A good gun for a beginner

In your opinon what would be a really good speargun for the Gulf of Mexico for a beginner hunter? What size as well that will handle most fish?

look in the underwater hunting, spearfishing. sam miller has some of the best answers, there are a few others in your area as well that have given some good advice on guns.

wjefferis:

In your opinon what would be a really good speargun for the Gulf of Mexico for a beginner hunter? What size as well that will handle most fish?

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Buy a 48 inch band gun... Biller, Sea Hornet, Riffe, whatever. This is the farily standard size gun for most divers in the Gulf to hunt, grouper, snapper, hogfish, even big AJs. I would suggest finding a shop that knows hunting and talk about the different aspects of each brand.

cool, thanks for the suggestions.

do yourself (and your wallet) and start with a bigger gun. that way you won't out grow it so fast.

a 54" biller/seahornet is ideal first gun. with longer bands you'll be able to load it no problem, and when you get better, you can shorten them and get more power.

a 48" truely limits your range.

personal recommendation would be a gun from Sea Hornet Spearguns and Accessories
kevin makes some amazing guns, and very versitile. get the commercial muzzle.

I am new to spearfishing as well. (maybe 25 dives with a gun) When I went to buy a gun everybody told me to get a "bigger" gun. I could not imagine why someone would ever need a 54" gun. I bought what the guy at the shop considered a minimum size Rob Allen 90 cm. Rob Allen is a rear handle gun and the shaft on the 90cm is 130cm about the same as the biller 48". After only a few months I am now upgrading to a 115cm eurogun. This will be closer to a 60" Biller. I have been pretty successful with my RA 90 but once you get the aim figured out it would be nice to have the range as well. I have messed around with the biller guns and even the bigger sizes are not too hard to load and still don't weigh much in the water. Chest loading the longer euroguns is another story but the bruises go away after a few days.
Good luck.

I can see that I am quite a few day late, but I have to say that for the panhandle area a 52" Spearfishing Specialties gun is an excellent fit, its the same as the new Biller 60". I have been shooting out of Panama City for sometime now so our target species and habitat are pretty much the same. I would avoid the euro style guns since they aren't designed to be reloaded as quickly and easily as billers and spearfising specialites guns.

What sets the Spearfising Specialties guns apart from Billers are that they come rigged much better for spearing, better line (if you are a lineshooter) and better bands.