Kiley Umeda can hold her breath for almost four minutes while freediving to spearfish in the clear waters of the pacific ocean near her home on the big island of Hawaii. She has also dove 186 feet deep on a single breath. Kiley has helped me on my journey to learn the sport of freediving and spearfishing and I finally made the trip to Hawaii to spend two days diving and hunting fish and octopus with her. Spearfishing requires a mastery over the hunter's body and mind. A dive of 30 seconds in 25' of water feels like an eternity to me at this stage, and who better to learn from than one of the greatest in the World. After the second day we sat under a tree on the lava to record this show. I lost the cover for my microphone and had to cut the fingers off one of my gloves to keep the wind out of the mic so I sound a bit muffled, but y'all aren't here to listen to me. Spearfishing isn't just for tropical saltwater anymore, and we go through what you need to to swim and hunt fish in the waters where you live. Enjoy the show.
Check out the new DECKED system and get free shipping.
Check out SPEARFISHING GEAR owned and operated by Kiley,
Kiley Umeda can hold her breath for almost four minutes while freediving to spearfish in the clear waters of the pacific ocean near her home on the big island of Hawaii. She has also dove 186 feet deep on a single breath. Kiley has helped me on my journey to learn the sport of freediving and spearfishing and I finally made the trip to Hawaii to spend two days diving and hunting fish and octopus with her. Spearfishing requires a mastery over the hunter's body and mind. A dive of 30 seconds in 25' of water feels like an eternity to me at this stage, and who better to learn from than one of the greatest in the World. After the second day we sat under a tree on the lava to record this show. I lost the cover for my microphone and had to cut the fingers off one of my gloves to keep the wind out of the mic so I sound a bit muffled, but y'all aren't here to listen to me. Spearfishing isn't just for tropical saltwater anymore, and we go through what you need to to swim and hunt fish in the waters where you live. Enjoy the show.
Check out the new DECKED system and get free shipping.
Check out SPEARFISHING GEAR owned and operated by Kiley,
I mean, obviously you're not gonna be. You know slammin' fish if you're not pulling trigger.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So for me it's like I think that you will miss 100% of the shots that you don't take. So for me, even if I can cause it's, we're shooting invasives. So it doesn't even matter if I were just to win one, like we don't care, we just want them out. So I could be shooting it in the tail or in the stomach or something and I'll be just okay. At least I got one, yep.
Speaker 2:Help it out Therese Yep. These are stories of outdoor adventure and expert advice from folks with calloused hands. I'm James Nash and this is the Six Ranch Podcast. This episode of the Six Ranch Podcast is brought to you by DECT. That's D-E-C-K-E-D. If you don't know what that is.
Speaker 2:Dect is a drawer system that goes in the bed of a pickup truck or a van and it'll fit just about any American made pickup truck or van. It's a flat surface on top and then underneath there are two drawers that slide out that you can put your gear in, and it's gonna be completely weatherproof, so I've never had snow or rain or anything get in there. There's also a bunch of organizational features, like the deco line, and there's boxes that you can put rifles or bows or tools all different sizes. There's some bags and tool kits. There's a bunch of different stuff that you can put in there. But the biggest thing is you can take the stuff that's in your back seat out of your back seat and store it in the drawer system and it's secure. You can put a huge payload of a couple thousand pounds on top of this DECT drawer system. There's tie downs on it. You can strap down all your coolers and your four wheeler and whatever else you've got up there. It's good stuff.
Speaker 2:This is made out of all recycled material that's 100% manufactured in America, and if you go to DECTcom slash 6 Ranch, you'll get free shipping on anything that you order. This show is possible because companies like DECT sponsor it, and I would highly encourage you to support this American made business and get yourself some good gear. Sitting here on the edge of the Pacific Ocean on the big island of Hawaii with Kylo Umeda from America, spear Fishing, and we just spent the last two days diving out here. I learned so much, so much. I love spear fishing. Do you still love it? Do you ever have days where you're like I'm over this?
Speaker 1:No, I love spear fishing. It's one thing that I'll just do until the day I die yeah.
Speaker 2:You told me when you were getting started as, like a seven year old girl, you'd be out there trying to get tacos octopus, and your mom would hear you just swearing up a storm from the beach.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, there would be F-bombs, droughts, and then I could see her face for sure, all the way from where I was and I was like so frustrated. Those things are so smart, incredibly smart, and they're the one thing in the ocean that very, very unpredictable yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, we found four over the last couple days.
Speaker 1:Yep Got four.
Speaker 2:And it's going to be a real highlight of the trip for me the first one you spotted and it had gone underneath a little ledge and I think it was only in like 12 feet of water or something like that, and I had to dive on that thing like eight or ten times to try to get it. But talk to me about the technique of actually you know grabbing them Like what's your go to?
Speaker 1:Well, normally we like to tickle them out and it's a very you have to feel it Like. I can tell anybody like okay, we'll just poke it and then like make it irritated and agitated to where it wants to. Like try and like eat your spear.
Speaker 2:We've got a couple feral goats within like ten yards of this right now. That's a good goat call yeah. She looks pregnant.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you got twins, mama. Oh, my goodness, am I going to grab you? You guys can play that game and fuck around and find out right now.
