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All About Pole Spears & Slings What is it about that traditional method of the early hunter/gatherers under the water? These devices are indeed interesting and effective.

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Old 07-13-2013, 01:00 AM   #16
MonkeyChunks1
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Pre birthday Dive

Spent 4 hours in the water the other day looking for my favorite summer time treat , Shovel nose sharks...
Hit beacons for an hour, visibility was marginal over the eel grass but amazing over the sand. Searched the area hard for leopard sharks or shovel nose with no luck, tide was going out and surf was 2-3 by this time so we bailed and headed to carlsbad.
Tamarack was the same conditions but a lot clearer on the outside, Hunted carlsbad for like 3 hours plus up and down sand channels looking for good game fish. I was packing the 6 ft yellow Jbl and my aim was o a bit from so much swimming but long story short, spotted tons of zebra perch, mullet and small white sea bass but no legal hilibut or shovelnose were taken. Water temp was 68-70 surf was 2-3 with the outgoing tide and pulling hard toteh right but it was fun.
I figured the day before my birthday i would get lucky and bag somethign worth while but no luck.
i just ended up with a corbina and a nice zebra perch. Lost a big old corbina around 5lb as he broke off, hewas stunned cause i ripped a nice chunk outa his guts, but as i swam doen to grab him he reaked out and barrel rolled off the spear and took off, searched the suft zone for a bit until i got rolled by a set and gave up.
Still looking for something good to spear..
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Old 07-17-2013, 03:20 PM   #17
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Re: Goods For Grabs 2013

Ok, i dont know where teh ish are but this season is turning out to be crap. Hit the water on the 7/14/13 usual spot to fins 1-2 foot surf, 68 degree water and 10 foot visiility. jumped in and headed to the kelp, 2 hours of searching the kelp for what? Nothing... Saw a few leopard sharks, big bat rays and crap ton of zebra perch.
Hunted the surf zone for 2 hours only to find 1 small shovel nose (not taken)
Decided to switch my tactics and hunted the surf, by this time the tide is changing and swells picking up, huntign the surf and bagged a few nice fish but lost 2 of teh biggest corbina see this season, both tore off. The first was hit 2 times and still got away, the second i hit him so hard with the gatku that it blew out his guts but he still disapeared in the surf. I dont know if my aim was off or my spear was off, either way i ended up with a few smaller corbina, black drum, croker and zebra perch.
I dont knwo whats going on but the frequent big swells and crappy water temps is keepign the good fish away. I will keep going until i bag something worth while.
Gear used 6 foot Gatku with power band from Ray Odor.

Ps. got rolled by a big set and my float line wrapped around my leg and cut my suit at the knee. I can catch a break anywhere whis year when it comes to suits.
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Old 07-22-2013, 11:46 AM   #18
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Re: Goods For Grabs 2013

got out today in some crap viz 2-5ft at best. did really get out last week due to a sinus infection.. season just opened for tog over here with 1 fish until the fall.. didn't see to much action off the beach in like 20-25ft water, headed in to hang around a jetty and found a nice black fish right in the corner of my eye. took a quick awkward shot and missed, loaded up the crist really quick again as he turned around a rock so i shot blind under it from a couple of feet. Managed to get him, but obviously not where i wanted to haha he spun a nice size hole in the meat. But still a nice fish. just over 5 1/2 lbs. like 20-21 ''.
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Old 07-24-2013, 07:53 PM   #19
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Re: Goods For Grabs 2013

Hello to All,

My name is Fernando and this is my first time posting to the Spearboard. The following pictures are the fish I shot during my visit to Matthew Town, Great Inagua.

My adventures begin with a 30ft (ish) freedive for what I thought was going to be a failed attempt at a White Margate. As I dove down and approached this fish, it started to get away from me and decided to let go and see what happened. To my disbelief, I was shock that I landed this fish in the face. The only bad thing about shooting stuff in the Bahamas is the sharks getting to the scene of the crime in 30 seconds. Luckily, no sharks arrive during this area I was in.

This next fish is a Nassau Grouper that I shot using a Sub Sea Hawaiian Sling. Over the past week I have been trying to perfect my skills in the sling and this grouper was just sitting there asking to be on my dinner plate. This grouper was sitting at around 20ft not far from shore. This was the first fish I got on the trip and the successful catch using a Hawaiian sling.

