If you have spent any time around spearfishing on the internet, you have crossed paths with the Noob Spearo Podcast. Since 2014, Isaac “Shrek” Daly has recorded more than 300 episodes with spearfishing experts, authorities and characters from every corner of the planet — all of it built on one philosophy: full froth, no ego.
Shrek is a Brisbane-based spearo and freediving instructor, and these days he also runs beginner retreats, courses and charters out of South East Queensland. We asked him the questions our readers — mostly Mediterranean and Atlantic shore divers — keep asking us: what mistakes beginners repeat everywhere in the world, what Australia does differently, and where the podcast is best cracked open for the first time.
His answers below are his own words, lightly edited for formatting.
First — what is the Noob Spearo Podcast, and how did it start?
Shrek: The Noob Spearo Podcast is interviews with spearfishing experts, authorities and characters from all over the world — actionable, frothworthy and often humorous. We started it back in 2014 because Turbo and I were exactly what the name says: noobs. We were making (or had made) every mistake in the book, and we figured if we could get experienced spearos on a microphone and ask them the questions we actually wanted answered, other beginners would get value out of it too.
The name was deliberate. Spearfishing has an ego problem, and ego is what stops people asking questions, stops them learning, and gets them hurt. Calling ourselves the Noob Spearo Podcast pulled the ego out from the very first contact. Twelve years and 300-plus episodes later, that's still the whole philosophy: Full Froth, No Ego. Turbo's since stepped back from the podcast to focus on other parts of life and business, so these days it's me behind the desk, but we miss his sharp wit.
You've interviewed hundreds of spearos. What mistakes do beginners make over and over?
Shrek: The same ones, every time, everywhere in the world.
Diving alone — or "buddying" without actually buddying
Diving alone, or diving with a buddy but not actually buddying — one up, one down, eyes on each other. Most shallow water blackout deaths are preventable with a switched-on dive partner. This isn't displacing a spearo's personal responsibility to dive safe, but a great buddy is your only friend if your fin snaps on the way up from a deep dive or you accidentally stay too long.
Chasing depth before competence
Blokes want to tell their mates they hit 20 metres. Nobody cares. The best hunters I've interviewed don't even mention the depth they shot the fish in, which is where the competitive goals of freediving become falsely imposed on spearfishing. Depth is great but it's not a useful or safe thing to fixate on as a new diver. Our physiology takes time to adapt to depth, and many young, competitive, high-agency, intelligent people push too deep too fast and pay the price for their ambition. It's not just physiological adaptation either — it's the slow acquisition of wisdom and making great decisions when you are down deep.
Buying gear before skills
A $1,200 roller gun won't fix a noisy duck dive.
Never learning to breathe up and relax
Not learning to breathe up and relax properly. A formal freediving course compresses about three years of trial and error into a weekend. I'm a freediving instructor now so I'm biased — but I became one because I saw the difference it made, over and over.
And the ego thing
Slow learning because they don't like to look stupid (like we all were when we started). Dive watches with PBs, breath-hold counters on YouTube vids and dock-of-death photos are all traps for young players too. As Ryan Holiday puts it in Ego Is the Enemy: “Ego is the enemy of what you want and of what you have.”
Is there one piece of advice from a guest that changed how you dive?
Shrek: Honestly, the advice that changed me most was from Richard Leonard, because I could see and hear that he had seen this many times: “Don't lose that frothing grom stoke, man.”
When you think about it, people who are so enthusiastic and frothy about something are fun to hang out with. In spearos where trophy fish are the only goal or Instagram follower counts are what motivate them, you see their character come out on slow days. Kicking the dog because the fish aren't there, or talking to dive boat crew like a spoiled politician because the burley isn't chummed into 1.3mm cubes just right. Snoek's “don't lose that frothing grom stoke” was a huge influence behind the Full Froth, No Ego values Noob Spearo promotes.
Most of our readers dive the Med and Atlantic — colder water, smaller fish, shore dives. What would surprise a European spearo diving Australia for the first time?
