Spear gun question related to length/size of gun and appropriate game for said size

[Professor Nemo]

I have a question for any spear fisherman on the board. I don’t spear fish myself but I have often wondered why certain lengths of spear guns are considered acceptable for certain prey. I know, for example, that larger/longer spear guns tend to have/allow for more bands which thus increase the power and speed of a spear and makes it more suitable for larger fish, but I would think that a shorter spear gun with proportionally shorter, stiffer bands would produce the same kinetic effect. So, does a longer spear shaft translate into greater kinetic force on the fish hit by it due to the added weights of the extra metal? Does a longer, heavier spear provide for greater penetration under water? Thanks to all those who read/respond.

Josh

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

Think of it this way - longer is better for clear open water shots where distance is a factor - longer gun longer leash on the spear...

In NJ where 10 foot viz is considered decent - shorter guns and therefore shorter leashes on the spear are more appropriate...

Dont shoot beyond your viz or sight - low viz do not have a long leash... Know what is behind your target...

 

[Professor Nemo]

Think of it this way - longer is better for clear open water shots where distance is a factor - longer gun longer leash on the spear...

In NJ where 10 foot viz is considered decent - shorter guns and therefore shorter leashes on the spear are more appropriate...

Dont shoot beyond your viz or sight - low viz do not have a long leash... Know what is behind your target...

I hadn't even considered viz and line length, shows just how ignorant I am. Thanks.

 

[Sam Miller III]

An example of a vintage spear gun used in the then clear California water for bigger fish

THE BOTTOM SCRATCHER SPEAR GUN

My all time favorite spear gun is a "Bottom Scratcher." It was designed/developed in 1939 by Wally Potts and perfected by the Bottom Scratcher spear fishing club of San Diego, California. It is the first rubber powered spear gun produced in the US and is the original California long gun, constructed of by the joining of a simple tube SS handle containing a one piece trigger to a 1&1/4 inch dowel barrel, and a long balance bar that was either made of wood or SS.

In the very early days of spear fishing around 1950 Wally sold a Bottom Scratcher gun to Paul Hoss a member of the Dolphins spear fishing club which had recently won the world's very first "International spear fishing meet" in Laguna Beach in the Summer of 1950. When he sold it to Paul who lived in a suburb of LA, called Compton, Jack Prodanovich is reported to have said to Wally that "Selling a gun up north was like selling guns to the Yankees." And he was correct. Paul disassembled the gun did some modifications that improved the trigger pull and began producing a very close copy affectionately became known as the "Hoss gun" or the "Hoss-Bottom Scratcher gun" by the "Yankees" of Los Angeles and Orange County. The Hoss copy was cosmetically and functionally identical in every respect except for the Sturgil muzzle which was the muzzle of choice for all guns used by serious Yankee spear fishermen. The guns which were made by Wally and Paul were all custom made therefore no two were exactly identical. It was reported substantially less than 50 were made in a 30 plus year period by Wally and some where between 20 and 30 by Paul in about a 10 year period. Needless to say they were difficult to obtain and are now scarce and highly prised by those who own them, or collectors of diving memorabilia.

Known through out the spear fishing fraternity as the "California long gun" and on occasion the "Long Tom," they were made for long shots at big fish in then the clear unpolluted waters of SoCal.

I was fortunate to have ended up with two. My own personal custom gun I purchased from Paul Hoss and a friend's who after being chased out of the water by a shark decided that spear fishing was not for him, so he sold it to me a half what a bare unrigged new one costs

My guns measure 7 foot 9 inches plus the point which can have many configurations and lengths adding as much as a foot if the Prodanovich point impact aka power head was used. It has a sling pull of 4 foot 8 inches and the 5/16 diameter SS arrow rides on the first rails to be installed on a spear gun. It has a balance bar that extends approximately 15 inches behind the trigger mechanism.

It was made during the era of the kettle cured rubber. I can't recall when surgical rubber for spear gun slings became popular but I think in the mid 1950s. The gun originally used three slings of 28 or less inches of kettle cured rubber , which I replaced with an equal amount of surgical tubing for power when it became popular and readily available. I do vividly recall the first time I test fired it at Ship Rock off Catalina using the then new surgical slings...the arabelete type slide ring exploded totally disintegrated ! The arrow went flying in to the blue water never to be seen again by man--or at least me...so I had a slide ring custom made from aerospace material. A number of years later Joe La Monica who developed the Voit/ Mares/JBL gun "copied" my slide ring and began producing a very strong SS slide ring which I modified and converted to use on some of my guns.

