Pole Spear vs. spear gun

Everyone I know who hunts underwater uses pole spears and catch bags. Thats here in NJ (usually on the wrecks). We get down onto the wreck (usually broken up) and get as close to the fish as possible and them WHAM ! I have a spear gun but only used it once and went back to Mr. Reliable pole spear. I found the spear gun too time comsuming vs. the pole spear which takes no time to reshoot.

I notice on this board that many (most) of the posts seem to be leaning (hard) to the spear gun over the pole spear. Whats the deal? I'm I missing something?

What are the advantages of a spear gun over a pole spear?
What are the hunting conditions that each are better for? (0pen water vs. broken up wrecks).

Giday,

I started spearfishing 33 years ago. My first spear was a handspear (pole spear). It consisted of a old broom handle, some single prangers wired on the end and some old inner tube rubber from a pushbike. It worked a treat and i got a fish on my first try. Although, he fish were rock cod. they didnt move unless you just about jumped on top of them.

I moved on from there and ended up with a telescpoic s/s hand spear that i loved. I used handspears over a gun for the next 25 years. I only swapped to a gun 5 years ago.
I dive every sunday morning all year round dependent on the conditions. The gun i bougt is a good one and extremly expensive compared to a handspear. Using a gun allows a much better reach, allowing longer shots but the best things i find are that i can hit the bottom, hold onto something and take long shots with out having to hold a loaded handspear. The gun has also allowd me to recently get a 22kg Jewfish, a huge prized fish here in Sydney Australia. The gun is attached to a floating tube line connected to a good sized float allowing 20 + mtrs of line to play and tire a large fish if you dont manage a kill shot straight a way. Another really handy thing is i can feed the fish straight onto the floating line. The fish then slides along the line to the float 20 mtrs behind. A gun is also gret for all forms of hunting, i sometimes go off shore and dive the fads, a handspear wouildnty to good out there as the fish stay out of range. I always have a very short gun with me as well that is easy to change to if i want to get into caves /holes etc. I cahnge d the cord over to 300lb mono filiment which is really easy to mange with no tangles. It takes 5-10secs to reload if in a hurry, although the good old hand spear took 1-2 seconds to relaod. After using both for a long time i really cant see me going back to a handspear, although i did get my sons a handspear to learn on and they still do ok.
Anyway, i enjoyed readiong your post. Quick question, you are wearing a dry suit in your pic, were you scub diving while spearfishing or you just prefer spearing with a dry suit.? In Sydney its illegal to scuba and spear at the same time and i have never seen another sperfisherman in a dry suit over here. I also scuba most saturday mornings and spear sundays but never at same time.

cheers, regards Fitzy.

Fitzy:

Giday,

Anyway, i enjoyed readiong your post. Quick question, you are wearing a dry suit in your pic, were you scub diving while spearfishing or you just prefer spearing with a dry suit.? In Sydney its illegal to scuba and spear at the same time and i have never seen another sperfisherman in a dry suit over here. I also scuba most saturday mornings and spear sundays but never at same time.

cheers, regards Fitzy.

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Fitzy,
Glad you liked the post. To answer your question, yes, I was wearing a drysuit while scuba diving and spearfishing. It is not illegal here in NJ as it is in Sydney. I'd say that at least half of the divers here (or more) wear drysuits while scubadiving off the coast. Of the group I normally dive & hunt with, all wear drysuits. We scuba and spear at the same time, usually on wrecks between 60-90 feet. And for the record, nobody uses a speargun. We all use pole spears. Come on over to NJ and we will be happy to take you out with us!

In the mid 70's I started with a variant of a handspear - a home made hawaiian sling. It was essentially a piece of bamboo with a hole through it's axis for the spear shaft and a sling assembly mounted on one end to propel the spear. I then switched to a pole spear for a short time but went with a gun as soon as I could afford one.

Neither variant of the pole spear was well suited to larger fish and was not well suited to freshwater spearfishing. A 40 pound catfish or buffalo carp for example is not something you want to spear with a pole spear even though they will come in close enough to spear with one.

