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.

• 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

Connect with Matty Parker

• MBP Spearfishing Charters — Coral Sea and Great Barrier Reef charters out of Cairns
• Instagram: @mbp_spearfishing
• MBP Spearfishing Charters on Facebook
• Divers World Cairns — where Matty manages the shop

🔥 DEEP NORTH — Noob Spearo x MBP | 13–21 March 2027

Nine days aboard the Norkat II out of Half Moon Bay Marina, Cairns, hunting remote sections of the Great Barrier Reef north of Lizard Island. Ten guests max, two in-water guides the whole trip (Matty and Shrek), all meals, fish processing and freezing, tenders, reef fees and a custom trip shirt included. $7,200pp, $2,500 deposit, payment plans available.

→ Deep North | Great Barrier Reef Spearfishing Charter

Also mentioned

• Spearo App — free spearfishing forecasting app
• Fishes One Hook — power band size calculator under Gear Reviews
• Free Noob Spearo Scorecards — Spearo Readiness Scorecard (not started yet) and Skilled Spearo Scorecard (already diving). Two minutes, custom results to your inbox
• Gear referenced: Riffe Raider 70″ (or 67″), 8.7mm / 11:32 shaft, 16mm rubbers, slip tips, 3-atmosphere floats
• Shark Shield / shark deterrent units
• Previous episode referenced: Johnny Mitchell on decoding the wild
• Previous episode referenced: Rob Allen on flasher design

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