My first and my favorite gun has a custom (aka home made) "San Diego" style "dump pack" which I constructed from a piece of SS sheet, a SS Piano hinge, several lengths of WW 11 webbing and a SS rod as the release pin. The dump pack contained 200 feet of yellow 1/8 Polypropylene line fan folded into small bunches secured by two pieces of a bicycle inner tube (they won't rot) terminating with a small WW11 water purification bag modified into an automatic Co2 inflation float. It has a 15 inch SS balance bar

Gun number two is equipped with a huge six inch "Riffes Reel," produced and marketed about 40 years ago by a now defunct San Diego company by the name of Aquacraft. The reel holds about a jillione miles of hard lay tuna trolling nylon line. I can not recall how much it holds and I have never been reeled there fore cannot accurately state with any reasonable amount of certainty the amount of line on the Riffe's reel but it is a lot! It originally came equipped with a 15 inch balance bar, which the former owner trimmed to eight inches. I found this too short and extended it to it's original length of 15 inches by the addition of a piece of 1 &1/4 wood dowel.

Do I still use the guns? Heck no! They are just too rare and too valuable , since only less than ten are known to have survived the passage of time , and especially when a Bottom Scratcher/Hoss gun sold on E bay several years ago for $2500.00 plus dollars.

But-- I still have wonderful memories of the Bottom Scratcher and years gone by.
SDM

Sam Miller III,
Mar 2, 2014 IP Report

 

[shurite7]

Here in the western part of Montana the preferred gun is 24 inches due to poor visability and plant life. Pike is the only thing that can be legally hunted via spear pole or speargun. Pike go deep to eat and then come up shallow to digest in warmer water. Since the water is warmer weeds and lily pads grow quite thick. A long speargun tends to tangle easier, therefore, a shorter one is preferred.

One of the guys up here took a 32 inch gun. which normally uses two bands, added another notch in the shaft and added a third band. He found his accuracy diminished significantly. What he discovered is the third band added too much power bending the shaft as it shot out; similar to an archers paradox when shooting arrows. He went back to two bands.

 

[Professor Nemo]

An example of a vintage spear gun used in the then clear California water for bigger fish

THE BOTTOM SCRATCHER SPEAR GUN

My all time favorite spear gun is a "Bottom Scratcher." It was designed/developed in 1939 by Wally Potts and perfected by the Bottom Scratcher spear fishing club of San Diego, California. It is the first rubber powered spear gun produced in the US and is the original California long gun, constructed of by the joining of a simple tube SS handle containing a one piece trigger to a 1&1/4 inch dowel barrel, and a long balance bar that was either made of wood or SS.

In the very early days of spear fishing around 1950 Wally sold a Bottom Scratcher gun to Paul Hoss a member of the Dolphins spear fishing club which had recently won the world's very first "International spear fishing meet" in Laguna Beach in the Summer of 1950. When he sold it to Paul who lived in a suburb of LA, called Compton, Jack Prodanovich is reported to have said to Wally that "Selling a gun up north was like selling guns to the Yankees." And he was correct. Paul disassembled the gun did some modifications that improved the trigger pull and began producing a very close copy affectionately became known as the "Hoss gun" or the "Hoss-Bottom Scratcher gun" by the "Yankees" of Los Angeles and Orange County. The Hoss copy was cosmetically and functionally identical in every respect except for the Sturgil muzzle which was the muzzle of choice for all guns used by serious Yankee spear fishermen. The guns which were made by Wally and Paul were all custom made therefore no two were exactly identical. It was reported substantially less than 50 were made in a 30 plus year period by Wally and some where between 20 and 30 by Paul in about a 10 year period. Needless to say they were difficult to obtain and are now scarce and highly prised by those who own them, or collectors of diving memorabilia.

Known through out the spear fishing fraternity as the "California long gun" and on occasion the "Long Tom," they were made for long shots at big fish in then the clear unpolluted waters of SoCal.

I was fortunate to have ended up with two. My own personal custom gun I purchased from Paul Hoss and a friend's who after being chased out of the water by a shark decided that spear fishing was not for him, so he sold it to me a half what a bare unrigged new one costs

My guns measure 7 foot 9 inches plus the point which can have many configurations and lengths adding as much as a foot if the Prodanovich point impact aka power head was used. It has a sling pull of 4 foot 8 inches and the 5/16 diameter SS arrow rides on the first rails to be installed on a spear gun. It has a balance bar that extends approximately 15 inches behind the trigger mechanism.