Speaker 2:Now we got three of them, so there are so many feral goats on this island. It's incredible.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm changing subjects here, but it's because we're getting bombarded with goats. Now there's four of them.
Speaker 1:I just popped out of nowhere. They're like the colander, seriously. One shot one, there was like 20. Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 2:Okay. So when you're saying tickle them out of there, for people that don't know what you mean is, you're going down there and like poking them with the end of the spear gun, but not like super hard.
Speaker 1:You're mostly just trying to agitate them right, yeah, so basically they'll go back to their hole and then they'll just back all the way up, and what you want them to do is just get a little bit mad at your spear and then they're going to really attack it and then basically you're just going to keep doing that until the point where they're like, okay, screw this, I'm out of here. And once you do that, there's a fine line between once they're out of the hole, where you can, like, actually grab them before they actually go back in their hole. So it's like one of those things. It's like you have to just experience it for yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did it wrong a lot.
Speaker 1:No no.
Speaker 2:And then you know, the thing is, I just kept running out of running out of time. So by the time that I could get down there, find them, and then, you know, start annoying the poor thing enough to come out of the hole as soon as he's coming out, then I've got to go back to the surface right, because I don't have much of a breath hold right now. And then you know, once he actually did come out, try to grab him, missed big poof of ink and he went to a different ledge and I didn't know. You know this is the first time we've met. We talk spearfishing all the time. You've been on the show before, but I didn't know if you were like getting frustrated with me or losing patience. And I came up and I was like why don't you just go get that thing? And you're like hell, no, this is you and I really, really appreciate that sincerely. And at that point I was committed like I'm going to live here until I get this thing or it completely disappears.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's what it is. Spearfishing isn't supposed to be easy. It wasn't for the ups and downs, and you know this frustration, you wouldn't do it. Yeah, it's not fun.
Speaker 2:It's also it's incredibly rewarding. So you know, after yesterday, our first dive, we had an uhu, which is a parrotfish. We had a green mana, is that right?
Speaker 1:We had a manini Manini Kala.
Speaker 2:Yeah, green kala, that's what it was, and uh, and then we had a Kole, but not a King Kole right.
Speaker 1:I think that one was a Miko, Pretty close though same family.
Speaker 2:Different kind of surgeon fish. Yeah, you brought some. You brought some taco. You brought some smoked marlin started a fire there on the beach and we grilled some of those fish directly on the coals. Some of them we put into a cast iron skillet that had some hot oil in it. The only thing that we did was scale those fish, score them up a little bit, put some salt on it and the salt comes from here in Hawaii, and I mean just what a phenomenal meal that was.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, he definitely can't beat.
Speaker 2:He's got her within like five feet and Kylie is just ready to pounce. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I like. Which one's the girl? That one right there? Okay, all right, get out of here before I grab you. Um, yeah, just, we like to just try and do simple stuff, and then you can always put your chili pepper water on and then I'll show you. Yeah, you know, you don't have to make anything fancy. Yeah, it takes away too much of the taste of the fish Right.
Speaker 2:The parrot fish, though I thought was really amazing. I'd put that up against any gruber I've ever had.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, can't beat the Uhu Nuggies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, really good stuff. So then, uh, got to have dinner last night with with my buddy, justin Lee, up in my man. It was great to see him and it was the first time I've ever got to meet his wife sauna. So on a Lee. Uh, it was really sweet. Justin was late, of course, and uh, he called me and he goes hey, you can go in if you want. My wife's already there. And I said, uh, you know how well I know which one she is. And he said, uh, she'll be the prettiest girl in the room.
Speaker 1:Oh, Ronnie points. Yeah, 10 points Justin.
Speaker 2:And you and him have dived together for a long time, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Super long time. Um, you know, actually we had some like pretty funny stories together for sure. I'm not exactly sure what our first dive was, but they're like I can't trust him. He has to go in front of me because otherwise he's going to be like grabbing my face off the queen, like shaking me or telling me there's a shark, and I'm like where? And then he's like oh, just kidding, and the one time there was a monster target your shark, Like you know, the boy cried wolf, that's.
Speaker 1:Justin kept doing it to me all dive and then, like at the very end, when we're jumping, like going to jump out, this big mama shows up and I'm like, oh, oh, my God, oh, hi, behind you. If I have to shake you, I'll.
Speaker 2:Tell me about the baby powder story, oh.
Speaker 1:Justin, oh yeah, the bright idea, and I guess I mean he said it. He was so convincing. You know that. Oh yeah, just use baby powder on an open cell wetsuit. Works like a charm.
Speaker 2:Because usually getting into an open cell wetsuit is not an easy thing. You've got to put something in there to lubricate it up a little bit, otherwise it's not going to happen, and it was also really cold and I'm like oh pansy, when it comes to that cold stuff. Yeah, so most people use baby shampoo. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But no, justin told me oh yeah, just use baby powder. I'm like, okay, right on, I'll give it a go. Sure enough, I put it on, I was committed and I put my arm through and I was a little hard, okay, got the other one through and then, right when I tried to put on the top part for my head, I was stuck, stuck, stuck, and everyone's laughing at me and I was like all the boys are just like in a circle just laughing at me.