The last fish I shot is a Tiger Grouper that took almost 30 minutes to get at around 20ft. I end up chasing him for a couple minutes and he ended up in a coral head that had pathways going in all directions. After seeing him cross a hole I found him hiding his head behind a rock. BAM! There goes my pole spear driving deeper into the coral head. I was not going to let this guy slip off my tip, so I reached down and felt his tail and gave it a little tug. Bad idea, he dragged my pole spear further down into hole and took my arm with me. OUCH! That was dumb. So I stayed on top of the water and just waited for him to pretty much die. After sliding my hand back, I ended up grabbing his tail and putting his body parallel to the pole spear and pulled him out. Win!

Finally the last couple pictures are some of the fish we got throughout our trip. Only the select few had stories that were worth telling.

Pole Spear Used: Called the dive shop and told me it was made by JAWS but couldn’t find online. It’s a fiberglass, yellow pole spear that stands about 6.5ft tall.
Hawaiian Sling: Sub Sea Guns is the company that makes the Hawaiian sling. Seen in the 4 Nassau picture.
Date: All fish were shot in the beginning of July 2013.
Fish Species: White Margate, Nassau Grouper, Tiger Grouper. As far as weight, all were under 10lbs. Nothing huge.
Special Thanks to Dan and Mike who shot some of the other fish in the picture that I did not mention.





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Old 07-26-2013, 12:03 PM   #20
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Re: Goods For Grabs 2013

I went out surfing the other day and there was a lot of birds diving on the inside, viz looked pretty decent, the waves were not consistent so I ran in the car and grabbed my mask, polespear, fins, belt and went out for a little while in the shallow, there was a river of bait on the inside and I was hoping for a decent sized hali but no luck...

I spooked a baby one, passed on a almost legal that was passed out with a full belly... I actually touched it and it did not move.

Then about 5 mins. later I saw this one and after starring at it for long enough to figure out size,I took the risk and shot it, swam back in, put it in a cooler in the car and surfed for a bit more!

I had not used the spear in a while and it was fun to get a flattie. I gutted it in the water and the stomach was bursting with bait.

When I got home I scaled it, cut off the tail and head and put it in a baking dish with olive oil, sliced onions, tomatoes and olives, baked a little bit and "voila"!

Time in the water, about 1 1/2hr diving,3 hrs surfing!
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Old 07-26-2013, 03:12 PM   #21
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Re: Goods For Grabs 2013

Great work in the above two posts ! Thanks for posting pictures, I love seeing the variety of cool fish people spear in other countries. Well done on both those catches- all looks like great eating to me. Yum!
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Old 07-26-2013, 07:14 PM   #22
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Re: Goods For Grabs 2013

Here is the end product, Baked in a pool of Olive oil with sliced onions, tomatoes and Olives.
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Old 07-28-2013, 02:24 PM   #23
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Re: Goods For Grabs 2013

I had my second dive with my first pole spear (Ray Odor). I had returned from CO visiting family yesterday to find my upgraded band from Crist waiting in the mail for me as I was hoping it would, and quickly added it to my pole spear along with a new grip. I woke up the next morning an hour before my alarm was set and decided to just go with it and start my drive to Willow Beach AZ with my lucky t-shit on. By six AM I was in the water starting my dive. I must have been in the water for about an hour and had taken a missed shot at a smaller striped bass while trying to get a hang of my new pole spear. While creeping into a nice shaded cove, I came across two stripers. I dove about 20ft to the bottom slowly and just sat there for a second while they doubled back to check me out. I realized that there was a nice sized school of them and they all began to swim towards me. Picking a larger one that came close I took a shot and missed haha. Thinking that I had spooked them all off I began to surface only to see more looming at the cusp of visibility. Slowing my accent I surfaced and began to let myself sink again. Then boom! Two of them swim right at me. When the larger of the two came too close for her own good I let my spear fly again this time landing my target.
Striped Bass #23
Ray Odor 8' pole spear with a flopper shaft
7/28/13
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Old 07-28-2013, 06:48 PM   #24
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Re: Goods For Grabs 2013

great fish!
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Old 07-29-2013, 01:04 PM   #25
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Re: Goods For Grabs 2013

I took the family to Big Pine Key for the Florida lobster mini season to catch some bugs and do a little spearing. We had a great trip with many lobsters caught and fish speared.

