Bad shot placement

    I am a mediocre shooter to say the least, i make stone shots less than the 10 % of the time. Still almost 90 % of my shots end hitting something. I can tell that i am 100 % sure to get a fish when i aim. Still most of my shots are not stoners. that has to do both with the prey (really skittish) and the split second chance of most of the fish in the local reefs. The pargos are the ones that get the stone shots cause they come to inspect. Still i see a lot of spearos with perfect shot placements in the pics. Any advice?




    I'm a Speardiver, not a freediver

    Interesting thread.


    First don't waste your time with stone shots. Real pros shoot their fish through the gills and out the mouth, you don't damage any meat that way :D


    Seriously a tail shot is a nice holding shot. I've seen quite a few pics of fish landed this way. Probably because it takes out the fish's motor. I think it's more a matter of aiming for the stone shot. Like I said before it's more instinctive to shoot for center mass which is usually not a stone shot. A tail shot like what you have there I'd probably get if the fish was swimming directly away from me.


    I don't know what it is but lately I've been getting good shot placement. Maybe because I stopped shooting when I know the range is not good. Maybe you take a lot of hail mary shots.


    What kind of fish is that in the pic? Why do you push the knife all the way through to dispatch it? Is it for dramatic effect? :D

    I just realized the direction of the spear, I thought it was the opposite. In this case it's obvious the fish wasn't moving directly away from you, maybe towards you. If not and you had a broadside then it is indeed bad shot placement. Still wouldn't call that a high shot. A high shot would be somewhere under the dorsal fin. Can you describe how it happened?

    Monster,


    The first picture on this thread looks just like the waters in the first picture on mine. You sure you weren't diving Miami?:D.


    Sometimes it does not pay to get too fancy. On Friday, we dove the keys and I had a nice hog within my site and I took over 30 seconds to line up a perfect shot to stone him. I pulled the trigger and gave him a mohawk. My buddy tracked him down and shot him behind the gills and landed the fish. Some will not admit it, but a good portion of the stone shots are pure luck. That being said, an accurate gun and good hand-eye coordination will help as well as angle of the shot. Nice pictures.:thumbsup2:

    Quote from Rolo

    Monster,


    The first picture on this thread looks just like the waters in the first picture on mine. You sure you weren't diving Miami?:D.


    Sometimes it does not pay to get too fancy. On Friday, we dove the keys and I had a nice hog within my site and I took over 30 seconds to line up a perfect shot to stone him. I pulled the trigger and gave him a mohawk. My buddy tracked him down and shot him behind the gills and landed the fish. Some will not admit it, but a good portion of the stone shots are pure luck. That being said, an accurate gun and good hand-eye coordination will help as well as angle of the shot. Nice pictures.:thumbsup2:


    Thanks Rolo, the sea around there is really beautiful too. I am not an experienced or consumated spearfisher, and most of my shots are not quite good. but still i manage somehow to land some decent fish. This one was from coast, and it was lo bigger than 6 pounds maybe, still the fish was tasty and once grilled we didn´t notice the tail shot :D

    I'm a Speardiver, not a freediver

    monster slayer,
    Looks like your shot placement is pretty good in those pic already:D
    IMO perfect shot placement is achieved by both indian [spearo] and arrow[eqiipment]
    The perfect arrow is no good if the indian is not good and vice versa. The perfect indian has a hard time hitting with a bent arrow.
    IMO lots of shooting will improve both indian and equipment problems. On bad spearin days I try to get into the water to target practice whenever I can, especially if I get new gear or am having a hitting problem. I use a foam 2ftx2ftx2inch block weighted down to the bottom in 5fsw.
    Another tip is target focus or target concentrate. Meaning focus WHERE exactly on the fish you want your spear to hit. Many shooters look at the whole target without impact focus/concentration. For me, if I focus on the exact spot[impact focus] I want my spear to hit, I will consistantly come closer to hitting that spot. IMO regardless of aiming techique hand/eye coordination can be focused. I focus [concentrate] on the fish gill plate if the fish is broadside. If the fish is close enough I focus on the fish eye. I may not hit the eye or the gill plate, but I come consistantly closer to those spots than aiming at the whole fish. Like Rolo said, good equipment and good hand/eye coordination.
    Last, trigger and gun control is very important for shot placement. Jerking the trigger is a common accuracy problem. A spear takes forever to clear a 3-6ft barrel compared to a bullet clearing a firearm barrel, so that any poor speargun trigger or gun control will easilly throw a shot off target. I'm sure you already know all this, but sometimes we all forget.:)
    Very nice pictures.
    Hope this helps.

