Thread: Free diving on Stewart Island

Hi guys I'm ok at scbua but a pretty shit free diver.

Any tips for catching crays and paua.

We are staying at the Christmas village hut..

Dive straight off beach or off a tiny.

What depth would grays and more importantly paua be in.

Will I need a weight belt.

Thanks in advance for advice..

If you aren't already used to freediving and don't know the signs of shallow water blackout, don't go freediving. The excitement of chasing an elusive cray could start a cascade of bad shit happening. Stewart island is remote and not a good place to have an emergency.

Ease into it. If you don't regularly free dive, don't start on Stewart Island! The usually good vis and plentiful harvest could be the undoing of you. Even with dive gear you can be lured into doing silly things to get a feed for your mates...like feeding your dive cylinder in first through a small opening to a cave just chokka full of crays...

It should be easy enough to get a paua or three without getting too serious. When I walked the track some of the trampers were living off paua they collected at low tide with no mask.

Originally Posted by Mohawk660

Hi guys I'm ok at scbua but a pretty shit free diver.

Any tips for catching crays and paua.

We are staying at the Christmas village hut..

Dive straight off beach or off a tiny.

What depth would grays and more importantly paua be in.

Will I need a weight belt.

Thanks in advance for advice..

Cigar is right - with a little searching we got all the paua we needed by just looking into pools at low tide - barely got wet- pick a remoter headland or rock shelf and go and have a look

Not to fussed about grays, more keen to get a feed of Paua....Thanks for the advice....I'm far to old to do the silly things you do when your young. And know my limits....

prepare some gloves and small knife, those paua stick like super glue.
have fun, be safe, if you have to go up and down 3x to take a breath to get take that 1 paua then so be it (don't push it).

Piece of cake there. There’ll be plenty of paua there, probably in less than 2 metres of water at low tide. Safe place to have a splash. Take a spear gun, there’ll be moki, green bone and other good eating fish pretty shallow too on an incoming tide.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Just got back from the south of the island which may be slightly different.
Paua were super easy and barely need to hold your breath at low tide.
Fish were plentiful(butterfish, trumpeter, moki etc.).
Crays were a little harder to find but once found were good size and found in depths from 6m-20m.

Originally Posted by Quicknock

Just got back from the south of the island which may be slightly different.
Paua were super easy and barely need to hold your breath at low tide.
Fish were plentiful(butterfish, trumpeter, moki etc.).
Crays were a little harder to find but once found were good size and found in depths from 6m-20m.

Sounds like you had an awesome trip...did you take a dive belt? I usually have 8kgs when I scuba so I was thinking maybe 5kgs when free diving...

Originally Posted by Mohawk660

Sounds like you had an awesome trip...did you take a dive belt? I usually have 8kgs when I scuba so I was thinking maybe 5kgs when free diving...

You'll need a weight belt if wearing a wetsuit. General rule is 1kg of weight to every 10kg of body weight if wearing a 5mm wetsuit.

Originally Posted by Mohawk660

I usually have 8kgs when I scuba so I was thinking maybe 5kgs when free diving...

You might be surprised! I wear about the same amount of weight for SCUBA and freediving, maybe even a little more for freediving.

We were in Little Glory bay and a great white larger than our 4m tinny swim under us. No pāua for me that trip.

Got Paua at Bungaree without getting my feet wet. Big tides though. You shouldn't have to go deep to find them.

I went to Xmas village 17 years ago. There were quite a few sea weeds around in the water.
But there must be some good spots in that bay. Don’t forget to grab a rifle when you head to the beach, the deer are often hanging there.