Why Spearfishing is an advanced Activity

[terrylowe]

A video from a single dive I made recently in 85 ft in Palm Beach.

Dragged me around spinning me, turning me, hitting me in the face, came very close to slamming my head into a wreck, wrapped my body up in 400 lb fishing line which connects the gun and the shaft.

Normally, it is not nearly so "exciting". A shot that was 2 inches away would have been lights out, but that is NOT what happened.

The actual audio includes me swearing like a sailor, so it had to be turned off. Once you get all wrapped up in shooting line, you are committed; you are now being drug around and you hope you can protect your mask, and that you don't impale yourself on the 5 ft shaft slapping around and you hope that a shark doesn't decide to take advantage of your situation... or you could be in for a real ride.

Loved the video. I have BEEN there and DONE that!! LOL. AJ's are such hard fighters. If they feel you tug on the line, they go crazy. I started free-shafting some and it has worked out better than I thought. SO FAR, I haven't lost any shafts. That could change any time though.

 

[Bob DBF]

I had a guy bring a loaded pneumatic gun once on my boat after a dive. He clipped off his rig, game bag, and gun (through the trigger loop) onto the equipment line. Come to find out later the gun was hanging down over other divers coming up under the boat (unknown to them too).
His excuse was that you have to fire pneumatic guns to unload them and he didn't like doing that for some reason. He liked to hold the muzzle against a hard surface and do a controlled release (deck of my boat).
I had nightmares of him shooting a hole through the bottom!
That was the last time I allowed a pneumatic gun on my boat.
Nobody I know even uses those things anymore.

Me and my buddies have discussed hunting quite a bit and all agree that a diver shouldn't even be allowed to bring a gun until they have at least 50 dives, and know some ground rules about gun handling.

Oops, I still use a pneumatic gun. It is however, disarmed when I leave the area I am hunting. If I am going to do anything other than hunt, I disarm the gun as Murphy loves to act when your attention is split and the situation is primed for a mistake. In the decades I've been shooting fish, I have not shot anything but fish, and the occasional rock.

I think this quote, with a little work, sums it up quite well.

One could have a whole discussion just on the unintended hazards of [-]photography/videography[/-] spearfishing. I believe a [-]camera[/-] speargun is the most dangerous piece of equipment a diver can own.

Bob
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A man's got to know his limitations.
Harry Callahan

 

[Z Gear]

I'd like to see the version with audio, haha!

The original audio must of have been great, try and put it back up, its got to be hilarious!!!

 

[Pullnglide]

I have quite a lot of dives and a lot of training in different areas but have never done the spearfishing thing other than gigging Flounder. It's something added to the dive that can cause a serous problem if you don't respect it. I am planning on easing into it in the upcoming year with a very experienced spearfisherman I dive with often and I'm certainly looking forward to it!

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

The biggest most powerful thing around here we would have that could take you on a serious ride would be a giant halibut.
I heard a story about a guy once that speared a monster halibut in the mouth of Tomales Bay. It bolted so hard that it almost tore his arm off but he refused to let go. The fish literally towed him about a quarter mile out of the channel and in the process ripped his mask off so he was blind the whole time he was going for the ride. When the fish finally wore out he floated up and came up right next to a boat with strangers in it. They were both surprised when they saw each other. They offered him a ride back to his other boat and his buddies. It took two guys to drag the fish into the skiff.

 

[Rick Murchison]

Let me put it another way... if you don't want to eat 'em, use 'em for bait, either cut bait on a line or in a crab trap.

Rick

I don't buy it. If you are going to shoot lionfish, you need to either consume it yourself or give it to a buddy that likes to eat it.

There are plenty of non native nuisance animals in the woods where I live. You can rest assured that if I went out and just shot feral hogs or nutria rats and left them lying ion the woods to rot, the moral majority of America would find that unacceptable. Yes the coyotes and bears would eat them, but that's not the point. Don't kill things just because you can...kill them to eat.

Regardless of where lionfish came from, they are a permanent transplant into our environment....they are NOT going away. All we can do is try to control their population in divable waters. I'm sure you spend enough time outside of recreational range to realize that there are a crapload of BIG lionfish down there, and there just aren't enough tech spearos to get them all.

 

[lowviz]

... if you don't want to eat 'em, ...

"Uncle Ricky", I know that you 'get it'. Lionfish are here too. Check out the East Coast sightings map. The drama comes from a poorly thought out philosophical approach to invasive species. My "backyard" used to be resplendent with a diverse collection of fragile native grasses and wild rice. It is now completely taken over by a single ugly species, phragmites. IMHO, that was an extremely poor trade.

So let's step back to the basics. Nitrogen. Fixed nitrogen is the currency of life. Unless you are a lightning bolt or a legume, you can't make use of the endless supply of nitrogen around us.

Vegetarians tend to vex me. If you only want to eat plants, knock yourself out. But where is the moral superiority? We are all predators, none of us make our food from the basic elements. So we choose what we prey upon. Plants don't move, can't escape. Locomotion requires a huge amount of energy, far more than any plant can accomplish. That energy can only come from stealing preassembled high energy food from those that make it. Some people steal it from plants, some from other animals. Either way, you are stealing from something that eats something that ultimately leads back to the holy few that can live on the basic elements...

In short, a dead lionfish rotting on the bottom is nothing more than nutrients being recycled BACK into native species.

 

[Storker]

In short, a dead lionfish rotting on the bottom is nothing more than nutrients being recycled BACK into native species.

In my youth, I was taught in very clear terms that "if you kill it, you take it home and eat it". I've later modified that principle to include other sensible uses of the carcass besides eating, like turning it into a fur cap or somesuch.

When it comes to reducing the population of an invasive species, my principles for making use of the carcass will go and sit quietly in a corner, and won't speak up at all

 

[lowviz]

I know, man. Doesn't it just b**e, sometimes? So hard to be completely consistent with absolute ideals...

 

[Storker]

Yup. But I still won't accept killing just for the sake of killing.