Shrek: First surprise: the sheer variety. In South East Queensland alone you can shore dive for squid and bream in the morning and be on a reef shooting coral trout, jobfish and Spanish mackerel in the arvo. The fish are bigger, more abundant, and — this is the part Europeans find hardest to believe — often less spooky, because our recreational fishing pressure is spread over an enormous coastline, the East Australian Current is nutrient-rich and our fisheries are fairly well managed.
Second surprise: sharks are just part of the furniture. Not in a dramatic way — in a “there's a dusky whaler, keep an eye on him, get your fish to the boat quicker” way. European spearos arrive nervous about them, but within two days they've recalibrated and generally become more at ease.
Third: distances and logistics. A lot of our best diving is boat-access only, hours offshore. The shore-diving craft European spearos have — reading swell, working structure, being persistent in 3-metre viz — actually transfer brilliantly. I'd back a good Med shore diver to adapt to Australia faster than the reverse, because you lot have learned to hunt genuinely pressured, educated fish. Come over here where a coral trout hasn't read the same textbook and you'll do damage.
What would genuinely humble a European diver? Current. Tidal movement, the prevailing EAC current and even our longshore currents when shore diving are not to be dismissed. Learning how we work as a team with boats and understanding how to use our electronics are super important. It's a different kind of respect for the ocean.
Gear question: where should a European spearo spend money if coming to Australia?
Shrek: Spend money on, in order:
- Fins. Many deep European divers love the paper-thin high-performance carbon fins, but in Queensland and Australia more broadly, you want a fin that delivers a bit more torque. You may need to put the brakes on a big fish trying to bury you in the reef, or fin hard into current on the surface for hundreds of metres to get to the leading pressure point.
- Speargun. Ditch the sub-7mm shafts and any delicate points of failure on your speargun. We need power — take-down mass in a shaft that won't bend as easily, and something that won't fall apart should a 100kg marlin just happen to come in for a look on an offshore reef.
- A wetsuit that actually fits and matches your water temperature. A cold spearo is a distracted, tense, short-session spearo. This matters double for your Atlantic readers.
- A low-volume mask that fits your face and doesn't distort your vision (like some high-performance freediving masks do).
- A float and float line, plus a proper knife. That's safety equipment, not accessories.
Where should someone start with the podcast — and where can people find you?
Shrek: For a brand-new spearo I'd say start with the beginner retreat debrief episodes — we take twelve total beginners away for a weekend, then sit them down on the last night and record everything they learned, stuffed up and frothed on. It's the most honest “this is what starting actually looks like” content we make. Here is a recent one.
Then dip into the interviews — episodes on depth progression and equalisation if you're working on your diving, and any of the character episodes if you just want a laugh with your coffee. A few of my favourites:
- NSP:015 — Rob Allen, Spearfishing Equipment Pioneer. The man behind the world's most trusted railgun opens up the Dive Factory in Durban and 35+ years of hard-won wisdom — from losing dive buddies to shallow water blackout, to landing 21 Spanish mackerel over 20kg in a single month.
- NSP:298 — Inside the Coatesman's Speargun Workshop, with Chris Coates. South African legend Chris Coates returns for round three with a shark encounter that nearly cost him a finger, and a masterclass in why your speargun either shoots dead straight or misses everything — rollers, rubbers, shafts and all.
- NSP:301 — The Deep Man Behind DiveR, with Ray Powell. The founder of DiveR fins survives decompression sickness and an Irukandji sting on his way to building Australia's most iconic fin company — and shares the fin design science most spearos never hear about.
- NSP:294 — Over-Riding the Limbic for Freedom, with John Dornellas. John Dornellas goes deep on the psychology of the hunt — why killing your ego makes you a better diver, the addictive art of halibut hunting, and the “Wolf Walk” method he uses to build self-awareness and beat addiction.
You can find everything at noobspearo.com — the podcast is on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and pretty much every podcast app. Our courses, retreats and charters live at spearfishingcourses.com.au — and if any of your readers fancy swapping the Med for the Great Barrier Reef, we'd love to have them. Full froth, no ego — that's the only entry requirement.
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