Spearfishing charters

[divinu]

Hi guys, I need a bit of advice and feedback here.

We are a group of students in Malta with a common passion: spear fishing.
Recently we were pondering the idea of setting up a spear fishing charter business in Malta where we take foreign and Maltese spear fishers to some of the best spear fishing places in Malta. We always thought of it as an idea until we were given an assignment at university to try and set up a business so we decided to give this a go.

For now we are still gathering feedback both from Maltese people and foreigners. As far as i know there is no one in Malta that focuses on spearfishing and apnea. Please correct me if I'm wrong. For now this is only an assignment but if we get considerable feedback this could definitely change.

There will be two types of charters, being

The shallow water charter,
For novice people with a working depth of 15m
The target fish can be any but mostly it is all about breams, brown meagre, small amberjacks, mahi mahi(dorado), octopus, and others

Deep water charters
For the more adventurous and capable apneists starting from 15m onwards.... the reefs for this specific type of fishing inhibit some of the great snapper, amberjacks and groupers.

With both type of charters the group will be offering a free jigging session on the same day.

The boat we will be using has a capacity of 6 poeple, including the apnea instructor and the boatman. Capacity might be small but for safety reasons its better that way.

Top class Equipment like fins (we use exclusively C4 fins), spear guns(wooden totem sub guns), weights ect. may be given but as you know, this is not just something you wear on and can use, there is a process to learn using your own equipment.

Prices will be moderate and any catches shall be kept by the clients. We would also be focusing on the idea of photo opportunities, well I think you guys know that malta is beautiful.

If such a company is setup, would you be interested??? Any feedback is greatly appreciated guys.

Thanks
Divinu

[Gazzetta]

Ara l pirott aw !! Xanna siehbi ?
Nice idea e, gl al futur   

Chris 

[divinu]

ara min aw ostra. Mela daqsekk offroading jew hehe. Thanks xbin jekk ikun aw min hu interessat nibdew nahsbuha bis-serjeta din l-idea.

[Granitu]

gd idea divinu

would be more than interested.

[robby017]

good idea, esp for novices... remember, i think people you take out will have to have, minimum, a licence to use a harpoon....

[divinu]

No problem robby, the Maltese law is set to introduce special licenses for tourism purposes. Considering malta in particular, if the tourism venture succeeds, i don't think that there will be much resistance from local authorities.

They would even amend the law for the required reason... just like the areas prohibited for spearfishing, remember?

[Seahunter]

(My personal opinion) If you take someone to the best fishing places, thats the last day it remains the best. Especially with sedentary species. Once I took a "Friend" to a special gurbell cache which I had been reaping for many years, greed soon took over and the griebel vanished. Take people to a good fishing spot and within days you get someone letting off explosives there and another spot is gone forever.

Very good point, as things nomally happen in Malta, I can't really see that this idea will work out.  But that's just my opinion.  Also, if this will become a daily buisness, how many fish will you expect to keep on catching?

[EmicMalta]

talking about spearfishing chartering, its a very nice thing to start where we need a very professional staff to start doing this here in Malta. But.......... as everyone knows malta is so small that its very difficult to do it. Than one have to consider what is espected by the "clients" to catch or just to see. Here in Malta like lot of other countries there is the illegale spearfishing where cannot give even a garantee of seeing the fish so immagine of catching fish. Do you think that they will come again? We ve just been in Tunes for a spearfishing competition, and it had cost me about 100euro fer every fish I had. Do you think I will go again in the same place? The place was wonderfull but it was over fished by scuba-divers. Here in Malta one can see doing spearfishing diving with cylinders onto wrecks nearly every day. I don t think you can garantee this. About what freedive said, last winter during a competition I had to show one of my best paces at Lapsi. No one knew about it cos for sure in the first 4hrs of the competition someone should had tried it. I got stuck a spear in it and after a week I didn t found it and so the fish. I check this rock every single dive I do an not a single fish. Have to say that under this rock use to find 40-60kg of fish

[freediver]

(My personal opinion) If you take someone to the best fishing places, thats the last day it remains the best. Especially with sedentary species. Once I took a "Friend" to a special gurbell cache which I had been reaping for many years, greed soon took over and the griebel vanished. Take people to a good fishing spot and within days you get someone letting off explosives there and another spot is gone forever.

from my experiance i agrea with freedive and emic and see hunter here in malta we have very few and if you tell your secret places make it for sure you don't have the chance to visit it again

[skip]

If it's mostly from the perspective of being able to take people out by boat who don't normally have access to one and being with experienced spearfishers then it stands a good chance of working, but not from the aspect of a fishing charter but more technique and experience for the reasons stated above.

You'll also need to see about getting the boat commercially registered, have a skipper with a commercial license and associated insurance implications that come with chartering.

[fish-noob]

also to add to skip's post, an adequate insurance for injury or death to the clients(happens)

[divinu]

Hey guys, I understand how you feel about the subject and I would agree with you. The very same thing happened to me once. However we are trying to focus on tourists and foreign enthusiasts that come to Malta for a fishing holiday. That way the risk of having too many people coming to a single area is decreased. Its not the same as taking a group of locals that once they learn the basics they start invading your turf. I think it is more controlled this way.And as you know every fisherman leaves the best places for himself so we also like to have some places where we can have fun.

As regards to costs we are taking into consideration everything including licences to harpoons, boat licence and insurance etc... And as stated above, we are only gathering feedback for an assignment at the moment. However we are quite positive of the idea.

and thank you for your feedback guys, it is of great help! We are not looking just for positive things, in fact the more things you point out to us that might pose a problem the better. :p

[benri]

Unfortunately you cannot set it up strictly for tourists.... If a Maltese would like to join you cannot refuse if he's a paying customer!

[King]

I 4got how to apply some photos in the forum>> Can somebody Help me pls! I have Nice Pictures including some nice sized octopus that i would like to share wuth you guys!

[robby017]

u have to be a premium or VIP member to upload photos King!

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As per announcement http://maltafishingforum.com/talk/index.php?page=10 posted in April 2009