It was made during the era of the kettle cured rubber. I can't recall when surgical rubber for spear gun slings became popular but I think in the mid 1950s. The gun originally used three slings of 28 or less inches of kettle cured rubber , which I replaced with an equal amount of surgical tubing for power when it became popular and readily available. I do vividly recall the first time I test fired it at Ship Rock off Catalina using the then new surgical slings...the arabelete type slide ring exploded totally disintegrated ! The arrow went flying in to the blue water never to be seen again by man--or at least me...so I had a slide ring custom made from aerospace material. A number of years later Joe La Monica who developed the Voit/ Mares/JBL gun "copied" my slide ring and began producing a very strong SS slide ring which I modified and converted to use on some of my guns.

My first and my favorite gun has a custom (aka home made) "San Diego" style "dump pack" which I constructed from a piece of SS sheet, a SS Piano hinge, several lengths of WW 11 webbing and a SS rod as the release pin. The dump pack contained 200 feet of yellow 1/8 Polypropylene line fan folded into small bunches secured by two pieces of a bicycle inner tube (they won't rot) terminating with a small WW11 water purification bag modified into an automatic Co2 inflation float. It has a 15 inch SS balance bar

Gun number two is equipped with a huge six inch "Riffes Reel," produced and marketed about 40 years ago by a now defunct San Diego company by the name of Aquacraft. The reel holds about a jillione miles of hard lay tuna trolling nylon line. I can not recall how much it holds and I have never been reeled there fore cannot accurately state with any reasonable amount of certainty the amount of line on the Riffe's reel but it is a lot! It originally came equipped with a 15 inch balance bar, which the former owner trimmed to eight inches. I found this too short and extended it to it's original length of 15 inches by the addition of a piece of 1 &1/4 wood dowel.

Do I still use the guns? Heck no! They are just too rare and too valuable , since only less than ten are known to have survived the passage of time , and especially when a Bottom Scratcher/Hoss gun sold on E bay several years ago for $2500.00 plus dollars.

But-- I still have wonderful memories of the Bottom Scratcher and years gone by.
SDM

Sam Miller III,
Mar 2, 2014 IP Report

There's so much great information here, plus great stories. Thanks.

 

[JamesBon92007]

Short spearguns are for short fish. Long spearguns are for long fish.

 

[Johnoly]

... I don’t spear fish myself but I have often wondered why certain lengths of spear guns are considered acceptable for certain prey....

It's like golf.........Can you tee off with a putter? > sure can!.....Can you putt with a sand wedge? > sure can!
But after spending a hundred or more dollars in gas & boat fees just to jump on a playing field, wouldn't you want the proper speargun for the location you are diving?
Bringing home a full cooler worth hundreds of dollars in fresh caught fish is much better than an empty wallet & empty cooler.

 

[Sam Miller III]

It is Mass X Velocity = Penetration

the larger the mass - the length and diameter of the spear (aka Arrow )

the faster the speed of the shaft (arrow)

the more penetration---into the fish.

sdm

 

[MAKO Spearguns]

A lot of great information here. Serious spearos can argue this stuff for days. Long guns are harder and slower to swing and somewhat more challenging to load. So the idea to take a little gun and power it way up with multiple bands does seem to have some advantages.

However, it is more complicated than that. Spearguns come in a huge variety of sizes, designs and attributes and all these guns are trying to balance out the negatives and positives of each feature and somehow arrive at the best gun -- for a particular application. There is no one "best gun" for all conditions and situations (regardless of what the dive shop salesman says).

If you over-power a speargun, then the recoil will become unmanageable and this will make the gun painful or dangerous to use and inaccurate. The shafts can even be caused to bend and oscillate during the flight which causes further inaccuracies and also can reduce effectiveness if the shaft is not traveling straight. A small gun is going to weigh less than a long gun, so a short gun can offset only so much recoil.

In general you want the shortest gun possible that will have an effective range that matches the visibility. It does little good to be able to shoot farther than you can see, and it presents safety concerns as well.

So long guns for clear water and short guns for dirty water.

You have to understand that the maximum range of even the largest, custom made guns that may weigh 12 or 15 lbs might be 35 or so feet. So in clear water, we may be able to see fish that are well out of range, while in very dirty water, any fish we can see is potentially within range - assuming that we can swing, aim and fire the gun, before the fish slips out of the limited visibility.

Longer (and thus more massive guns) will be able to deliver more power (using more bands) and they shoot a longer (and thus heavier) shaft which can deliver more kinetic energy to the target. They also tend to be more accurate than a short gun trying to to shoot to the limit of its range.

Also, fish tend to be more skittish in clear water (which translates to longer shots), so this means that a longer gun is generally selected for clear water -even if the fish itself is small.

I know some of these points were already raised, but I wanted to try to paint a picture of some of the trade offs and constraints which speargun builders are presented with.

Of yeah. the speargun itself must be close to neutrally buoyant or it will be difficult to use and aim - particularly a long gun. So you can't make a really short little massive gun, unless you like swimming with a brick.