Speaker 2:And I'm like oh, this is not funny, guys, I can't breathe, I can't breathe.
Speaker 1:So I was like yelling at them to cut it. Finally somebody came and ripped it off of me. I was like, oh, that was the closest I came to actually passing.
Speaker 2:The shallow water blackout before you're ever in the water.
Speaker 1:That'll be embarrassing. Yeah, that'd be a good one.
Speaker 2:Now would you consider yourself a professional spear fisherman? Is that a fair? Fair thing to say no, just do it for fun. Just do it for fun Also. I mean you build spear guns for your profession.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I definitely do it, for I'm just an R and D, that's all. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:What is your deepest dive?
Speaker 1:My deepest dive is 186 feet. That was just a free dive, touch and go, kind of a thing.
Speaker 2:So the pressure that I feel when I'm in 20 to 30 feet of water feels really intense to me, like I can feel the mask getting kind of crushed into my face. I can feel, you know, pressure in my chest. The world changes a lot as you get down into that water and feel all that weight. What is it like at 186 feet?
Speaker 1:It's very quiet. Yeah, it's quiet and you're just in your own world. The best thing for you to do is just stay calm, stay relaxed. If you can think of a song that you really like, that's like not super upbeat, I just kind of sing that one in my head. What's your song? I go through a few people, but Taylor Swift right now. Okay.
Speaker 2:Rockin' some T-Swift 180 feet. That's my jam. Okay, and then how long is your longest breath hold?
Speaker 1:So static is a little different. It's not like actually doing stuff under water. But I know like my longest spearfishing time was like 340 something, wow. And then I shot a wuku, that dive. He just was being a punk and did not want to come in and I was like, okay, maybe I'll just relax and just put my head down and then maybe he'll come in and like he kept coming a little closer, a little closer, and I'm like, okay, I'll just wait for my head back down. Kept coming, coming and like not closing the mouth. Sure enough, eventually, at the very end of like my drop, I'm like, screw this thing, he just decides to book it to me. It's like one of those cat and mouse games. Once I was like I'm not paying attention to you, I hate you, get out of my life. He's like, oh, hello, hi, kylie, come back, come back. And then I'm stoning it, luckily, and I was like, okay, so, so stoked, and I did not know it was like the longest breath hold for me until I actually went in.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's amazing. Did you have a buddy that was up top watching you dive?
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. My partner was like I guess just like, okay, she may black out, I'm gonna make sure she's okay, but yeah, I was fine. How deep were you on that dive? I think I was like 50 feet or so.
Speaker 2:Wow, All right folks. So you know, look at your watch right now and just take a great big breath and see how long you can make it, and see if you can make it to three minutes and 45 seconds. Hopefully you're not driving the down the road while you're driving this, yeah please don't do that. Oh man, that's incredible. That's phenomenal. Do you see any real reason to push that farther? Do you think it would be to your advantage to have a four or five minute breath hold?
Speaker 1:No, not at all. I don't think it's worth it. I mean, I think it's better to have hunting skills. That outweighs anything. In all honesty, Learning the fish, learning their behavior, figuring how to approach it best, Like I said, every fish acts different and especially on different sides of the island. You know, on the clonicide, the fish are a lot smarter. They have their PhD. You know they're pretty educated. So I'd say, like you know, figuring out where to hide would be like my number one thing versus, like you know, I'm gonna shoot for, like you know, super, super deep dive to get this fish.
Speaker 2:That was one of the biggest things that I was working on was like finding a spot where I felt like I could get a handhold with my left hand once I got down and then being able to just hang out, you know, even if it was for five seconds or 10 seconds, to just try to be still down there, because from my understanding, that's one of the biggest things is just get to the bottom, don't move, and relax, don't look eminiscently at fish, you know, don't do anything crazy. I mean, there's like scratching and grunting and all the things that you can do to call fish in, but like that's, that's just not where I'm at yet Right now. I need to be able to just spend some time down on the bottom and actually get it, get my hand on something that's not not going to break off or stab me or bite me. That eel wigged me out today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like yeah, just you know it's in that hole. And then I was like that's a good size eel.
Speaker 2:So I had shot a fish that came off the spear and it went underneath and rock and Kylie swam down and said, yeah, it's right there. So I you know breathed it up for a while, went down and I couldn't clear my ears. So it took me like four or five attempts there just to get my ears cleared and blew all the like snot and boogers out of my nose and then went back down and tried again and I couldn't see under there that well, and this was in 22 feet of water, if I remember right. So I got my hand on the rock and looked under there and had speargun on my other hand and I could see something dark underneath the rock. I was like, well, maybe that's that. Oh, and I poked it and it was that eel that was eating the para fish and he like wiggled around a bunch and like shook the end of my spear and I was like, not cool.
Speaker 1:Eel.
Speaker 2:And I headed back to the top. That's his fish now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no worries, he has to eat dinner too.
Speaker 2:Yep, another thing that I found very interesting and Justin has talked with me about this before but if you snorkeled in Hawaii you might think how hard could it be.