I borrowed a 6 ft pole spear from a friend to use on lionfish should we happen to encounter any and with the thoughts that my six year old might get a chance to stab one himself if we encountered any on some shallow reefs.

My son quickly commandeered the pole spear for himself and whenever we were on a shallow site I allowed him to try the pole spear. He is too young to operate the pole spear correctly, so he resorted to trying to stab any legal sized fish within range. He is fanatic about the water and fishing and probably knows the fish as well as me!

By the third day he was a little frustrated that he hadn't successfully "speared" a fish yet so in a last ditch effort before we had to pack up and leave we stopped at a coral head in 8 ft of water. The site was loaded with blue striped grunts, small mangrove snapper and margates. I had little hope that he would actually get something but I'll be darned if he didn't prove me wrong. About 30 min later my six year old speared his first fish ever. A 5 inch grunt! He trapped it in a hole in the coral and put the hurt on him.

We took it home and cooked it up with the snapper and hogfish I had short earlier and he proceeded to declare it the best fish he had ever eaten. I am one proud papa and he is one addicted little spearo.
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Old 08-01-2013, 09:31 PM   #26
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Re: Goods For Grabs 2013

Well have finally been able to spend a few hours in the water. I live in Tampa and there isn't much close to shore or in Tampa Bay with decent viz right now so getting a invite down to Little Gasparilla Island in Boca Grande was a no brainer. I have been many times and love it down there, even though I knew the water wasn't going to be that clear I didn't care. The plan was to go down and do work on the island house's new bathroom, have some cold drinks, and try to do some spearfishing (nothing offshore as I don't have a big boat). The first two days we didn't even get wet, it was windy and the water was super murky. Finally the sun decided to show some on our last two days, we decided to hit the old train trestle and see what we could come up with.... Well after back and forth for almost two hours we didn't shoot one thing and could only see 2ft in front of us. We called it a day, went back and poured stiff vodka drinks. Got up early the next morning with the water calm and a little bit clearer we decided to hit the trestle again, this time I'm actually seeing a few shooter fish (small snapper, and sheephead, etc) and after a short time we started putting some meat in the cooler. I am very green to the whole pole spear and spearfishing thing, I purchased a pole spear first trying to master that and eventually move to a gun. I have always been a AVID inshore fisherman here in Florida, mainly inshore, but the first time I dove down with a buddies pole spear, I was Hooked! So to speak lol

Polespear: JBL 6ft 1 piece aluminum w/ 2in. Spinner tip
Upgraded Band (the OEM one was crap)
I have a custom grip on it which is a must
Also the 3 black lines are 10" 12" and 22" (in the pic below)

Here is one of the bigger Sheephead that I shot, he was 16" I know he ain't much but I'm super stoked! And a quick shot of my JBL grip
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Old 08-01-2013, 10:04 PM   #27
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Re: Goods For Grabs 2013

I should have some pics up by next tues
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Old 08-06-2013, 02:52 PM   #28
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Re: Goods For Grabs 2013

Here are some pics from an awesome family beach day. The water was a bit chilly and the vis was bad, but I was able to land enough halibut for the whole family to get a delicious meal.
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Old 08-15-2013, 05:55 AM   #29
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Smile Re: Goods For Grabs 2013, the Bridge.

After spending 2 months/my entire winter holidays building 2 beut spearguns which are not yet ‘finished’, yes it is as stupid as it sounds but I expect you may all get a looksee in a few months time. – Fed up and with a new perspective I decided to throw the tools aside and head for what matters most - the water.

The conditions were set with a high tide at dawn and I was going to rise on that rising tide and that rising sun.

Took up the home made roller poller and headed down to the bridge which always can excite in the twilight of a dawn holding travelly, perch, etc. I have even seen a kingfish there around this time last year.
Ofcourse using the pole spear I was doubtful and optimistic about catching one of these fish but I was sure that I would feel 5x the pride in using it.

Jumped in like a charging bull, on the way to the bridge I spooked a flathead which I tried to approach again, took off 1m out of range.
Sadly the bridge wasn’t swarming with travelly but rather luderick/blackfish, they were swarming so thick that it made it hard to see other fish at times. But there was a lovely school of small travelly which looked awesome in the little sunshine 8m down.




Descended on the far pylon, and drifting through at the end found a soapie 55cm Dagga salmon/Mulloway which I snuck up on and well within range, although legal, these don’t reach maturity until 75cm so I decided against it.

