Spearfishing Alaska salmon

  • Just thought the Alaska portion of this forum could use some help.
    I did a beach dive after work yesterday for about 3 hours. The spot is a common place that many people frequent so it's dodging boats on the out side and hooks coming shore side. Water was really warm pushing 60! And the vis about 12'. Most of my time was spent on one rock pile in about 8ft of water where the salmon are funneled by because of the bottom contour. I would hug a rock no the bottom(I was way under weighted for this shallow of water) and wait for a school to swim by. It's a little late in the year for kings but was still able to pick up two I also got to pinks and one flounder. I don't usually shoot flounder but this one was swimming about a foot off bottom and about 8' from me, it was a can I hit that moment. Flounder from the side make for a thin target.
    This was my fist time using a camo suit and I must say it made a huge difference from the black suits iv had. The salmon didn't seem to notice me till Id moved to shoot. Love it.

  • My hats off to all spearo's that hunt in cold water. Well done! :thumbsup2: your comment about the color of your suit - Black vtsus Camo made sense when I stopped to think about it. Black suit = Sea Lion look alike, number one predator of Salmon. Interesting.

  • Arrow Tooth Flounder?

    "Whiskey don't make liars, it just makes fools. So, I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said."
    -James McMurtry

  • Love it! One day I will get the balls to do diving like that, till then u cold water guys are my heroes :thumbsup2:

    A bad day at sea is better than a good day in the boatyard
    George Steele

  • I wonder if a Zebra stripe suit would keep bears from attacking someone sharing the resource with them?:D


    Cheers, Don

    "Great mother ocean brought forth all life, it is my eternal home'' Don Berry from Blue Water Hunters.


    Spearfishing Store the freediving and spearfishing equipment specialists.

  • Thanks. I'm not big on eating salmon so I don't go after them much but they are a lot of fun to shoot!


    Arrow Tooth Flounder?


    No it's a starry flounder. We do have arrow Tooth locally called turbot that are considered trash fish and are usually a deep water fish.
    It's funny you should mention bears I had a young black bear that day come down the beach cleaning up after people that had cleaned their fish on the rocks. Bears are very common here and the only real problems they cause is tipping trash cans.

  • Looks like one of the salmon has eggs. Are the eggs good to eat?


    Yes the one had eggs. I don't care for them, to big as fish eggs go for me but a few people do eat them.


    Iv shot a few bears with my bow and would say that a spear gun would kill a bear but the time it'd take from shooting it to dead that bear could ruin your day.


    Took a buddy out yesterday for his first time spear fishing, using my old gear and he got 3 pink salmon. I think he's hooked. Ill post a pic later this evening.

  • A bow kills by shredding internal organs causing massive bleeding. A spear doesn't have cutting barbs and so makes a very small hole. It would have to be an extremely lucky shot right into an artery or the heart, to make a bear bleed to death. I think it's highly unlikely to kill a bear with a speargun. And a damn shame to try, unless it was in self defense. If it does come to that make sure the shooting line is not connected to the gun, otherwise the spear will come back and stick you if you miss the bear.

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