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Spearfishing in the Open Ocean Gone Wrong | Fishing Expedition Story
September 19, 2025 · 18 min · 9K views · Abrolhos Islands
What this video covers
A crew of four spearfishers aboard Amazon, a boat skippered by Michael, spends a week at the Abrolhos Islands off Western Australia targeting Spanish mackerel and crayfish with the goal of living entirely off what they catch.0:07 The group lands an enormous Spanish mackerel after three spear shots and a prolonged fight, hauling it into the dinghy with difficulty.4:46 Mid-trip, Amazon's rudder shears off — possibly after striking a cray pot — forcing the crew to improvise: they tow the dinghy astern and steer from it as a makeshift rudder for 40 nautical miles back toward Fremantle, using bow thrusters until those burn out too.11:46 While unbolting the broken rudder underwater, a tiger shark slides in from the blue, drawn by bronze whalers circling the anchored boat.9:17 The crew spends 15 minutes snorkeling alongside her.9:40 Shortly after, a neighboring catamaran drags the same tiger shark behind their vessel to drown it — illegal under Australian law and done, the crew later learns, so a child could mount its jaws.15:27 The narrator, a long-term vegetarian who broke from that to spearfish on the trip, reflects on the contradiction between catching fish for food and the visceral grief of watching a tiger shark killed for a trophy by a Fremantle restaurant owner.16:11
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