Tao Hoogland

Hometown: Broome, Western Australia

Where you live: Seasonally between Broome/Margaret River, Western Australia

How long have you been spearfishing:

Haha this question makes me feel old. I started spearfishing at a very young age around Broome, WA. I was 7 years old, (roughly 28 years ago) and mainly self taught with some basic user guidance from my Dad, but I had already been using hand spears for years, basically since I could walk. I went through a few of those bright yellow or green handle spearguns with screw on double flopper or triple prong heads that could barley throw a shaft one metre. When I was 13 I saved all my pocket money to buy a brand new 95cm black speargun. It had two 14mm rubber bands and a solid one piece single flopper shaft. That’s when I really started to find and stalk better fish, but it’s only in the last 8 years or so that I started to focus on bigger pelagic and specific species adopting a proper understanding of how fish act and move in order to make every hunt a successful and wasteless one.

Top 3 places you have spearfished:

Scott Reef, in Western Australia is my all time favourite place. I’ve been spearing there since 2004. With super clear water the vis can be 60-100m. Every tropical pelagic you can imagine including, Dogtooth tuna, Yellowfin tuna, Sailfish, Marlin, Wahoo, you name it, it’s there and then there’s the abundance of reef species like all your trout species, then MSP, green job fish, rusty job fish, buffalo emperor, midnight snapper, the list goes on. I just can’t get enough of the place.

Second on my list would be the Togean islands Indonesia. The Togean islands isn’t about max yield of fish, it’s about your ability to understand and stalk fish in incredible clear water. The Bajo men (sea gypsies) from the Togean islands have been free diving with home made spearguns for generations and can generally stay underwater for over seven minutes, meaning fish are flighty but targeting big mangrove jacks, midnight snapper, buffalo emperor and even dogtooth tuna are possible off 50m vertical drop offs, depending on your level of discipline and skill.

Third would have to be my home town of Broome and the North West coast. Other than the fact it’s the area I learnt to spearfish there is still a lot of great variety. Some of the biggest Spanish Mackerel in the country and an abundance of decent reef species like MSP, blackspot tusk fish, coral trout, gold snapper, blue line emperor, mulloway (black Jew fish) and crayfish if you know where to look. The conditions don’t always allow for good spearing with average vis often but that’s where time in the water and local knowledge goes a long way.

First fish:

My first fish was a sand whiting. On the day I got about four from memory. Out the front of my dad’s property is a small tidal creek system that can almost dry out at low tide but would flood in with fish on the incoming. During a certain time of year, thick schools of whiting would come in as well. This day I had my little 60 or 70cm yellow handle single rubber speargun with a triple prong head screwed on. I remember swimming up to the school of whiting and taking a wild shot into the pack, landing my first one on my second shot. I know it might not sound like much but when you’re 7 years old and successfully load, hunt and spear a fish, you feel pretty proud to walk home with lunch.

Top 3 fish landed:

My first Dogtooth tuna over 30kg was a memorable one. I had previously landed a few doggies and even stoned my very first one I speared that weighed 18.5kg but this fish was different. My dive buddy Jay and I left the mother ship at Scott Reef on my JetSki just before sunrise to dive a lump I had marked out the night before. The drift was slow and my main goal was to get Jay onto a decent one, so I worked the flasher and burley. Moments later I saw Jay put a shot into a solid 50+ kg beast then his floats disappeared to the depth shortly after. His first float went down to about 15-20m before I watched it dart back to the surface as the fish had pulled. We were pissed. As Jay was retrieving his gear I watched three nice ones come under me at about 16m so I dropped down to intercept. The biggest of the three came straight below me at a slow pace so I lined it up and pulled the trigger placing a nice shot. It didn’t do much at first but then went nuts with wild head shakes before darting down deep. I watched my first float zoom past then down as I grabbed it and held on for dear life. While at the same time all my gear got tangled with Jays and I was being dragged down deeper and deeper, finally gaining some ground before I ran out of breath and got to the surface. Luckily he darted to the depth off the edge of the reef and I was able to wear him out.

30kg Spanish Mackerel on a 105cm reel gun. This was a lot of fun and again from my JetSki. I just had a nice sailfish come right up to me on the ski and swim around for a good ten minutes as I was scouting a reef edge and tideline late in the afternoon. A few of my good dive buddies and I jumped in and drifted the same area when suddenly two solid Mackerel came right up to me in ten metres of water, I dived down, picked the biggest one and went for a spine shot. The shot landed a bit high but held. I got towed like I was behind a boat along the surface through dozens of jellyfish for a solid ten minutes and nearly lost all my line on the reel before I finally made some ground. Luckily one of my dive buddies got back to my ski and came over to me just as I got ahold of the fish.

