Spear fishing - All
A fisherman with a spear. Mansi, Sverdlovsk Region, Verkhotursky District, 1908. Author: I. K. Zelenov.
Photo from the album "The Kunstkamera Archive: Rites, Daily Life, and Faces of Ancestors in Old Photographs”
Mansi is a small Finno-Ugric people in Russia, the indigenous population of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug — Yugra. They speak the Mansi language. They are the closest linguistic relatives of the Khanty, and they are also related to the Hungarians.
Mansi belong to the Uralic race.
The total population is 12,228 people (according to the 2021 census). About 200 Mansi people live in the north of the Sverdlovsk Region. A few live in the northeast of the Perm Region (the Vishersky State Nature Reserve). The combined name of the Mansi and the closely related Khanty people is the Ob Ugra.
It is believed that the Mansi ethnos emerged as a result of the fusion of local Neolithic tribes, as well as Ugric and Indo-Iranian tribes that migrated from the south through the steppes and forest-steppes of Western Siberia and Northern Kazakhstan[19]. The two-component nature of the Mansi culture (a combination of taiga hunter-fisherfolk and steppe nomadic pastoralists) has persisted to the present day. In the early Middle Ages, the Mansi-related ancestors of the Hungarians (the Kushnarenkovskaya culture) migrated to the Danube. The Mansi people are associated with the Yudin culture.
The Mansi are Orthodox Christians, but they also practice traditional shamanism, the cult of patron spirits, ancestors, and the bear (bear festivals). The Mansi have a rich folklore and mythology. The Mansi are divided into two exogamous phratries: Por and Mos, which have different origins and customs. Marriages were only allowed between members of the opposite phratries: Mos men married Por women, and vice versa. The ancestor of the Por phratry is the bear, and the ancestor of the Mos phratry is the woman Kaltash, who could appear as a goose, a hare, or a butterfly.
In the folk art of the Mansi, the main focus is on ornamentation, which is similar to that of the related Khanty and Selkup peoples. These include geometric shapes such as deer antlers, diamonds, wavy lines, meanders similar to the Greek pattern, and zigzag lines, often arranged in a strip-like pattern. Among the bronze casting, images of animals, such as eagles and bears, are more common.
The traditional occupations of the Mansi include hunting, fishing, reindeer herding, farming, and cattle breeding. Fishing is common on the Ob and the Northern Sosva. In the upper reaches of the Lozva, Lyapina, and Northern Sosva, reindeer herding was adopted from the Khanty in the 13th and 14th centuries. Farming was adopted from the Russians in the 16th and 17th centuries. The most developed areas of livestock farming among the Mansi include the breeding of horses, as well as cattle and small livestock. In addition, poultry farming was developed. The commercial fish included grayling, bream, pike, roach, burbot, crucian carp, sturgeon, sterlet, nelma, muksun, shchokur, pyzhyan, and syrk, and the Northern Sosva was also home to freshwater herring, a gourmet delicacy.
Fishing tools included spears and nets. Fish were also caught by damming streams. The Siberian cedar was of great importance in the everyday life of the Mansi, who harvested a huge crop of cedar nuts. In addition, household items such as dishes, boxes, and baskets (known as "kornevatiki") were made from woven cedar roots. Beresta products, such as boxes, tubs, wooden dishes, spoons, troughs, and ladles, as well as simple furniture, were also widely used. Pottery items were also employed.
In ancient times, the Mansi used dugout boats, skis, and sleds (with dog, reindeer, or horse teams) for transportation. They also used bows and arrows, spears, and various types of blades as weapons. For hunting, they employed various traps (chirkans) and crossbows.
Women's clothing consisted of a dress, a loose-fitting robe made of cloth or satin, a double deer fur coat (yagushka or sak), a headscarf, and a large amount of jewelry (rings, beaded necklaces, etc.).Men wore trousers and a shirt, a hooded coat made of cloth, or a deer skin coat (malitsa or gus) for reindeer herders, or a hooded coat with unsewn sides (luzan).
Food: fish, meat (dried, dried-out, fried, frozen), berries. Mushrooms were not consumed, as they were believed to summon evil spirits.
SPEARFISHING IN TUSCANY
AT THE "ISOLA DEL GIGLIO" WITH JACOPO AND TIZIANA
What is your spearfishing philosophy?