Speaker 2:Like these fish just surround you, it's like a Disney princess moment sometimes, and when we're coming back in yesterday, there is a bunch of fish beneath us. And you switched me over to the three prong, which is like a. You know it's got three spring steel points that come out the end of it and then a big rubber band at the back and you know, you just it's all, it's all handheld. So you just put the rubber band in your hand, slide the spear back and then let it go and it kind of slingshots the spear forward. And you said that that's how kids learn a lot and it's really effective for smaller fish and closer shots. And you've killed a bunch of bigger fish with it too. But I got over the over a bunch of fish and I was like, oh yeah, this is my spot. And as soon as I pulled that spear back, before I had even like started to take a breath or dive, everything just went boom and like scattered, like quail.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like how smart are these fish?
Speaker 1:They're pretty smart, they know.
Speaker 2:They're good at surviving, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah and boy, they get hunted every day practically. The water's so nice, so it's like they have to figure it out, otherwise they're just going to be dead.
Speaker 2:So historically, spear fishing has been a saltwater thing, right, and if you lived in, talking to the US, if you lived in California or Florida, you probably spear fished a little bit, or at least were aware of it Hawaii for sure, but most of the people in the US didn't have access to a place where they could do it. There's something that's changing now, where people are starting to realize that they can spear fish in freshwater.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think a lot of that is because of some of these freshwater tournaments that have gone on. Have you ever competed in those?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I competed in one of our nationals in Las Vegas. That was so different.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Tell me about it Like coming from here and doing the crazy dives that you do here. Going to was it Lake Powell? Going to Lake Powell to hunt for carp stripers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we just shot a carp, but it's like the water feels very eerie and like the top of the surface isn't too cold, but once you get past that thermal climb, whoo. Like I said, I don't like cold. So for me to even stay warm, I actually had to make way more dives than I would normally would have, and that was the only way I could actually stay warm throughout that day.
Speaker 1:And, like for me over here, I have to be very aware of my surroundings, like you, know, there'll be eels, there'll be vana, which is, you know, that sea urchin that poke you Sharks and that kind of stuff. So when I was diving in the lake there'll be like a stick oh, blow up quite a bit of air. And I'll say, okay, I gotta remember like nothing can really hurt me in this lake. But it's just dark and it's like a little scary. Not gonna lie, I get scared.
Speaker 2:That's funny that you're more scared in a place where nothing can get you than in a place where stuff is trying to get you. Have you ever been bit by a needle?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was. I love bite. I just wanted a nibble, just a little taste.
Speaker 2:But you had a friend that lost a finger to one.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. So what I can say is, if they bite you and they have one of your phalanges, don't pull away. Just try and be calm. I know it sucks, it hurts, but the worst thing you can do is pull away because that thing will just rip your finger to shreds. I was lucky and I just got bitten and I just stayed really still oh, that's sore. And then he let go and I just went off on his way. I was like oh, you're lucky, I did not shoot you.
Speaker 2:I would not like that. I'm glad that the eel that I poked today didn't get upset, and you said it was a type of eel that tends to get a little bit grumpy anyways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they have anger issues for sure, like all of them. That's the one that will definitely swim out of the water to come and grab your fish if you're cleaning on the side. That's funny.
Speaker 2:For people that want to get into freshwater spear fishing, what is the minimum kit that they need?
Speaker 1:Definitely a good wetsuit. Being warm is going to make you comfortable. If you're comfortable, then you can stay calm and you can do your proper breathe ups. Just a decent speargun and some fins and weight belt and I'd say a very good fitting mask.
Speaker 2:That's something that I'm continuing to struggle with is finding a mask that fits me. Well, I'm gonna go to the dive shop here in Kona and shop for one again today. But getting water constantly coming into your mask even a little bit Not only is it distracting and it gets in your nose and makes your brain Feel like you're drowning, it also blocks your vision, blurs your vision in a way that it's really hard to see what in the heck you're shooting at. Spotting fish is really hard. Yeah, it's hard for me to even, like, tell what species or which species, and Because it's also new to me here. So how do you test for a mask to fit?
Speaker 1:So normally we'll go to a local Store and then they'll let you try them all on. But basically what you want to do is you're gonna put that Skirt to your face and then you want to be able to, like, push on it, and as long as it doesn't come off and it doesn't hit any high points on your face, that's a decent mask, like I. I mean everyone will say like, oh, get a low volume, low volume. But doesn't mean that's gonna be comfortable. I just say, go with something that's comfortable.
Speaker 2:Why is low volume important?
Speaker 1:It's just less air that you have to put in your mask if you dive deeper. But, like I said, it's like one of those things. Comfort is key, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, weight belts. Talk to me about that. That's something that's intimidating for people who haven't done this. Is, you know, that idea of Strapping some lead around their ways. They think you know they're gonna go down to the bottom and never come up again.
Speaker 1:Well, weight belts are something that's very important. You definitely want to have something that's like quick releasing and you need to be properly weighted, so, like Roughly, if you're gonna have like a three mil wetsuit on. And you know, like for me I Got a little bit of some beer chubs. You know we got the beer belly, so I have to use eight pounds.
Speaker 2:Well, you are sponsored by the Kona Brewing Company. Shout out to Kona.
