Shore dive and gun difficulties 10/21/18

[nivekerotavlas]

Went off the shore in Palmetto on a few artificial reef balls. Water was warm enough where I didn't require a wetsuit. Got in the water around 8:45am during incoming tide. Depth was roughly 30ft at its deepest point. Visibility was roughly 10ft.

First fish I took was a gag that was a hair under 26inches. I didn't stone it in the first shot and had a pretty difficult time killing it. I must have been stabbing him in the head in the wrong spot with my dive knife. I wasted atleast 700psi fighting with it. I ended up having to ascend and bring him to my cooler on shore. I noticed while reloading my gun ( Mares Viper Pro ) that my drag was totally loose after spearing the gag and wouldn't tighten. Luckily I had a phillips head screwdriver on shore and was able to tighten the bolt in the reel only to have it loosen again. Any one experience this before?
After that I got back in the water and proceeded to make quick work of three decent sized sheepshead with no issues

My only regret was that I didn't have a second tank because I felt that I definitely could have taken more fish if I had wasted so much time and air on that grouper. Fried up the grouper last night and made sheepshead ceviche.

P.S. The stringer advice in the last post helped tremendously! Got one with the extended spike. Had no issues there and no appearances from the grey suits.

[CuzzA]

I doubt you'll use that setup for long shooting on scuba. You want to be able to secure your fish quickly. Reeling in a green fish at depth is no good. You want a finite amount of line to bring your fish in and string it. The best way to handle the fish is to grab it up underneath in the gills. Sometimes I will dispatch a fish after stringing it if my initial shot and the act of stringing it through the eyes did not severely disable it.

I suggest getting a scuba gun or reducing the line on that gun to about 15-20 feet.

For scuba guns look at Biller, Ocean Rhino or a Koah BattleAxe, or a custom built gun. None of which will use a reel. Also, I would want a big gun. 55-60". More punch, more accurate and better range.

[Marcus]

Did you see any other grouper? Were they inside the balls? I use a 42" butt shortened Biller for dirty water diving. Free shafting with xtra shafts. Braining fish: Try the pointy stringer end next time and go thru the eye or gills toward the brain.

[jfjf]

this video around 5 minutes shows my son knifing an amberjack. You don't want to stab, it is much better to carefully insert the knife, then move forward and back and maybe twist if you have a decent knife.

There are probably several examples of knifing fish in this video I remember correctly.

https://youtu.be/GSvp12grRoo

YouTube

[Eibwen]

The brain is behind and above the eyes of the fish (towards the gillplate). There is a soft spot you can get a knife tip into from the side of the fish's head.

You can obviously do fine with the gun you have (use a single line wrap or approx 10-15ft of line as Cuzza stated), you managed to take a nice gag grouper with it. A "scuba gun" you'll have heavier spears with more hitting power, a benefit of accuracy & power w/ a longer gun, and the main advantage is reloading time.