Speargun as word alone, is for many people a hot topic, especially in Germany. Therefore the big interest for target shooting was very surprising.

The German dive magazine UNTERWASSER organised together with the Indoor Dive Centre Aufkirchen a very special dive meeting. Beginner diving in various disciplines and big party after.

The Dive Centre located close to Munich, a former sauerkraut factory, offers with its 4 meter deep and connected basins, best training possibilities for scuba and free divers all year over. During the event everybody could tried out from underwater video over rebreather diving and model picturing and even speargun shooting on a target. Surprising was the high interest of the participants. The magazine UNTERWASSER has been already before the first in things Apnea, now there is a de ja vue for speargun shooting. Further the opinion of UNTERWASSER is, there should be new discussion about spearfishing.

The realisation did UNTERWASSER contributor Lars Brinkmann. He took Dieter Baumann from Austria. Dieter Baumann is not only on of the best apnea divers of Austria but he is especially the spearfishing crack of the whole German speaking area. Together they handled the strong rush of interests. The shooting was done with pneumatic guns of Mares company. One of the many basins was reserved for this competition and in it was fixed a target. Three meters in front of it marked a distance stand the line not to be crossed with the gun. Every competitor was allowed to shoot twice and the better result was counted. Before each participant was allowed to start his attempt, he got an explanation of the gun, which has been preloaded and given to the competitor in the water. The scorer had only to dive down to marked line, aim and shoot. Not only that the people had to cue with waiting times up to 45 minutes, there was high interest of the womanhood.

Of course there started some discussions about shooting fish during the event. Here could Dieter Baumann do a lot of educational work and put things in the correct order. In any case it will stay philosophic if there is a difference for the fish whether it is captured with net, line or spear. Further spearfishing with scuba is banned in the whole Med and apart from that nearly worldwide. Persons, which hunt against the law with scuba or shoot fish just for fun or as trophy, are the reasonable sense for a bad image of the underwater hunter. The real spearfisher is not only capable of freediving techniques and shooting accuracy, but also an extremely developed sense of environment.
Apropos shooting accuracy, these where very impressive at some candidates. So hit 8 of 56 candidates the middle circle and reached the maximum count of 5 points. By this successes and the absolute positive acceptance, UNTERWASSER is planning to arrange an underwater target shooting championship following the international rules of CMAS. Four meter distance between spear tip and target will stiffen the conditions for the target shooting but of course make the event more serious.