Speaker 1:Yep, thank you, kona Brew. Well, those big waves are super old, but uh yeah. So, like usually, we'll just make sure that we'll start off real little bit, real light, and then eventually you know, your next time you go out you can just add a little bit more, like a pound, add another pound until you're like Neutral, because you that's the one thing, you don't want to be coming up from a dive and you're kicking and you're struggling to come back up.
Speaker 2:I was worried 11 pounds today.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm and that felt pretty close to right. You know, I could have maybe had another pound on, but I had less than that on yesterday and it was hard for me to get down. You know, salt water is a lot more point than fresh water. You know, I'm a big guy. I'm wearing a lot of neoprene in that wetsuit and it's got a bunch of air pockets in it, so I'm wearing a life jacket over my whole body, so I need to find a way to compensate for that. Yeah, okay, decent speargun. What's that look like?
Speaker 1:I Mean price range is, I guess, everyone's first thought. But I always tell people like, if you are Gonna be serious about this and you think that you're gonna do it, just go with a carbon one. Yeah, like, don't Mickey Mouse around with the aluminum. Yeah, it's, it's good because it's very durable, but it Eventually probably like two, three months. In all honesty, that's when people are like, hey, by the way, now I'm gonna buy that garden that you said to get in the first place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what's the practical difference between aluminum and?
Speaker 1:carbon, so aluminum is a lot louder, so we'll have a like a tank to it and that sometimes will actually scare the fish away before the chef will even get there. So it's just actually like move. In Hawaii they're famous for like turning right when you pull the trigger. Oh man, it's like same thing. Like you know, when you shoot deer with the bull, jump your strings.
Speaker 2:I had fish do that to me several times today and every time I felt like I was such an idiot. It wasn't From for me. Today it wasn't after the gun went off. It was like, okay, I'm gonna decide to pull the trigger right now, and I'm sure my body language was changing and that fish is like Deuces.
Speaker 1:I'm out of here.
Speaker 2:You know, it's like I was lined up, I had the plan, like everything was there and then you know the fishes isn't there anymore by the time the shaft gets there. However, the times that I was able to just like Be calm and relax and, you know, not like think angry, hateful thoughts about this fish I was smoking them.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I was happy with the way I shot today.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you stoned a bunch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, those, those little Kolei, are so delicious, my goodness, delicious potato chips. Yeah, it's like a cross between a fish and a potato chip, yeah, and you just scale them and fry them whole and they're they're really awesome.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, like grandma said, garfield would starve if you eat like us, no center bone so Fish is a is a big staple in your family, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah how many days a week do you think you're eating fish?
Speaker 1:Four times a week at least. Then we always have, like our little smoked marlin snackies or, you know, the taco.
Speaker 2:Octopus so good that smoked octopus is tremendous as well.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it's super good. I really like that, and it lasts a long time too. So I'll make a big batch and I'll chop it all up already and then vacuum seal. So it's good for, like you know, on the jet ski snack.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know something that I would add, based on my limited experience, to the, the freshwater spearfishing kit. If somebody's getting involved in it, you should probably get a three-prong also, because there's lots of opportunities to use that and it's it's so fast and simple to reload. You know, even Like I got three shots on one dive yesterday with it. That's nice, you know it's. It's a semi-automatic. I missed all three, but that's that. That's a different story.
Speaker 1:That's okay, I'm gonna educate a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, make it harder for the next guy. Exactly, it's, uh, it's. It's all so interesting. It's a cool world under there and for me to come to Hawaii like I'm I'm a foreigner here and on land, right, everything is new here. I'm not from here. It's super obvious. Everything is is so different. You know, we're on the edge of this huge lava field right now, next to a ceremonial burial site, looking out over the ocean, and that water is gonna be a thousand feet deep within a really short distance to to the shore, because if you take this island from the bottom of the ocean, it's the biggest mountain in the world, so it's really steep and gets deep really quickly. We were in blue water within 250 yards of shore.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah you know, if you're in North Carolina right now, you would have to run 50 to 70 miles out to find blue water that's crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's that's why it's it's so crazy to me.
Speaker 2:So so then we're in a very foreign world to me, here on the surface, where I can breathe, and then you get under the water where you can't breathe, and and there are colors in these fish that I've never seen elsewhere in my life, like colors that just don't exist in the air, and how these fish are all interacting with each other and how they're interacting on the reef and looking at the coral.
Speaker 2:All of it is such a visually stunning experience just to observe. And then you add the element of interacting with it and like trying to figure out Okay, how am I gonna get to the bottom, where I can't breathe, and Try and keep my eardrums from exploding and also be relaxed while I'm down there, find the right kind of fish, line up on it, take a shot and then get back to the surface. It is a tremendous thing to try to take on for somebody who's new to it, but it's so incredibly satisfying that I don't think it can be replaced in any other aspect of hunting or fishing that that I've ever even read about. This is incredibly unique in the way that you participate in that environment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very special. I mean like for me it's like, well, I'm just gonna go out and Just watch fish sometimes. Yeah, just gonna go first one, and it's a, it's a blessing for sure.
