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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 06-02-2013, 12:29 AM   #1
mishu1984
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Gat-Ku Slip tip not working properly

I recently got to take out my new polespear for what i was hoping was going to be some action packed diving on one of the local rigs.
the vis was shiite so i was able to get really close to the fish.

the first queenfish that showed up i shot her a little too high and it tore off.
the second queenfish was a nice holding shot but she did manage to ever so slightly bend the tip of the shaft that holds the slip tip in place.

the third queenfish jacked my shit. the slip tip went all the way through with really good power and penetration but it did not toggle.

my questions are:
  1. can this be fixed?
  2. how do sea-stinger tips compare in terms of strenght?
  3. will a fixed floper hold up better?

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Old 06-02-2013, 01:11 AM   #2
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Re: Gat-Ku Slip tip not working properly

Dude, just bend it back.
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Old 06-02-2013, 01:25 AM   #3
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Re: Gat-Ku Slip tip not working properly

Quote:
Originally Posted by mishu1984 View Post
my questions are:
  1. can this be fixed?
  2. how do sea-stinger tips compare in terms of strenght?
  3. will a fixed floper hold up better?

1. Yes. Bend it back and straighten it yourself. It is not designed to be rigid or to resist fish. The shaft is just an extension for inserting the slip tip through the fish. Once the tip has been toggled, the shaft has served its purpose. If your slip tip is not toggling, the line might be held too tight by the flesh of the fish, keeping tension on the slip tip and holding it in place. A fix is to splice a piece of short heavy mono into the tether line to act as a barb, with a leg of approximately 1-2 cm long placed about 1-2 cm below the bottom edge of the slip tip when initially set up and the line is pulled taught. This will force the line above to go slack when the mono barb hangs up on the fish as it pulls away and allow the slip tip to fall off the shaft. Take a good look at a Sea Stinger slip tip and you can see that they crimp on a short piece of stainless steel cable to achieve this.

2. The Sea Stinger 1 slip tip has the same diameter shaft (3/16" - 4.75mm) as the necked down tip of the Gat-Ku shaft. The Gat-Ku shaft is 1/4" - 6.35mm. The Sea Stinger 2 and 3 slip tips use a larger 8mm diameter shaft that is necked down.

3. A fixed flopper shaft will bend just as easily, maybe even more so because the flopper will give the fish the leverage it needs to do so.

The bottom line is that, when it comes to larger or stronger fish, you should concentrate on hitting the fish diagonally between the eyes and the gill plate for a stone shot or to significantly incapacitate the fish and not rely on a holding shot with an able bodied fish, unless you use a breakaway system.
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Last edited by SpearoTastic; 06-02-2013 at 10:05 PM.
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Old 06-02-2013, 09:53 AM   #4
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Re: Gat-Ku Slip tip not working properly

Quote:
Originally Posted by SpearoTastic View Post
1.

2. The Sea Stinger 1 slip tip has the same diameter shaft (3/16" - 4.75mm) as the necked down tip of the Gat-Ku shaft. The Gat-Ku shaft is 1/4" - 6.35mm. The Sea Stinger 2 and 3 slip tips use a larger 8mm diameter shaft.

3. A fixed flopper shaft will bend just as easily, maybe even more so because the flopper will give the fish the leverage it needs to do so.

The bottom line is that you should concentrate on hitting the fish diagonally between the eyes and the gill plate for a stone shot or significantly incapacitate the fish and not rely on a holding shot with an able bodied fish.
It appears in your pic that you have a larger diameter shaft necked down to 1/4 inch to fit the gatku tip? I use the gatku and love it! But the 1/4" shaft on the slip tip is too weak and does not toggle well for a few different reasons. The sea stinger is not much better and actually has much worse penetration. My fix is expensive but is the best in the world. First you take the gatku 5/16" flopper and cut the flopper off and add 6mm threads. Then buy an adapter from riffe for a mini icepick 5/16, adapter only($25). Then buy the super mini icepick head only($30). You must then rig hollow spectra though the tip and splice to a solid shooting line (i use 3mm spectra made by mori). I have taken many bluewater fish like dorado and wahoo as well as some large grouper and white Seabass with this rig.
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Old 06-02-2013, 11:34 AM   #5
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Re: Gat-Ku Slip tip not working properly