72cm Mangrove Jack (didn’t get to weigh it) we don’t get a lot of big jacks in my area so to land this beast was pretty exciting. I actually got a 72 and a 70cm on the same day. Diving into a huge swim through cave and seeing the silhouettes of a thirty strong school of big jacks is pretty epic. I calmly picked out the biggest one I saw and pulled the trigger. I totally underestimated the power of this thing and I got dragged through and out the other side of the cave before I did the big bear hug. I’ve found that it’s not always the biggest fish that holds the greatest memories, sometimes it’s the unexpected fish of the dive or the one you never thought you’d land or simply a solid team you dived with that day. Other memorable fish are a 9.8kg MSP, 10kg Mulloway on pole spear, 10.5kg bluespot coral trout and a 7.6kg green job fish from a 2:07 minute dive at 20m.

What fish to you think about hunting the most:

Dogtooth Tuna!! Haha this has probably been said a lot but I honestly don’t think a day goes by without me thinking of them. They are the dirtiest fighting fish around with way more power than even they can control. The skill and equipment needed to land them makes them a very specific target fish where everything counts, like shot placement, proper rigged gear, and always a bit of luck, but they are also my very favorite fish to eat.

Top 3 dream fish not yet landed:

I really want a Dogtooth over 60kg in WA. I have freedived with them well over 70kg while scouting spots here in WA, but I still haven’t had the opportunity to land one that big. I also want to get the Australian record for a Dogtooth on pole spear. I would love to get a Spanish Mackerel over 35kg, they are so hard to find that size in WA and when you do, they are always in areas with big sharks. Red emperor over 12kg would be epic. Internationally I really want a big Pargo Snapper. Those things look insane and sound awesome to target. Other than that a solid Yellowfin Tuna would be amazing. I’ve never actually targeted them before.

Biggest and/or most impressive fish/creature you have seen:

The most impressive and humbling experience I’ve had was with a huge dugong (sea cow) and calf off Broome. I was breathing up as my dive buddy had just dropped down to about 9m on the edge of a large lump, when out the corner of my eye I noticed a huge shadow that made me flinch at first until I realised what it was. My dive buddy didn’t see them but they were playing just above him in the most graceful manner. I dived down halfway and they continued to circle and play around me for my whole breath hold. I had never seen one underwater before let alone interacted with them in that way. Seeing thousands of tuna while you’re floating in 1000m of water with 100m vis is absolutely mind-blowing too. It’s as if you’re skydiving or floating in the air.

Best dive trip you have been on:

All of my favourite dive trips have been here in WA with my Scott Reef trips topping the list. It’s my local area and we always go with great mates, have a laugh, catch PB’s and work as a team. Every trip to every destination has something different to offer and cements different memories into the future. 1. Diving with 7 fully lit up sailfish at Scott Reef and just admiring them instead of spearing them. 2. Diving in Raja Ampat with the biggest buffalo emperor, GT’s, one spot snapper, midnight snapper and MSP only centimetres from you knowing you can’t spear them, it’s frustrating but amazing. 3. That first time I watched my shaft go into a doggie and stone it. 4. Sitting on a ledge at 17m on a 40m vertical cliff in the Togean Islands waiting for massive indo Jacks. All these things are a part of what makes the best trip for me.

Favourite Gun:

If I can only take one gun it would be my 105 rail gun with a reel. It’s just a good all rounder that I mainly use for reef but it’s also great for big mackerel.

Scariest thing you’ve seen while diving:

A 3m saltwater crocodile while chasing mangrove jacks. I was scouting the edges of a creek after coming up from the deeper centre where a school of jacks were hanging. After a couple of shots the jacks moved on so I went towards the mangroves underwater and as I ascended I came face to face with a bunch of big ugly teeth smiling at me in amongst the mangrove roots. I could see it’s whole body draping down the underwater bank. Believe me, I was basically running on water back to the boat.

Watching a mate get harassed by a big tiger shark when your only 10m away is never a nice sight to see either and then there’s the 3+m hammerhead shark that decides to block out the sunlight while you’re sitting on the bottom at 9m stalking a blue bone. Plans and goals for the coming year: A couple of trips to remote islands in Indonesia to try and target big Dogtooth Tuna, Wahoo and reef fish. Head south along the WA coast chasing Red Emperor, Mackerel, Trout and then WA Dhue fish, Pink Snapper and Blue grouper down the bottom. Hoping to establish my own charter out to Scott Reef.