Drifting through my favourite rock eddy I found a 40cm flathead hiding however coming into range spooked him off but noting where he settled 5m away deeper. So ho-hum, I just continued around the rockwall for 2mins allowing him to settle fully and not making the same mistake I did with the first earlier that morning.
After finding a great Shimano spin reel I made a careful approach back to him only to find he was no longer there, once ascended to my delight I saw the soon-to-be-lunch flattie sitting in the rocks where he had before and this time docile, loaded up-in range-placement on the head= fish for tea.
As the tide began to run out, stuff generally gets interesting under that bridge and a school of travelly did make a show but by then I was too focused on those big tasty luderick.



Picked out the dumb lone 35cm one, in an unorthodox manner I swarm like a mad man at him closing the distance enough to have the fish on passed the grip on the hand spear. Boo-yarr!

I was living it up in the eddy of the back of a pylon sheltering me from the increasing currants on the bottom, locked my hand down hard on the grip and waited for the big one to pass by through the piles, after a few misses and travelly distractions I ascended to the surface. I gave myself time to breath and calm down and sure enough time and time again that act produced!
After my decent I chased the majority of the school noting 2 biggies. They are less terrified between the piles making closing the distance easier but this school was heading for open water so with another sprint I cut them off. They bolted back in front of the piles still swimming strong but slower and constant. So turning faster than they I brought down a tracking shot onto the big one and surfacing with a 40cm fish.


Finally as the small wash became a raging current, the luderick appeared to somehow dispite there unrivalled potence, become bigger and denser. Diving down in full current and full swarm I picked out the swimming log 1/2 way on my decent, loading and tracking I saw it passed behind a pile. Moving closer and placing my 2inch 6mm diametre tapered point on the other side, she came though and with me grunting “tis is Sparta!” I unleashed the full 14mm band driving the spear through the gill. As I then made a charge to ensure this hog of a luderick wasn’t going to get off... it did.




I refused to believe a fish could survive that blow so continued the chase but what little hope I had left was decimated by its strength to kick away into the web of the piles like nothing had happened. Gazing at the pile web with what little breath hold I had left I gave up.

Only to turn to my right and find my 44cm luderick dead 1m away 10 seconds after it had bolted off. I wasn’t taking chances and strived the spear up to bring down the flopper though it with an uncoordinated blow.
Surfacing and seeing 4 beautiful fish on my rig that I was going to enjoy with my family I called it a dawn. The day had just begun.



Gotta love Shimano reels too, the inner workings are clogged with grease and all good quality. Easily salvageable if it says Shimano but I made sure it was going to have a long life with me pulling it to bits with a can of oil. 6000FA HyperSpool.



I then prepared the fillets in a seasoned flour(mustard, garlic, oregano, pepper/salt), shallow fried =beautiful.



I live on the east coast of Australia, can only spear while freediving and have always loved the greater challenge that handspears give over guns.
Crist inspired homemade roller pole spear, approximately 8ft, single 14mm rubber, aluminium with 6mm speargun shaft core. - http://www.spearboard.com/showthread.php?t=150934




Thanks for hearing my story, I hoped you enjoyed reading as much as I did writing.
Sam

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Old 08-15-2013, 02:57 PM   #30
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Re: Goods For Grabs 2013

We ran over to West End, Bahamas in late July for a 3 day, 2 night dive trip. There were 3 divers on the trip. This 37 lb black grouper was the last fish of the trip and it took us about an hour and a half to get him out of his hole in 53 ft. Killian spotted him cruising over the patches and followed him into a hole. He dove down put a good shot in his side and the grouper took off out the other side and shook the slip tip. I followed the fish into another hole that he somehow managed to wiggle his way into, but the only hole we could see him through was about the size of a cantaloupe. My friend and I both shot him through the hole in order to subdue him as best as we could. Killian then went down and put a gaff in his side under a small ledge less than a foot high where his tail was sticking out. We cut the slip tips off of the polespears and killian ripped him out from under the ledge. An hour and a half later he was in the boat and we were headed home. I had no clue how much teamwork it takes land a fish like that. We each did 10-15 dives to 50+ feet in attempt to get him out. The polespears we used to land this fish were two 9 ft crists and a 7 ft Keller.

Some of the other fish from the trip

And the video I made
Spearfishing West End July 2013 - YouTube
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