Speaker 2:I definitely took lots of breaks to do that and Part of it was like I'd get you know, wave down into my snorkel, I choke on seawater and then I'd get water in my mask. My eyes would be burning and I start to get a little bit flustered and I'm not not breathing Calmly. It's like, okay, maybe you just need to lay up here on the surface and just kind of watch for a little bit and Calm back down and think about it. I Bought a dive watch before it came out here and I spent the whole airplane ride over like trying to figure out how it worked and I didn't. I didn't know if it was gonna be that cool. It was the Garmin, garmin descent. I think I loved that. It was so interesting to me to see the amount of time that I spent down, the depth that I got to and then how much time I was back on the surface, like letting me know I had a set for three minutes.
Speaker 2:So every time I came back to the surface, I was waiting three minutes before I tried to dive again, which is more than more than what I needed, but some of these dives that felt to me like a very long time were like 35 seconds. A lot of the dives where I shot fish, I was back to the surface in a total of like 17 seconds. So that's gonna sound crazy to people that are like well, I can hold my breath for a minute, no problem. Yeah, you can, but you start adding these stressors and then suddenly it's a different ball game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, learning to have the ocean at your back and being okay to breathe calmly is quite difficult. I mean, there's times where even like just it can be really breezy, and just positioning your body so that your fins are not flapping in a weird direction, like. I'll take that into consideration too and I'll try and make my drop. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Those carbon plate fins, the E-cell this is my first time using those, that is. I mean, it's the difference between, like, running barefoot and running with shoes. Running shoes I never expected it to be that big of a difference.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's a game changer. I mean, you're just way more efficient and you're a kick and you just use way less energy. Yeah, and I'd say it's best to start off with a softer blade for sure, before you're like I mean, I have customers all the time. They're like I'm a big boy, I can kick, like stiff. I'm like nope, nope, no, you can't. You listen to Auntie? Yeah, I'm Auntie.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you?
Speaker 1:No, just listen and work your way up, because you don't want to learn how to kick funky, you don't want to have a bicycle kick. We want you to like, be efficient. We want you to use your big muscles and then otherwise they're just gonna break your ankles.
Speaker 2:Well, you're speaking facts here, because I'd come into this thinking that I was probably gonna want a medium stiffness blade and for all the same reasons that you just said, right, I'm a big guy. The reality is, for where I'm at right now, I don't want anything stiffer than those soft blades, and if I get to the point where I can put more power into them than what they can handle, sure that's the time for me to step up a little bit. But for now, if they were any stiffer, I would have a really hard time swimming with them.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and it's like once you have a hard time swimming, you're gonna burn more oxygen and also it's just like you don't really want to swim anymore and it just ruins your day. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, keep talking about like how time is sort of relative depending on what you're doing, but spending four hours diving feels like five days of work, like that is really physically exhausting without ever, without ever, having anything. That is a lot of output all at once. You know it's not a sprint, you're never moving all that fast, but it is really tiring.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it gives me a lot of perspective on these competitions where you guys are in the water for eight hours just doing dive after dive. That's insane.
Speaker 1:I mean for us we're lucky, we get to do it pretty consistently, so like we get the training year round, basically, yeah, so we're in good condition.
Speaker 2:I did 42 dives today and I am smoked. I feel like I need a small coma to catch up, and that's more than twice as much as something that I would do in a lake at home. Yeah, and this is. This is deeper and more dynamic in so many different ways, but really I just can't thank you enough for taking the last two days to teach me all this stuff and to take the time and show me these places, and we took your jet ski out today and bombed around to some different spots. The other thing that I want people to understand is that this is accessible to more physical fitness levels than I think people might imagine. Right, you don't have to have tremendous cardio, you don't have to be in good physical condition. You can take this on how you are right now, like if you can get in the water and swim around a little bit with a snorkel and fins. Then you can probably add a spear gun and start trying this.
Speaker 1:I definitely would I mean recommend taking like a freedive course too. That way you can actually learn the proper safety protocols, and it's definitely good to learn. Yeah, it's just, they teach you a proper technique on how to do a kick cycle and how to do a good entry in the water.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I need to take a freedive course really badly. They're just not accessible where I live, so it'll be like a full-on trip like this to be able to learn about it, but I need to do it before I start solidifying some of these bad habits that I have right now.
Speaker 1:Or you could just come down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm gonna keep coming back. I'm gonna keep coming back. Okay, I want to talk about hunting on land a little bit too, because that's something that you do a lot of. You were like a bird dog in a pheasant factory when those goats were right next to us a while ago. So what types of hunting do you do on land here in the Big?
Speaker 1:Island Over here I like to do a lot of archery. That'll consist of sheep, goats and pigs, Occasional chickens in the backyard.
Speaker 2:Occasional mongoose.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, mongoose, get it Big or small, I get them all.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So this hunting and spearfishing thing, like I don't think people would like pick you out of a lineup and be like, oh yeah, that girl right there, you know, standing at a lop and are you like five foot.
Speaker 1:Five two.
Speaker 2:Five, two. All right, I'm shortening a little bit. You know you're an unassuming person and I don't think people would be like, oh yeah, she's a hardcore bow hunter. Who can you know free dive 186 feet and, you know, kill fish while she's at it? It's super cool that you're able to do all that stuff. It's impressive. I don't know if you're impressed by yourself, but you're impressive to watch. What's the next level of spearfishing for you.
