Minimizing lost fish due to tear offs?

Are you just using shooting line at the moment? Easy way to lose a gun..

You just need a reel and good shot placement with a straight head. Let it run and run unless you have a great holding shot, then apply some pressure and save yourself some time re-spooling the reel. Since you are going for all fish, slip tips are asking for trouble. Once you start going exclusively for pelagics, get a slip tip and keep a spare straight head around rigged.

That's good for reef fish as a tag line, but a bigger pelagic can take that in no time at all. Most guys running float lines are using 100 up to 120' with a small float on the end. My buddy in Santa Barbara shot a 47# Wsb and he almost lost his whole set up. He shot it in an area with little kelp so it couldn't tie up very fast. He was using a 100' float line. I have a 100' that I use for Baja reefs with a large lifeguard float on the end, but I prefer reels in kelp. Plus you get almost three times the amount of line...

Floppers are fine for reef fish but they really aren't good for wsb. If you keep shooting that soft wsb meat you are going to experience a decent amount of tear offs. Usually when I go out I have to have a game plan. When I'm hunting wsb it's slip tip only with a 100' floatline and a 10' bungee that stretches another 30' on the end of that floatline. If I shoot a big fish and I get close to that bungee I lean back and let it fight itself and tie up or tire out. If it's white seabass I'll let it run as much as I possibly can, wsb have white meat and tire out quickly, the more tired it is the better your chance of landing it. If the shot is solid I'll put a lot of pressure on the fish, I used to try to shoot them in the head a lot but you can bounce that shot off the gill plate and I've noticed when I shoot big wsb in the face they get really riled up.

Reels vs. floatlines is a long time debate and it's personal preference between spearos. I used to use reels all the time for everything, then I started getting spooled by bigger fish. I used to have a 25' chicken line on the back of my reel guns and after having to rely on that several times after getting spooled I went to straight floatline. I've never had a problem with a good floatline.

You want a good slip tip that doesn't wobble around either, mori's are my favorite.

If I see another fish like halibut etc near the rocks I won't take a shot with a slip tip. There's always next time for that. Unfortunately there is no "one gun/rig" that does everything.

Polypropylene rope and bungee from home depot will do fine. I never understood the point of tube style float lines, some people call them sink lines..

I made mine, but josh from neptonics systems makes the best you can buy. You want a bright one though, not black.

Polypro rope is cheap and definitely will work in a pinch but it tangles up easily and gets caught on the fins a lot, that being said I know a few guys who use it exclusively and it doesn't bother them. I made a few other types of floatlines but noticed a huge difference between a nice no memory floatline and a cheap one. As a bonus I coil up my floatline and velcro it to my gun, if I drop that gun on a beach dive in surf it's much easier to find because the whole thing floats.

This is my float line rig. Notice the float line spool. I let out line depending on what depth I'm diving, there's no point to have the float and stringer with fish trailing 120ft behind me when I'm diving in 45ft. You can't spool tube float lines like that. When I do have a lot of line let out I coil it as I swim and keep it in my gun hand. I let go of it when I dive and this eliminates any line drag during the descent. You can't do that with a tube line either because it's too thick. I never ever had a tangle with a poly float line.

That said my understanding is that diving in kelp with a float can be tricky. That's where guys switch to a reel or a reel in combination with a float line, but no float or a very small steamlined float.

My suggestion for less tear off is to exercise patience and take better shots. Sounds like your rushing your shots. I use a flopper shaft on everything here in the GOM. Including big soft fish, like mackeral.

I always try and wait for the fish to pass and shoot on a quartering away shot. this puts the shaft trailing the fish if it takes off. It also puts the exit hole somewhere in the head, a bettwr holding shot, in most cases, especially if I dont stone the fish.

In short, shoot em in da head!

Nice post John. I was thinking the same thing, but then decided not to post, maybe there's something about the California WSB that I don't know about which makes it a special candidate for a slip tip. Well I know John shot his fair share of WSB so that's that. An angled shot going partially through the head or very close behind it is the best holding shot.

You can't put as much pressure on a fish with reel line as you can a floatline, and a good floatline won't tangle up at all (once you uncoil it). A reel is much easier to deal with in the kelp though and I have a lot of friends who use reels with 200' or more line on it. The scary thing about a reel is if you get spooled or if it jams up then you are sol.

Your set up looks solid for bluewater Dan, but pretty much anything gets hung up on our thick kelp. I know a lot of guys that use a small float in the kelp, but I prefer to keep my line as streamlined as possible, and I really love my bungee at the end of my floatline because as soon as I see it I know that I'm coming to the end of my line and I can put a lot of pressure on the fish with the bungee, the bungee snaps back and fights the fish like a rod and reel. I know a lot of guys that use the bungee on the front of the line but I prefer mine in the back.

I also like the carter float, what I usually do is shoot the fish, let it tie up, clip my gun to the floatline, manually inflate the carter float and clip it off. This makes sure that the fish isn't going to run again and take my gun and more importantly lets me find the gun in the thick kelp should the vis be bad or I lose track of my floatine.

John has shot a ton of white seabass as well, he is correct on shot placement. However if you are new to shooting seabass or if the vis is bad or if you haven't seen one and it doesn't offer you a perfect shot there is a substantial chance your shot is going to be bad. If you are only targeting smaller wsb, say 15 lbs and less than a flopper would be okay. But if you get that trophy 60-70 lb white seabass and you blow the shot and its high or low you will be kicking yourself later on when that shot tears out. I've got a picture somewhere of a big one I shot last season, the fish did a 180 right before I pulled the trigger and the shot went high, just under the skin. Without a slip tip I would have lost that fish for sure. I gave it a ton of line, let it run and tire out and got the fish.

A good slip tip for combo hunting (wsb/halibut/reef) is a cheapy JBL tricut re-rigged. Accurate enough for pelagics and strong enough for bottom and reef fishing.

Regardless of what tip/set-up you use, I wasnt particulary advocating either one, my point is tht a good shot is critical. I have actually lost more fish to tear out with a slip tip, then I have with a flopper.

Slow down your approach. Fish are way more curious if you act uninterested. Sudden movements like throwing your arm out to shoot a fish. If you try to thinl about it in a manner that a fish will bearounf every stalk of kelp, it will help to slow you down. This was how I learned to effectively hunt them. When yo can slow your self down to a literal crawl in the kelp you will find yourself running head on into them. Expect them to be there rather than not expecting them too, and then having a knee jerk reaction when you actually see them.

I think the issue is not one of equipment, but one of mentality that leads to improved technique