Scup

[MeTo]

Anyone been shooting scup? I been spearfishing for 15 plus years and those fish are the hardest fish to hunt. Hard to get a broadside shot, usually take a quartering toward me shot. I have never shot my limit, not even when it was ten.

[SHABUMI]

LOL. yup,
for me its like similar to trying to swat a fruit fly-nearly impossible. Operative word, "nearly".

Cheers, Noel.

[Agador]

Try night dive

[renepotvin]

Yeah well, scups are the trophy fish of New England. They are everywhere most of the time. Therefore hunters have no excuses. I love it. BTW There are a lot of scups these days. Ten years ago some divers never even saw them.

A few common ways to get them :

1- Find a patch of sand surrounded by rocks. Lay in the rocks facing the sun if possible, otherwise towards deeper water. Lay motionless, really motionless, for about 60 seconds. you should see their shadows. You gun has to be pointing in the exact direction ideally. You'll know if you were motionless lol. That includes the eyes. Total dive time will exceed 90 seconds.

2- You can also wait at the bottom of a boulder. You should see them swim over it if you are in the right spot.

3- To get the feeding scups is a bit different. You'll have to swim from rock to rock, hugging the bottom, and hope to surprise them feeding on the sand. That's the most fun, but really challenging. Most beginners get feeding scups that are slow to react. Those are not too common.

4- On long dives, waiting for stripers for instance, I'll often see entire schools of scups pass in front of me.

BTW... you will not have long to shoot and scups can avoid a slow shaft... (either use a 6mm or a lot of power on a larger shaft).

[MeTo]

Thanks for the tips.

[SHABUMI]

Good info guys, Thanks.

....scup