my casual observations that places with the most fishing effort also has the most easily spooked fish. Why would patia fishing not have had the same effect on fish? The sound of the spear?

Maybe the current generation of fishermen are just softer, slower or less talented than the people of old. This seems unlikely. Certainly they are trained in and used to the modern technique, but it seems really unlikely to me that they could have much success with the patia however skilled they were in its use in the environment they are fishing. What much success means here is completely open to question; perhaps in the days of old you went fishing and didn’t expect to catch anything necessarily, whereas today the expectation is to come home with a whole pile of fish. It would be really interesting to put a patia in the hands of a good spear fisherman for a month and see what happens!

What all the fishermen seem to agree on is that there is less fish. Some blame scuba divers and the resulting bubbles, some blame global warming, some blame themselves. My working hypothesis is that there is just less fish and the ones that are there are smaller, so the nature of the problem is likely the lack of suitable targets to hit with a patia.

And finally, how traditional a way of fishing is the use of the patia? Without a mask, hitting a fish underwater seems impossible, so this method is likely no older than pearl diving, introduced sometime in the mid 1800’s (I’ll check this date – a bit unsure of it) with the use of glass-faced underwater goggles. We do know that spears have been in use for much longer, used for fish in the shallow back reefs where you can hit them from the surface. There are many written accounts of this fishing technique in the post European contact period, and there is a long archaeological record of spear tips from all around the Polynesian islands.

That is probably enough on this topic. Just a sample of the kinds of things I’ve been thinking about.