“In 2017 myself and a good mate Andrew organized a spearfishing trip to Norway for giant Atlantic halibut. Long story short, I never saw a monster to shoot but everyone else did. I spent 6 days swimming around north of the Arctic Circle looking at the bottom searching for a halibut, but it just never came to fruition.

So, we planned a trip the next year and finally I got my moment.

Second day I see a bunch of cod circling erratically on the bottom, which generally means there is a predator in the area. In my head I kept telling myself I'm going to see a halibut. Then suddenly I see the unmistakable shape on the bottom in only around 7m. I checked my float line wasn't tangled around me and then made a duck dive.

A decent shot but the fish took off and I could see my shaft had gone all the way through and it was on the monofilament. I got a second and third shot into the fish and secured a 47kg halibut. Not the biggest one out there but one I was super stoked on. They are fantastic eating and the conditions to find them are harsh.”

“Easter Monday 2007. I was diving off Moreton island with a squiffy forecast. We were in my mates 17ft Haines hunter boat.

I came up on one drift to see if I could get into the boat for some lunch only to see the owner, Steve, spread eagle on the bottom of the hull with the propellor in the air.

The boat had flipped while another diver was driving it due to turning the boat broadside to a breaking wave by accident. Steve managed to get the anchor out so the boat didn't drift away.

It was late afternoon and we waited for around 3 hours before the rescue helicopter came and the man dropped down on the line. He plucked us 1 by 1 from the water and dropped us on the nearby reef which comes out of the water at low tide. From there, 2 by 2 to the cape helipad where a hospital chopper came for the man driving the boat. He had a few broken ribs and a cracked vertebrae from the boat landing on him. The other three of us got a chopper back to a local airfield.

The next day some friends went out and found the boat sunk and laying on the bottom in around 30-35m of water. They retrieved what they could and took a GPS mark.

A week later, Steve went back with scuba gear, a lift bag and got his boat back. Now affectionately known as the yellow submarine.”

“Focus on hunting, not free diving ability.”

I am really enjoying spearfishing in the UK at the moment and hunting in holes for bass. It's often shallow and one mistake leads to failure. You have the possibility of finding quite large fish (over 5kg) sitting in a cave which makes it really exciting knowing that every dive could be the one. Other than that, in the Mediterranean I've been enjoying the challenge and extremely slow progress of hunting Dentex. I've not managed a big one yet but a few smaller ones give me hope that one day I might find a fish over 5kg that is interested in coming close enough to be to say hello.

I haven't been everywhere in the world but have been fortunate enough to dive in 23 countries. Each place has its own style of spearfishing and target species which I love. However one place I love dearly is what I would consider my local, Moreton Island off the coast of Brisbane in Australia.

I remember my first trip out there when I was 17 years old. Clean water, loads of fish and sharks. There is so much species diversity there, if you named a fish, it's probably been speared there. Everything from wahoo, Spanish mackerel, mangrove jacks, mahi mahi, parrot fish, tusk fish, job fish, mu, giant trevally, marlin, sailfish, long nose emperor, mulloway, red emperor, coral trout, fingermark. The list never ends! It's a great big melting pot of tropical and temperate species and depths ranging from 5m - 35m.

It's taken me all over the world and I've made friends for life. You're never alone when you're a spearfisher.

I'd like to see people have an understanding that spearfishing is different everywhere in the world.

I often get flack for shooting 500g fish in the Med from people in America or Australia. The more I dive and travel to new places to more I realise things are different everywhere in the world, much like culture, cuisine, language etc.