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 club, then find one or two people at your level and grow together 00:43:11 — The self-check Matty runs on every dive: surface, look around, and if no one's within 20 metres you're only diving at 30% today 00:46:25 — How MBP started — the client on the tender who reignited it, four or five years of trips through the shop, then going out on his own 00:47:38 — His October 4–12 Coral Sea trip and the nine-day structure: steam out overnight, wake up in the Coral Sea, six full dive days 00:51:08 — Why the Coral Sea holds every Australian dogtooth record — the vis, the pinnacles rising from a kilometre of water, and how few boats actually get out there 00:52:14 — Doggies aren't migratory and aren't even tuna — they're mackerel (Gymnosarda unicolor), resident on their pinnacles, and Matty's seen the same fish a year apart 00:53:18 — When to be in the water: tide change, first light, and the golden hour on a shoal 00:55:00 — Why he never dives the same spot twice on a trip, even after a 20-fish afternoon — spread the pressure and the fish are there in three years 00:56:59 — Eating doggie: it freezes badly, ciguatera risk on the big models, sashimi most nights on the boat, and euro mounts for the jaws 00:59:28 — Burley and flashers: pilchards over fish frames (running a knife through fish aggravates sharks), and his basic buzz-bomb flasher with a knife jig and three double-sided mirrors 01:01:00 — Flash with purpose — "don't just do it because I said go over there and flash", plus why he stays on the flasher to call the dives 01:02:22 — Tracking a big gun with a breakaway: gun down, hand on the handle, and steering it through the water by the muzzle like a surfboard 01:04:21 — Finding the white dot on the tail knuckle in black water — and why the fish is invisible without it 01:05:39 — He works out every diver on the boat at the dinner the night before the charter 01:06:40 — "I won't shoot a doggy under 30 kilo" — how expectations set by social media wreck people's trips before they get wet 01:08:14 — Shrek's horror story: the charter client who wouldn't buddy up, 100 nautical miles offshore, and how far Shrek escalated it 01:11:33 — A week with no reception, and how the bloke you wanted to push over the side on day one is your mate by day four 01:13:52 — Shrek's vision statement — reconnecting people with themselves, their food, the natural world and each other 01:15:18 — Beyond doggies: red emperor, Maori sea perch, buffalo emperor, iron jaw and green job fish, plus the wahoo, yellowfin and marlin you have to go and hunt separately 01:16:37 — The 140–150kg marlin that snapped a straight shaft last year — another argument for slip tips 01:17:32 — Reading current in the Coral Sea (it's all ocean current, not tidal), and the October moon that fired then went dead five weeks later 01:19:59 — The Noob Spearo x MBP trip: a Great Barrier Reef trip heading north past Lizard Island in March 01:20:40 — What the B in MBP stands for, and the middle name Shrek and Matty share 01:21:43 — SHARKS: an ugly year for Aussie spearos, and Matty's honest read on why it's changed 01:22:03 — His two-part theory — social media virtue signalling plus an education gap — and the fact that a shark now has no commercial value in Australia 01:24:51 — Shrek's flake confession, and how spearos take an abundant freezer completely for granted 01:26:18 — The maths on shark bycatch, and how visibly the aggression has changed in the water in five years 01:27:57 — The angry email Shrek wrote about "just buy your fish from the supermarket" comments on dead divers' posts 01:29:53 — Matty's in-water protocol: he can read an area in ten minutes and pull everyone out. "There's no fish that's worth any part of my body" 01:31:06 — The reefs off Hinchinbrook with resident, territorial bull sharks, and bites that happened in 20m of vis 01:33:21 — Shark deterrents: no one wearing one has been bitten, the scorpion tail zapping you on the duck dive, and how confidence itself changes a shark's read on you 01:35:00 — Shrek gets charged on the bottom by a bull shark, and the seasons where he simply can't relax enough to dive properly 01:36:42 — The most dangerous thing beginners (and plenty of experienced blokes) do: gun handling, clipped guns pointing at the diver behind them, finger on the trigger 01:38:36 — The best answer of the episode: if you could only shoot fish in eight metres for the next two years, what does it cost you? "Cost 'em nothing. And you gain everything" 01:40:09 — Shrek's traditional ocean poo story request, answered from a back deck in California 01:41:16 — Where to find Matty and both trips, plus the price bracket 01:43:31 — Outro: Deep North with Matty and Shrek, March 2027 — spearfishingcourses.com.au/deepnorth Links Mentioned, Partner Deals and Discounts + Froth C