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Originally Posted by freeride View Post
It appears in your pic that you have a larger diameter shaft necked down to 1/4 inch to fit the gatku tip? I use the gatku and love it! But the 1/4" shaft on the slip tip is too weak and does not toggle well for a few different reasons. The sea stinger is not much better and actually has much worse penetration. My fix is expensive but is the best in the world. First you take the gatku 5/16" flopper and cut the flopper off and add 6mm threads. Then buy an adapter from riffe for a mini icepick 5/16, adapter only($25). Then buy the super mini icepick head only($30). You must then rig hollow spectra though the tip and splice to a solid shooting line (i use 3mm spectra made by mori). I have taken many bluewater fish like dorado and wahoo as well as some large grouper and white Seabass with this rig.
The first pic has the Sea Stinger 1 on the bottom, with its 3/16-inch shaft, the Gat-Ku in the middle with its 1/4-inch shaft and the tip rigged for breakaway, and the Sea Stinger 2 with its 5/16-inch shaft.

The second pic shows the Sea Stinger 1 and the Gat-Ku. And the last pic is a close up of the Sea Stinger 2. I don't have the Sea Stinger 3, but it is a Sea Stinger 2 made to the length of a Sea Stinger 1.

I haven't had any issues with the Sea Stinger tips at all, especially when it comes to penetration.

I've got a 9/32-inch Mori slip-tip with steel cable on my 10-ft Riffe and a 5/16-inch Riffe slip tip on my 8-ft Crist with a 36" threaded 5/16-inch shaft. I recently purchased these, along with a 9-ft Gat-ku, so they haven't even been wet, yet.

Please comment further on your experiences, freeride. I've got a trip to the Bahamas coming up soon and would like to minimize any potential weak spots in my rigging.
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Old 06-02-2013, 12:03 PM   #6
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Re: Gat-Ku Slip tip not working properly

Hi guys,
Let me bring some clarity to some of the differences in GAT-KU slip tips you see above.
As of a month ago or so, the GAT-KU slip-tips have seen some changes. This is mostly because the older 3/16" shaft (pictured bent above) is not rigid enough to fire into rocks, sand, and as SpearoTastic has mentioned, the shaft was not designed to withstand lateral movements of fish. Rather, the sole purpose was to penetrate and evacuate. On these older models, the 'bending' can be fixed by hand underwater. I personally have put three seasons on the same slip-tip that still looks pretty straight.

However, we are now making the shanks from 1/4" diameter 17-4 stainless and tapering them down to accept the signature tip that has become so popular. We are very pleased with the upgrade and find it more than twice as rigid as the older one. See pics attached. Please note that these upgrades have not yet been revised on the website but ALL slip-tips purchased FROM HERE ON OUT will be the upgraded 'stout' version.
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Old 06-02-2013, 02:43 PM   #7
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Re: Gat-Ku Slip tip not working properly

"I've got a trip to the Bahamas coming up soon and would like to minimize any potential weak spots in my rigging."
I see a big problem you got, a Riffe slip-tip on a Crist spear Just messin, they work great and from the looks of it, you're properly prepared to take anything in the Bahamas; that is if you grow a third arm so you can use them all at once.*

Nice upgrade to your tip Dustin. One thing that most of us small polespear companies like to do is improve our product and Dustin has constantly done this.*
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Old 06-02-2013, 04:19 PM   #8
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Re: Gat-Ku Slip tip not working properly

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Originally Posted by azspearo View Post
I see a big problem you got, a Riffe slip-tip on a Crist spear Just messin, they work great and from the looks of it, you're properly prepared to take anything in the Bahamas; that is if you grow a third arm so you can use them all at once.
Thank you, Aaron. I had that Riffe slip tip lying around, so I thought I would put it to use. Now, I see that you have your slip tips in stock, with cable! The trip is a few weeks away at best, so I'll have to make it an all Crist spear for an all Crist spearing experience! You truly make a "BIG GAME" spear! Oh, and thank you for my "birthday spear", which is today, BTW!

