Hunting with bottles?

Hallo to everybody!

A friend of mine recently spent a long vacation in Florida, where she had the opportunity to dive with some buddies met there. She told me that some of them went to dive with the speargun and other equipment for hunting, but wearing bottles. Yes, this astonished me a lot, because in Europe (but I'm convinced not only here) it is striclty forbitten hunting when SCUBA diving. If cought by the local police, you risk to be santioned with huge fines as well as the impoundment of the whole equipment. It is so common in the States?:11: :06:

Bye

Scubaman

spearfishing with scuba is VERY popular here in the states, and especially in Florida.

in my country it is not really allowed but as long as you do it in non-sanctuary waters then they pretty much turn a blind eye. its legal in most areas and are frowned upon by purists. if you ask me i think its perfectly ok.

Thats funny, i asked the same question a while back. Its not legal out in the tropical Pacific either...

Spoon:

in my country it is not really allowed but as long as you do it in non-sanctuary waters then they pretty much turn a blind eye. its legal in most areas and are frowned upon by purists. if you ask me i think its perfectly ok.

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And do you think it is ethic? I mean, freedive spearing is considered a sport (talking 'bout Italy, but I guess wherever). Spearing with cylinders is ... what? Poaching?
It is not my intention to provoke, but I am really curious about it, since it would be a point of view which is 1000 miles from mine, and maybe I can understand your reasons.

ciao

robcap:

And do you think it is ethic? I mean, freedive spearing is considered a sport (talking 'bout Italy, but I guess wherever). Spearing with cylinders is ... what? Poaching?
It is not my intention to provoke, but I am really curious about it, since it would be a point of view which is 1000 miles from mine, and maybe I can understand your reasons.

ciao

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im not going to enter a debate about the merits of spearfishing without cylinders but in my country it is generally frowned upon to spearfish with cylinders. doesnt bother me i think that its ok in my book. people may criticize me but i dont really care. and i do not consider it poaching either.

Well this spearing on scuba topic can open up a huge can of worms. When I first started diving in the 60's, the idea of using a speargun on scuba was something reprehensible. It marked you as a pariah and was to be avoided at all costs. Taking a speargun on a scubadive would have been as stupid as taking a shotgun into a bank.
I did commercial dive charters for a decade in Hawaii and never had a single speargun cross the gunwales once on my boats or any others that I was chartering or driving. It didn't seem right letting people shoot my business associates.
I moved to southern Florida a couple of years ago, and shooting on scuba seems to be the rule here. There's not a lot of fish to see, but ask any spearfisherperson about this and what they do has no impact at all on the declining fish populations - it's the commercial fishermen or whatever - anybody else but them. At social functions, the quality of a dive is never discussed or what people saw, it's always what they managed to shoot.
There are freedive hunters in southern Florida, but not too many. And listening to their accounts of what they go through to get a shot are amazing.
Almost none of these scubaspearo people could spear anything freediving. They might get to 10' for a few seconds if they were lucky, but on scuba, they can shoot whatever they see at whatever depth they can hit. Their rationalization is that they couldn't do what they love without using scuba.
To be fair, there are people who do not shoot on wrecks or shoot every fish they see. My wife is one of these people - before we got married, she used to love to hunt on scuba. She still does but she knows how touchy a subject that is with me.
Well, to each his own...This isn't going to change anyone's opinion either way. I don't think much of people spearing on scuba, and I'm sure most of them feel the same way about me.

I am new to SCUBA and one of the big reason was to spearfish. But I do want to try spear while freediving on the future but need to work on my freediving skills alot more cause right now I don't think I can get below 15'. And on the offshore rigs there aren't many fish within 15' except 'cudas. Most of the snapper, etc are 60' plus.

I do both, free dive & scuba spearing. I value having the freedom to make the choice as it suits me.

Spoon:

im not going to enter a debate about the merits of spearfishing without cylinders but in my country it is generally frowned upon to spearfish with cylinders. doesnt bother me i think that its ok in my book. people may criticize me but i dont really care. and i do not consider it poaching either.

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Let's look at it from a hunter's point of view.

I hunt anything that roams the land and there's a season for up here in Canuckistan. It is only acceptable to hunt turkey with a shotgun or bow, to hunt with a high-powered rifle is unacceptable and illegal. If I were to hunt an animal out of season, or if it is protected, I am poaching and doing something illegal. Also, these laws and restrictions are in place for a reason, to help maintain and grow these species and protect their natural environment. As a hunter, I want to ensure that there is a healthy population of animals for me to hunt and bring home to my kitchen table.

So, although spearfishing/hunting with a SCUBA system may or may not necessarily be 'poaching', it most certainly is highly illegal. By partaking in an illegal activity, you are giving all scuba divers a black mark .... and risking the ire of groups such as PETA (crazy terrorists) lobbying for ban of diving in certain areas, or the outright ban of spearfishing all together.

The end point is, you are breaking the law, whether you think it is right or not.