How it all Started

By: Roger Y. Yazbeck

My first dives were without the fins... My folks were too afraid I might drown... they always wanted me to stay on the beach where my feet could still touch the sandy bottom... I was only 8 years old then.

So, I used to float on the surface with the mask (no snorkel, then... only a mask!) and, with a 4 lb test fishing line, 10 ft long, with a hook and a lead weight on one end, (with the other end safely attached to the inside key pocket of my "Speedo" swim suit) I would drop the bait in front of the "sleeping" summer flounders in the sand, and move it slowly until it almost touches their mouth. Gulp! and a minute later it would be jumping in the supermarket plastic bag attached to my waist! Other small fish species were on the menu too; most commonly, the striped bream.

I used to dig in the sand first to get small shells which I opened with my teeth and nails, using them as bait...  When I recently told my dentist in Montreal how I broke the shells, he laughed all the way to the bank :-)

No fins, no snorkel, and certainly no spear gun! But I definitely was the attraction at the beach, and my folks always had one hell of a fresh fried fish supper each time!

I got my first spear gun when I was 13.

Next story will be about spearfishing in October 1978, in Lebanon. The war was raging then, and spearfishing "saved my life", so to say...

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