Speaker 1:Do you want to compete in worlds? No, I'm done competing.
Speaker 2:You're tired? Yeah, I'm retired. Tell me about Nationals.
Speaker 1:It's fun. I mean, the only reason I did it was because one of the kids that I've been teaching he wanted to give it a go, so I was like all right and he's out of retirement, all right, we can just try, you know, have fun.
Speaker 1:He's a good boy, peyton, and he started from young with me and then he shoots like 100 pound of lures, shoots onos with me, like you know, almost every weekend. So within a couple years he got so good and that's honestly what I like to do. I like to take kids.
Speaker 2:So how did it go?
Speaker 1:Nationals, we won, well we, so I won the, the kind, the women's, and then we took second. So, but it doesn't matter, it's like it. It feels like we won in general, because it's one of those things that it's like he definitely is one of those boys who just excited and he's like, okay, I don't know what to expect, but we're gonna give it a go. Yeah, okay, just don't get frustrated. And if you get frustrated, then you know, put the speargun down and then sit on the car for a little while and then try jump in again. Yeah, we took second and I took first for the overall women's.
Speaker 2:Congratulations, thanks. You told me that one of your, one of your approaches to competing is just to pull the trigger.
Speaker 1:as many times as possible. Yes, I mean, obviously you're not gonna be, you know, slamming fish if you're not pulling trigger. Yeah, so for me it's like I think that you will miss 100% of the shots that you don't take. So for me, even if I can because it's we're shooting invasives, so it doesn't even matter if I were just to win one, like we don't care, we just want them out. So I couldn't be shooting in the tail or in the stomach or something, and I'll be just okay. At least I got one.
Speaker 2:Yeah help it out. The reef Yep. So you shot some of these invasives today, which are called Roy it's a peacock grouper. Something that I found very interesting about that is you were shooting them, bringing them up to the surface, pulling out your dive knife, stabbing them in the brain, and then you were swimming them back down to the bottom and stacking rocks on top of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I I learned actually this last year when I was diving out Kona I I personally like to shoot a lot of Roy, so I guess it doesn't look good if the fish are floating on the surface. Yeah, people call Dillon R on you, gotcha, and I'm like it's Roy and they're like, oh okay, no problem then. So I just I do it. Now how to have it? Because I don't want someone to call Okay, get me in trouble.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that makes sense. Yeah, why are the Roy a problem for the reef?
Speaker 1:Oh, they just consume so much native fish and the Roy top until owl, they just multiply and they are just vacuums. They are the vacuums of the ocean. They eat all the baby fish and they multiply so fast and it's like one, you know, like that size today that we that I shot. As soon as I shot that one, you saw like two, three more pop up and then they dig out. It's just very, very difficult to get rid of and spear fishing actually is the easiest way to get rid of the roi, to op it and to waw. It might be a little easier to actually just catch them fishing because they're in big schools and they're very darty, they like to like. I shot a couple today but it was just like on the run swinging the gun. I miss so many times. I'm like scales, I'm like well, at least I hit you.
Speaker 2:The other thing about the roi is that you can't eat them.
Speaker 1:Yep, cigatera, that's another thing. I mean maybe on my side not too bad, but I mean I do see a lot of people eating them, but on this side I wouldn't touch that thing. What is cigatera? It is probably like the worst feeling flu that you could get. We actually got that in New Caledonia. Basically you have chills, headache, fever for weeks and it's just measurable. And unfortunately, once you have it you're prone to getting it again. So like you could be eating like a cola that's a little bit hot, might have some cig and you might just you know, might get it again.
Speaker 2:And it's a biotoxin right.
Speaker 1:It accumulates in all the other, you know smaller reef fish and then that roi might eat that fish. So that's how they end up getting it and it's just sad because we have a lot of runoff on, like from these golf courses. That's where one of those places that we do the second spot. But yeah, we saw Humm-E Roy over there.
Speaker 2:So what is the runoff from the golf?
Speaker 1:courses to the fertilizers and the heavy rain. It creates algal blooms and then that's the. That's what creates the cig.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that at all. Yeah, like right now, it's guaranteed gonna rain. It's probably up, malco, gonna be a couple inches of rain tonight and that's all gonna run down, and you got a foot of rain a couple of days ago. Oh yeah, that's normal for you, though it's crazy.
Speaker 2:It's so interesting, like where my uncle's place is, just outside of Waimea. It's dry, but you go five minutes towards Waimea and it rains every day. Oh, yeah, so there's just a line right there where it goes from desert to jungle almost it's. The weather here is fascinating.
Speaker 1:That's the nice thing, though, about Big Island. It's like, oh, we'll get away from the rain for the weekend. Go beach, go corner. Yeah, it's gonna be sunny.
Speaker 2:What other advice do you have to people who might be interested in getting into spearfishing?
Speaker 1:Honestly, like deal with a friend, yeah, yeah, it's best to do it with somebody that you can like, you know, consistently go with. That way you guys can learn together and you guys can come up with each other. You know that way, like, like, if you were to go spearfishing today by yourself, you wouldn't have been as pumped if you were by yourself.
