Getting Back Out There With Spearfishing

Founded in 2022 by Marine Corps veteran Trey Fagan—an avid diver—and Army veteran Randy Batts—Captain of the boat SPEAR IT and a spearfishing expert—the Veterans Spear Fishing Project provides opportunities to veterans and their families both on and under the waters off the coast of Sneads Ferry, North Carolina. Those opportunities include bringing some adventure, discipline, teamwork, and a little bit of “pucker factor” to those who may need it but not know it. Whether it’s offshore fishing trips for the families or spearfishing for current and former service members, Trey and Captain Randy have made making others push their own personal boundaries a priority. The effects are positive and immediate.

In doing so, they’re helping build new bonds with those who have served their country and perhaps could use someone pushing them out of their current comfort zone. Jumping into the chilly Atlantic and stalking fish with a speargun puts you into an environment where you can be your own worst enemy if you’re not fully in the moment and paying attention to everything that’s going on around you. It can also be one of the most rewarding experiences you’ll encounter, and it’s why we spent some time with Trey and Captain Randy recently to witness the results firsthand.

After spending 17 years in the Marine Corps, including time as a Dive School Instructor and a member of MARSOC, Trey was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and other combat-related injuries in 2013. Not long after, as a civilian, he found himself a bit lost in his new environment. Over time, Trey discovered that spearfishing was the perfect way to reintroduce that feeling of grabbing your gear and just getting it done, with enough of that feeling of not being fully in control of his environment to make it feel just a little crazy. Diving and spearfishing is something that requires focus and preparation, all while getting that rush of adrenaline (and maybe a little bit of fear) while hunting in a world where humans are aliens and not necessarily at the top of the food chain. It’s a feeling that only a tiny fraction of the public will ever know.

As any diver can tell you, and any spearfisherman can tell you twice as often, there are very few things you can do that are as visceral as voluntarily leaving the air that surrounds you to join the aquatic environment—especially to hunt an animal. To even get there requires many things to go right. Having space on a boat means you’re connected with like-minded people who are all after the same experience, whether you know them well or not. You’re usually up well before the sun, and the weather can be your friend or your enemy, and so can the tides. Your gear has to be right, secured, ready, and must become a part of you easily. The act of just suiting up and getting ready to descend is the culmination of hours of planning and then driving to a point in space where you’ll step away from normalcy for a while.

From that initial splash, where you leave the safety of the surface and go down to where the pressure is far greater and the boat gets smaller and smaller…that’s where you shake off whatever you were on the surface and become the master of your own destiny. Within minutes—or even seconds—of being surrounded by the cool blue, you adapt to the space and the bubbles and the limited light, and you can take stock of the various life forms around you. Many of which are quite delicious.

On the best days, diving (and spearfishing) take you into a place that’s unattainable for many people, with a physical experience similar to space travel, but with more living things around you. When there’s great visibility, you can see for what feels like forever, even though it may only be fifty to a hundred feet. A day of great vis feels like you’re experiencing infinity. Just turning your head makes you also realize how much is really going on in the three dimensions around you and how much you can’t see. On the worst days, the visibility is crap, the currents are fighting you every inch of the way, and paranoia will try to fight its way in and make you think that shadow next to you is something with teeth or stingers that’s waiting to pounce. Of maybe there just aren’t any fish around.

Shooting a fish at just the right range and angle brings with it an incredible rush that is definitely a little different from the feeling of taking a deer or other game on land. The physical effort it takes to accomplish the dive, swim and stalk and retrieve one or multiple fish, dispatch them if required, and then make it back to the boat while hauling your quarry can be physically and mentally exhausting. There’s also that “don’t run out of air” thing. The occasional drive-by from a barracuda or a shark also makes it that more interesting. There’s no way to stay inside your head when you’re doing this.

Once out of the water, out of the gear, and contemplating what they just experienced, divers are a chatty bunch. Even those who began the day withdrawn from the world somewhat (or even a lot) come out of the water with smiles on their faces and stories to tell. In dives lasting only an hour or so, there are myriad experiences and sights and future memories. Divers tend to recount them out loud almost immediately, and it makes for a bonding experience because diving is absolutely nothing like combat, but it’s still everything like putting your life in your hands and coming out on top. Along with the fellowship shared with everyone on the boat, the positive impact that spearfishing provides can be life changing. You have no choice but to come out of your shell, if that’s where you’ve been. And it won’t be long before you’re planning your next dive.

Last year, the Veterans Spear Fishing Project took 65 dive certified veterans spearfishing, introducing them to some unconventional outdoor therapy. They came from all sorts of backgrounds and had their own stories and personal battles. Once they hit the water, though, much of that went by the wayside for a while. The experiences underwater, and the conversations and stories and memories afterwards—as well as the fresh seafood meals that followed—may not have been life-altering on their own. However, they did introduce a new way of participating in the world around us to a lot of people deserving of being a part of something unique. Thanks to Trey and Captain Randy, it starts a conversation that doesn’t end when the boat gets into port.