We both love speafishing the big ones in open waters. We both live this passion as a real lifestyle rather than as a sport, we don’t like to call it that way, and we don’t like the competition environment either as it tends to keep the challenge spirit among men. The real essence of this activity instead is diving in to the water to be part of something bigger.
Where are your usual fishing spots?
We live in Umbria away from the sea, only 110km away is the Adriatic sea but the fishes we like to spear cannot be found in that portion of sea so we need to face a week-end out to get to the gorgeous Giglio island in Tuscany.
There we have a small house on rent, a small dinghy that we share with another friend and all the equipment we need to catch big snappers.
Which techniques do you prefer?
We are used to spear fish with crawling and waiting technique either in shallow or deep waters.
What kind of sea bottoms can we find around that Island?
Mostly granitic ones ranging from falls of rocks going deeper than 30mt to enormous rocks lying on the sand or some shoals off the coasts.
You can also find some seaweed prairies in which you can see red snappers schools or some big brown groupers.
Is the water often clear or there is usually a low visibility?
It depends on the period f the year, it is generally clear but in spring it might get to “only” 3-4mt if there is abundant rain. Then during the summer the visibility improves until it gets to 30mt in autumn. After the first winter disturbances it worsen again.
Are there any currents or other things limiting the practice of this activity?
Very often there are strong currents and it is wise to properly evaluate their intensity to dive safely.
However the most important aspect is the wind: if a strong gregale or sirocco blows there is no way to leave the port with the dinghy but because of the varied morphology of the coast it is always easy to find a place to enter into the water by feet.
What kind of weather should we expert there and what season is best to spearfish?
Here you can find a Mediterranean weather, even if lately Seasons have changed irregularly. Generally from June to October you can fish wearing a 5mm wetsuit as the surface water temperature ranges from 16-17 to 24 degrees; This is also the best period to find all the kinds of fishes living in our sea.
What kind of preys are more common over there?
The most coveted one is certainly the red snapper but you can also find groupers, amberjacks and barracudas beyond white breams and corbs, you can find instead more rarely gilthead breams and sea basses.
What habits do they have?
According to the season, the water temp and many other factors our common preys can be find at different depths.
The rocky coast slopes rapidly down almost all around the island so many fishes find their own shelter very deep or in inaccessible places.
Generally white breams, mullets and some barracuda can be found no deeper than 8-10mt instead for all the others it is requested to dive deeper to at least 15-18mt.
In regards to the common dentex they usually live beyond 20mt and you need a perfect technique to catch them.
The best period to fish them is spring and autumn when the sun is not too high on the horizon. They can be found also in the summer but the massive traffic on the surface and the great thermal excursion in the water influence their behaviour.
We under stand you are not scared of depth, how deep do you spearfish?
Jacopo:depth is a matter that must be faced gradually, with the help o fan expert. After some years of practice and training I can dive beyond 30mt, however my catches are mostly made between 18 and 26mt.
Tell us about the shoals around the Island
The pignocchi shoal togheter with the isolotti delle scole are the easier spots to reach even whithout a dinghy. We often go over there and it is not rare finding amberjacks and common dentex.
In both places it is also easy to find strong currents, moreover the bottom slopes rapidly to depth so you’d better avoid going there alone.
Another great spot to meet the big ones is the shoal called la Secca della Croce that is 600mt off the coast and the top of it is at 7mt depth (the 7 mt point is really small). To reach such a place you need a boat and you also need to know the area in order to properly anchor. Because of the depth and the currents it is a very challenging spot but if you know the place you can dive and try catching dentex, amberjacks and barracudas within 15mt.
On the west coast we can find a large bay called Cala del corvo where there is a shoal from which start several rocky crests at different depths.
The scoglio di Pietrabona is also very interesting. On the open sea side it slopes to the bottom with a rocky “tongue” and after it has reached a canal it gives birth a little shoal where there is a strong current and a sedentary school of white breams.
Are there any spearfishing restrictions in your area?
Sure as in the rest of Italy you can catch up to 5Kg of fishes or a fish bigger than that and molluscs like octopuses and cuttlefishes instead shellfishes are forbidden. You can take also the sea urchins that are really good to season the pasta.
Would you suggest anything to anybody wishing to spear in you area?
Yes, do not go on your own but with someone that already knows the area.