Speaker 2:No, not at all. Not at all, and I would have been scared the whole time probably.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so like doing that stuff with a partner and it's a lot safer too. Yeah, I definitely recommend, you know, just having a buddy with you. You know it's. It's way more rewarding when you can share those experience with somebody.
Speaker 2:Which aim right speargun do you think is the best gun for somebody to start with?
Speaker 1:I'd say just the Fury open muzzle, the 2-ben. That way, later on, if you do want to go for a roller, you can just slap one on, very easy. Is that the pin flicker? No, that one is a little different. That one is a fancy integrated muzzle.
Speaker 2:I love that gun. I love it so much and it just it shoots really naturally for me. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. I think you did a good thing there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you did really good in the lake. I saw your string and I was like, ooh, you're stacking them up.
Speaker 2:For sure. And that last octopus today, that just kicked my ass, good grief.
Speaker 1:That was a very good shot. I thought you were going to drop down, but I was like, oh, from the surface, oh, hmm, too good.
Speaker 2:There wasn't a lot of leash left on that. If he was another couple feet deeper, then the shaft just wouldn't have gotten down there, but you drilled him perfect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, definitely he got stunned and then it was easy to bring him up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was awesome. Spotting those tacos down there is incredibly difficult. So, folks, we were above this thing and Kylie goes. She's pointing down at this rock and then she does like spirit fingers with her hand, like the octopus sign, and I'm looking, I'm like I don't see it. I come up out of the water, pull out my snorkel, I'm like I don't see it.
Speaker 2:And he says he's right there. He's the brown blob on top of the rock. He's like off to the side kind of, and I see the brown blob and I'm like I just think that that's more rock. And I was like am I pointing at it? He goes yes, you're pointing at it. He's like fine, here we go, let him fly. And sure enough, yeah, that's just another thing that, like at home, I can be driving 70 miles an hour down the interstate and see an elk three miles away out of my peripheral vision. I think it's probably like that for you to spot tacos here, whereas you know, if I'm going to point out an elk that's three miles away home, you might be like what are you talking?
Speaker 1:about. Oh guarantee, I already figured like I would be like what are we looking at? Oh, that brown thing a couple of miles away. It's probably a butt looking at us. I'm like I don't see it. I have hard times seeing, like the Axis deer sometimes in Maui.
Speaker 2:They're hard to spot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you would think, oh, bambi with spots, come on Easy. And I'm like, oh, I don't see it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the spots are good camouflage. Well, I'm going to be hunting Axis deer in Maui here in a couple of days. I'm flying over there tomorrow and very excited about that. I know nothing about what I'm getting into. I don't even know who I'm going with, but I know it's going to be a good time.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm going to probably do a shore dive or something while I'm there. Okay, how can people find out more about aim Ryan, more about you?
Speaker 1:Well, sweet, I'd recommend if actually contacting me directly if this is something you want to do, that way I can help you out. I don't I'm not trying to sell you stuff, you know. I'm just going to ask you basic questions like okay, well, how deep are you going to plan to dive? What type of fishing you going to shoot? You know I can help you out with that. That way I can figure out what kind of setup you would need. And that's my my jam. I like to help people and I like to make sure that they're going to get the best possible setup. And, like I said, I'm not trying to, like you know, upsell stuff. That's not what I'm about. So you can just Instagram message me. What am I? Kylie, underscore monster, something like that? Yeah, I don't pay attention to that kind of stuff too much, but um.
Speaker 2:K I L E Y underscore monster. And while you're at it, ask her how has she got the nickname monster?
Speaker 1:No, we're not going to talk about that. I would make people very upset.
Speaker 2:Now you're for sure going to get questions about it. Yeah, okay, folks, that's it. You can also go to amriteusacom.
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 2:I'm a I am R I T E USAcom. This is. This is tremendous gear. I know you take a lot of a lot of pride and quality and the way you build the stuff. Most of these guns are built by your hands and you have a lifetime warranty.
Speaker 1:Lifetime warranty, which is pretty unique in the business. It is actually yeah, um, and, like I said, if there's any questions or problems, just feel free to like message me or call me, email, no matter. Like we always respond within one, one to two days and turn around time for anything to is also like one to two days, super fast, because it's I'll be like, as long as I'm not diving or, you know, taking people diving, it's going out yeah.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, again, I can't thank you enough for providing the the incredible experience of getting to to fish and cook and fish and dive and eat with you the last couple of days.
Speaker 1:No, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2:I look forward to hosting you on a, on a hunt or something like that back home.
Speaker 1:Sounds good.
Speaker 2:All right, thank you. Thank you, kylie. I just want to take a second and thank everyone who's written a review, who has sent mail, who's sent emails, who's sent messages. Your support is incredible and I also love running into it trade shows and events just out on the hillside when we're hunting. I think that that's fantastic. I hope you guys keep adventuring as hard and as often as you can. Art for the six ranch podcast was created by John Chattelin and was digitized by Celia Harlander. Original music was written and performed by Justin Hay, and the six ranch podcast is now produced by six ranch media. Thank you all so much for your continued support of the show and I look forward to next week when we can bring you a brand new episode.