A large walleye, northern, lake trout or salmon on the other hand will normally not come in close enough to get with a pole spear unless the visibility is very poor and if they do come close, with some species it will be for a fairly brief period of time. Walleye and Sauger will circle but large Trout and Salmon seem to adhere to a "one pass, haul a_ _" philosophy.

So in 20-30 ft visibility you can count on having to make an 8 to 12 ft shot. So for the conditions and fish size i encountered, a speargun was the obvious choice and a largish rock/reef gun in the 48" range was well suited for great viz (20-30 ft) and a shorter 36" gun was well suited for lower viz (10-15 ft).

If a polespear is working for you there's no reason to change. I used polespears, different lengths and materials for specific conditions and sizes of fish, to kill a whole lot of fish over a period of many years when I was growing up and living on the gulf coast of Florida. Including amberjack up to 30 lbs. Over here in Okinawa I started off with a polespear, but found the water too clear and the fish too skittish. I needed the reach of a good gun, so I decided to go with a Riffe and now have three.

A polespear, in addition to other attributes, is much faster for follow up shots.

DA Aquamaster:

-a home made hawaiian sling. It was essentially a piece of bamboo with a hole through it's axis for the spear shaft and a sling assembly mounted on one end to propel the spear.

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Are those the spears I've seen in the store with surgical tubing on one end? I though that was there to hang from your wrist.

So how does it work? From your description it doesn't seem like you just jab the fish with the pointy end.

Marc

The hawaiian sling used a separate spear that was not attached to the tube and sling arrangement. It was normally used in a two handed method where you drew back the sling containing the end of the shaft in one hand and held the tube in the other. You then released the shaft/sling end and the impacted the fish and left the tube either before or after impact.

You could also use it like a pole spear by drawing the sling back and then holding the shaft with your index finger and thumb and then releasing it to penetrate the fish. The obvious problem here with either method is the spear is free and unattached to the diver. So a 3 pronged paralyzer point and/or shooting small fish was the order of the day.

With a pole spear, the surgical tubing stretches from your hand to the back of the shaft so when you release the shaft it is snapped foward by the band into the fish. This gives a lot more velocity, impact, and accuracy than just trying to poke the fish manually.

SpearSlinger1:

If a polespear is working for you there's no reason to change. I used polespears, different lengths and materials for specific conditions and sizes of fish, to kill a whole lot of fish over a period of many years when I was growing up and living on the gulf coast of Florida. Including amberjack up to 30 lbs. Over here in Okinawa I started off with a polespear, but found the water too clear and the fish too skittish. I needed the reach of a good gun, so I decided to go with a Riffe and now have three.

A polespear, in addition to other attributes, is much faster for follow up shots.

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Isn't there a "no scuba rule" in Okinawa for spearfishing?

JAG

The no spearfishing on SCUBA thing is a very common misconception around here. The BIG no-no is selling the catch without the proper licenses. I freedive now days, though, primarily because less gear means less hassle and less expense time and money wise, which leaves more of both for spearfishing. In fact I kill more fish, lobster, octopus and squid per trip freediving than I ever did on SCUBA simply because my time in the water isn't limited by the amount of air in a tank on my back and with more time and less gear I cover a lot more area. It's true that I can't stay as deep as long as I did on SCUBA, but I can still hunt down to 20 meters (65') which is as deep as the length of my longest float line. I use a shorter 10 meter line for spearfishing shallower areas. #1 (12 yr. old son) and I don't get all those species every trip, but of the fish we do shoot both reef fish and pelagics.

This site has pictures of both polespears and Hawaiian Slings:
http://www.headhunterspearfishing.com/

This site has another style of Hawaiian Sling:
http://www.hawaiiansling.net/

MB104:

Fitzy,
Glad you liked the post. To answer your question, yes, I was wearing a drysuit while scuba diving and spearfishing. It is not illegal here in NJ as it is in Sydney. I'd say that at least half of the divers here (or more) wear drysuits while scubadiving off the coast. Of the group I normally dive & hunt with, all wear drysuits. We scuba and spear at the same time, usually on wrecks between 60-90 feet. And for the record, nobody uses a speargun. We all use pole spears. Come on over to NJ and we will be happy to take you out with us!

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Your on! if i ever manage to get over your way i would love to come do some hunting with you, thanks heaps for the offer. And same for you if you ever get to sydney.