And, thank you, Dustin! The 9-ft'er with the upgraded 1/4-inch breakaway tip is an excellent addition to my quiver!

God bless you, both!
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Old 06-02-2013, 04:44 PM   #9
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Re: Gat-Ku Slip tip not working properly

I Use Sea Stinger and like them alot. i have bent the shaft off rocks a few times but it seems to be fine once straightened out.
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Old 06-02-2013, 11:34 PM   #10
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Re: Gat-Ku Slip tip not working properly

Quote:
Originally Posted by SpearoTastic View Post
Please comment further on your experiences, freeride. I've got a trip to the Bahamas coming up soon and would like to minimize any potential weak spots in my rigging.
The Bahamas is a spearing wonderland as you know. The only weak point for me with the way I have been rigging the slip tip is that it is full breakaway. The tip is connected to hollow spectra to which the spectra shooting line is inserted into and spliced. This leaves a seamless transition line which is then wrapped around a screw at the base of the Gatku and then held in the shooting hand with the band.This line is clipped to a snap swivel on the end of the floatline so it can be unclipped and pulled through the fish. The only problem that I have with it is in bottomless bluewater situations where I shoot and then loose the spear on the shot or forget and drop the spear while fighting the fish. I have yet to figure out a good fix for this. Many of the bluewater fish will just break the band if I attach the floatline to the band. I am considering a D ring at the rear of the spear instead of the screw head to wrap the line around. When I tried running the line through the hole in the end the floatline couldnt pass through meaning my pole would take off at mach 4 being towed by an angry fish. I like to have the spear in hand to poke sharks while working the fish too. Maybe I just need more practice polespearing and catching the band so as not to drop the spear on a shot. I am too used to Guns that float so it is common for me to let them go while fighing a fish. You can check out a video I made of a trip last winter to Andros. The bluewater footage ended up getting ruined by my lack of knowledge on how to save it from the camera, so no big fish but you can see a few shots in the beginning with the gatku before I lost it in 1000' of water and was forced into using some sub par crap bahamas Spearfishing - YouTube
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Old 06-03-2013, 08:41 PM   #11
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Re: Gat-Ku Slip tip not working properly

I had a similar issue with the Gat-ku slip tip. It bent the shank and also the line that attached the tip to the spear broke. I see that Dustin has improved the delivery shank, but is there anything coming down the line to change the line to stainless braid?

thanks
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Old 06-04-2013, 07:14 AM   #12
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Re: Gat-Ku Slip tip not working properly

let me get home and il take some screen shots of the video. particularly point of impact and when the shaft turned into a noodle
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Old 06-04-2013, 11:35 AM   #13
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Re: Gat-Ku Slip tip not working properly

Id like to begin by apologising to Dustin. It is completely my fault the shaft got bent. the slip tip slipped off right before making contact. id show you a picture, but i think video is cooler :P

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Old 06-04-2013, 07:30 PM   #14
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Re: Gat-Ku Slip tip not working properly

Dustin is stand up. He upgraded the former slip tip for me when he came out with the beefier version free of charge. I works like a champ and I have mine set up as a breakaway taking hard shots on a 10' pole. If his product doesnt work, he we will fix it.

I'm just one guy, but I will buy more Gatku.

-Jay
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Old 06-05-2013, 05:46 PM   #15
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Re: Gat-Ku Slip tip not working properly

How much for the up grade base/shaft?
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