NSP:321 Pinnacle Hunting Remote Great Barrier Reef and Beyond with Matty Parker

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 d