As Bruce Boyd, of Salt Lake City, piloted his boat across Deer Creek Reservoir during the Deer Creek Carp Elimination Shoot, he tried his best to define the difficulty of the sport of spearfishing.

"Imagine a bow hunter hold his breath, tie a line to his arrow, shoot his game from 15-feet away and then drag it through the woods while holding his breath," he said.

Boyd, who has been spearfishing for 45 years, was joined by his son, Matt, and eight other competitors from the small community of spearfishers in Utah who competed June 20 in a sport that some frown upon.

"There's some misconceptions from the angler side," said Roger Wilson, the Sport Fishing Program Coordinator with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. "They feel the spearfishermen have an unfair advantage."

But that's not entirely true according to Wilson, who believes it's a challenging sport that can become quite difficult, depending on conditions and time of year.

And anyone witnessing the competitive spirit and tenacity of those competing in the carp shoot, even in miserable conditions on a cold, rainy day, may also beg to differ.

Each diver dons a wetsuit, a mask and snorkel and heads out in a boat or from the shoreline with a speargun in hand. They are out to hunt the chilling waters and make a small dent in the invasive carp population that is rapidly growing throughout Utah.

Far from a relaxing day casting and reeling, these dedicated free divers swim thousands of yards along the surface, occasionally diving deeper as they peer through the murky water of Deer Creek.

"It's active. You're moving, you're thinking, you're hunting," said Michael Weyland, of Atlantis Divers in Vernal who organized the event. "It's not a case of sitting in a boat and dragging a spoon all day long."

After an unsuccessful dive at their first stopping point, Bruce and Matt Boyd move quickly across the lake in their boat to hopefully find more of the carp they are allowed to hunt.

"Diving is just like fishing or hunting. You can go time after time and just get skunked," Boyd said.

The conditions are not ideal as the sun hides behind an endless layer of dark clouds and the water is thick with sediment stirred up by the wind and rain. Visibility in the water is reduced to about six to ten feet before fading into dark green. The use of lights is strictly forbidden, so one can only hunt as far as the dim light allows.

"You have to be dedicated," Boyd said.

Bruce and Matt prove their dedication time and time again as they continue to swim the shoreline, face down in the water.

"It's definitely a different world down there," said Matt Boyd as he describes what goes on beneath the surface.

Divers move slowly through the water searching for signs of movement and trying not to be noticed themselves.

"You have to keep looking around, doing most of your looking with your eyes," said Weyland who even goes a step farther by wearing a reflective mask sothe movement of his eyes doesn't spook the fish. "Some [fish] are dumber than a box of rocks, but not that many."

The hunters will cover a large area to find fish, then once they spot a catch they'll "go stealth in the water," as Boyd describes it, and close in on the target. Slow and steady they will stalk the prey, either on the surface or by diving as deep as 50 or 60 feet.

There are various lengths of spearguns used, the length directly proportional to the distance it can shoot. The dirtier the water the shorter the weapon used as the diver can only fire as far as they can see.

Once caught, the fish is reeled in and put on a stringer attached to a float so the diver can continue to hunt.

If diving in the ocean, the caught fish can provide a whole new challenge as one figures out how to pull a 300- to 400-pound fish back onto the boat, as Boyd once did.

At Deer Creek Reservoir it's a rather routine hunt.Carp are considered a non-game fish and therefore there is no limit to what can be taken.

"By us going out and harvesting as much as carp as we can it actually puts us in a good light with the DWR," said Weyland.

Native to Asia and Europe, carp were brought to this continent as a food fish in the late 1800s and have now grown to become a pest.

"[Carp] get so prolific, and their feeding behaviors on the bottom and on vegetation stirs up the sediment and creates turbidity in the water column," said Walt Donaldson, the aquatics chief for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. This can block sunlight penetration into the water and will directly affect the growth of habitat for other species, he said.

"The young of the year struggle, because if you're not getting production they don't feed," said Donaldson.

The Carp Elimination Shoot at Deer Creek removed 442 pounds of carp, 114 pounds of which were taken by the tournament winner Steve Blackburn, of Heber.

"I think that it's a positive thing to have them take carp," said Wilson, but with the carp being so productive the population impact is very slight.

But as far as Boyd is concerned, the eight carp he and his son pulled from the reservoir is better than nothing.

"Some people say that doesn't make a difference, but it's more than other people are doing," he said.

After spending hours on Deer Creek, Boyd and his son relax with the other competitors for a barbecue, laughing and joking as the sun finally shows itself and the tournament ends. Some, including Boyd, half-jokingly talk about heading back out on the water to continue hunting in the better conditions.

But for now, they are happy to relax. The hunt will soon continue as Boyd and his son prepare to enter the waters at Flaming Gorge Reservoir the very next day.

Next event, hosted by Atlantis Divers, is on July 18th at Lake Powell. Record shoot hunting for eight or nine different species that no one has ever taken with a spear.

More info online at http://www.utahspearfishing.com/

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