    SPEARFISHING and RECREATIONAL FISHING NEEDS THE NRA
    Spearfishing Store

    Edited 4 times, last by hau ().

    :agree1:


    Although I don't like target practice. I feel pretty good about my shots lately and don't want to do anything to fuck it up. It's different when you're shooting at fish. I find that with target practice I focus too long on each shot and lose the fluidity of the shot. I think target practice is good to see if your gun shoots straight a few times if you have doubts about the gun. But not for continuous practice. I did on one occasion a set of shots using sea fans. I did aim at different parts of the sea fan. Once I saw the gun shoots good I never practice again. I think this works for the kind of fishing we do here. Maybe bluewater hunting requires target practice.


    I think a lot of shots get missed because of the ability of the fish to dodge the shot. I missed three times on some skittish goat fish on Friday in relatively close range. But it didn't frustrate me as far as my accuracy because I could see them move away at the last instant. To hit them I'd have to go to a lighter gun with a faster lighter shaft. There's been times before when I used to keep my spear sharper that I'd end up with one scale stuck on a spear after a "missed" shot. I think learning to position yourself and timing your shot is just as if not more important than accuracy.


    It's funny when we talk about all this, someone who doesn't know may think we're talking about such long range. I imagine how much more challenging all this must be hunting with a bow and arrow. So we have to hold our breath.. :rolleyes1: :D That's why going deep is so rewarding :thumbsup2:


    The focusing advice is great hau. It reminds me what Cl. Cooper used to say about gun fighting. Most people debate wich shooting stance is better, some say it is isoceles, when others are advocates of the weaver´s. Coopers used to say that point and shoot instictively is the way to hit the mark securely. I think it applies to spearfishing as well. Some times it is possible to aim though, when the fishes are dumb enough to get really close to take a look at you.

    I'm a Speardiver, not a freediver

    Edited once, last by monster slayer ().



    Totally agree, you gotta practice a bit to see how the speargun shoots. What surprises me is how some spearguns are deadly and others are mediocre or even a lemon. Since there is no secrets about a guns shooting straight, just a canon that doesn´t flex and a trigger that holds and proper band shaft config. Everything else it´s either just hype or myth.

    I'm a Speardiver, not a freediver

    I aim all of my shots. Probably due to switching over from shooting firearms to shooting spearguns. I find most my shots are in the head region unless the fish is fleeing. I compensate for distance by aiming higher. I do try to get as close as possible, less than 10 ft, so that probably has more to do with stone shots than anything else.

    Davie Peguero

    I hunt low visibility, so most of my shots are relatively short range. But they often come with little warning, and are quick and almost "from the hip". Many times I feel myself still in the action of extending my arm when I fire.


    For me, the biggest differentiator is my focus. It's the whole "aim small, miss small" thin. As long as I am focused on the vital area of the fish, my shots are generally acceptable. To me, "acceptable" is anything that holds well enough to subdue the fish withough excessively damaging the meat.


    When my marksmanship is off, though, I can often feel it the instant I fire, because I realize that I am shooting at the whole fish, instead of at a small area of the fish. I don't mean aiming in the traditional sense of sighting down the shaft and lining up, but more like choosing an individual bird, vs. shooting at the whole flock.

    Quote from Tin Man

    I hunt low visibility, so most of my shots are relatively short range. But they often come with little warning, and are quick and almost "from the hip". Many times I feel myself still in the action of extending my arm when I fire.


    For me, the biggest differentiator is my focus. It's the whole "aim small, miss small" thin. As long as I am focused on the vital area of the fish, my shots are generally acceptable. To me, "acceptable" is anything that holds well enough to subdue the fish withough excessively damaging the meat.


    When my marksmanship is off, though, I can often feel it the instant I fire, because I realize that I am shooting at the whole fish, instead of at a small area of the fish. I don't mean aiming in the traditional sense of sighting down the shaft and lining up, but more like choosing an individual bird, vs. shooting at the whole flock.


    A shot that holds, would never be considered as a bad shot!! Totally agree.

    I'm a Speardiver, not a freediver

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