NSP:321 Pinnacle Hunting Remote Great Barrier Reef and Beyond with Matty Parker

At 26, Matty Parker was locked into a Pilbara mining job. He came over for one Coral Sea trip, went home, sold everything inside a couple of months, and drove across Australia to get out of the golden handcuffs. Twenty-five years of spearing later he manages Divers World in Cairns — the biggest and longest-running shop up that way — and runs MBP Spearfishing Charters, and he's the bloke every local kept telling Shrek to interview. This one gets into the weeds properly: his entire dogtooth setup top to tail, the three-point brief he gives clients before a Coral Sea drift ("when you think you're closer, get closer again"), why he keeps a scorecard of every fish landed and lost and what one-in-three actually looks like, the 10–30kg window where doggies get eaten fastest, and why he moves off a spot the moment it fires. There's also a proper, unflinching yarn about the shark situation in North Queensland after an ugly year for Aussie spearos, and Matty's flat-out best answer of the episode — what it costs you to spend two years shooting fish in eight metres. Cost 'em nothing. Gain everything. If you're saving for a blue water trip, thinking about your first big gun, or you just want to hear a bloke who's put in the hours talk about hunting instead of depth numbers, this one's for you. Matty Parker @mbp_spearfishing Spearfishing Gallery (Add guest photos here) Important Timestamps 00:00:44 — Shrek sets up the episode: dogtooth gear, guiding pitfalls, social media's grip on spearos, and the shark conversation nobody wants to have 00:01:20 — Free shout out to Spearo App, a completely free spearfishing forecasting app, and the level of detail that gobsmacked Shrek 00:03:00 — Fish One Hook's power band size calculator, plus the free Noob Spearo scorecards at spearfishingcourses.com.au/scorecard 00:05:34 — Matty comes highly recommended — Shrek explains who kept telling him to get Matty on the show 00:06:49 — Started spearing at 10 in a small northern WA town; the Coral Sea trip at 26 that made him sell up and drive across Australia away from the golden handcuffs of mining 00:09:13 — Why "the trip of a lifetime" is the wrong mindset to bring on charter, and what the fish actually are (a bonus) 00:11:01 — WA vs the East Coast: fish density and shore access over there, weather-dependent reef trips over here 00:13:05 — Seven trout a day in Queensland is "astronomical", and why the North QLD weather is a green zone in itself 00:14:12 — His first Coral Sea mission: two doggies landed before he lost one, then the figures went backwards fast 00:15:07 — Why hiding your gear from other spearos isn't okay — shot placement and gear are the only two things we control, so share them 00:18:22 — THE FULL DOGTOOTH RIG, TOP TO TAIL: a 130–150cm conventional gun (he runs a 70" Riffe Rader), three or four 16mm rubbers, 8.7mm shaft, slip tip, 23m float line, a 3-atmosphere float, a short 2–5m line, and a second 3-atmosphere float. Nothing else 00:21:19 — The shot-placement point most people miss: all that gun power is for getting through a foot-and-a-half of fish, not for taking longer shots 00:22:14 — Stone shots, the anti-climax-then-relief feeling, and why hearing the boys screaming on the surface is the best part 00:23:25 — "Doggies bring out the best and the worst in everyone" — diving on each other and shooting each other's fish vs. proper team work 00:25:33 — What happens in the first 60 seconds after the shot: withstand the first run, then get it up fast, because that's when they get eaten 00:26:31 — Matty's shark theory — the 10–30kg window where doggies are too strong to overpower but small enough for sharks to eat quickly, and why big fish often survive longer 00:27:28 — The scorecard he's kept since day one: every shot fired that doesn't end on the boat counts as a loss, and he's landing roughly one in three 00:29:42 — The three-point brief: get closer twice (take two more kicks when you think the shot's on), take your time, and work as a team 00:30:44 — Fish karma — why not taking the bad shot pays you back somewhere else, maybe a year later in another country 00:32:16 — There are blokes on Matty's list who can't buy their way back onto a trip 00:33:53 — Life in the shop at Divers World, and the pre-YouTube days of nagging the newsagent for the first-Thursday-of-the-month dive mag 00:35:00 — The apprenticeship problem: "everyone wants to be the tradesman and no one wants to do their apprenticeship" — plus 100 hours a year, five years, then start pushing depth 00:36:59 — An 8kg red doesn't taste as good as a 4kg red, so who exactly are you shooting big fish for? 00:37:20 — Matty's definition of a good spearo: someone who knows how to find fish and hunt them. That's it. "If you want to be a free diver, go be a free diver" 00:38:31 — Shrek on the gap between physiology and wisdom — you can learn to lay on the bottom in 20m quickly, but the ocean will still beat you 00:42:54 — Advice for green divers: pool training, join the cl