Minimizing lost fish due to tear offs?

I'm no expert, but I'd definitely recommend aiming for the head region. When you pull on the line the fish's face will turn causing the whole fish to turn and tie up in the kelp faster. If your shoot it in the back section of the fish you will have no leverage to change the fish's direction. It will just keep swimming straight until it takes all of your line. That and a head shot has more meat/structure to hold your tip so there's less chance your shaft will pull out.

I also use a carter float tied to the end of my gun. After the fish ties up I inflate the float and then go find my fish. It's nice to be able to look back and know exactly where my gun is.

And I use a reel, but that's just how I roll.

Quote from Dan

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.

https://spearfishing.world/image/FloatlineSystem01.jpg

I use the tube style and it cuts down on tangles, is more visible and I also coil it in my gun hand while on the surface with a 100' line. Poly is the old school way but it takes more time to setup when you hit the water instead of just tossing your float over, same goes for retrieval

More visible for you, the fish, the driver? I never lose track of my float line because I'm always near it, so it doesn't need to be "visible" for me. It's not good for the line to be visible to the fish, it scares them. The moment the driver is 60ft away with the boat he no longer sees the float line in any case, that's what the float and flag are for.

I toss my line and float in the water and never had a problem. On the contrary guys who have the tube line seem to always be messing with it on the boat, and the line is always kicking around occupying a lot of space when not in use. To the point that I considered a few times not allowing the tube line on my boat. Whoever's not sure about it try both tube and poly and see what you feel is necessary. I'm keen on gear and sometimes go overboard taking the time to make a particular piece of gear perfect. But I wouldn't waste my time threading line through a tube and sealing the ends, just don't see the point.

The biggest difference for me when I'm diving floatlines is the drag between polyprop and a neptonics tube style.
If i'm diving deep or in really high current I will never use a polyprop line if I have the tube style line with me. The poly lines compared to the tube style lines is like dragging around an anchor vs nothing.
I will never use the tube style lines when hunting grouper or other hard fighting reef fish in mex though no matter the conditions, those floatlines will only last 1 fish if they get it into the rocks.

I think a lot of the differences are due to the different types of diving we are all doing and that includes shore vs. boat diving and kelp vs. bluewater diving.

For white seabass you want a floatline/reel line that is highly visible. The visibility in our kelp beds can be from zero to 40 feet or more but the norm when we are hunting white seabass is closer to 10 feet. That visibility can change drastically in an instant, if you shoot a fish and lose sight of your float or reel line then you've lost that fish. Before I got the carter float there was one time when I shot a nice wsb and it tied up deep. I had followed the floatline and clipped my gun to the line and found the fish. u/w vis was bad, when I came to the surface I had lost sight of the floatline and fish, I had to swim in circles until I found that floatline again, this was on a shore dive and night was approaching, if I didn't find that floatline I would have lost the whole setup including the gun.

You can put the bands of the gun over your shoulder and totally disconnect it from the floatline while you are looking for fish but it's difficult to do in thick kelp. I've used poly in the kelp and don't like it, the rough edges hang up a bit and they also hang up on my fins which have rough edges from shore diving.

My floatline is now bright red and I use the carter float and never have had a problem since. I've had guys say that the noise of the floatline through the kelp scare the wsb away but I seriously doubt that, I've had a lot of luck diving with floatlines for wsb in the kelp and believe as long as your connections are quiet you are good to go.

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In the mean time I'm looking at a speardiver composite reel for my Riffe E90.

Hookinfish.

Way before this thread started comparing sliptips to floppers, reels vs drag lines and poly vs tube lines, someone should have told you a Riffy E90 is too short a gun to be targeting WSB unless you are a expert stone cold killer or someone that gets lucky a lot.

I would go to a 120 cm gun for the type of combo reef hunting you are doing and focus hard on shooting nice Calicios. After that as you move on to WSB focus on braking the spine, than reel vs floatlines and floppers vs slip tips wont mater as much. Enjoy the journey.

Cheers, Don

Riffe guns blow in my opinion. I've had a few (except the euro's) and hated them. Muzzle jump and recoil were some of the major issues. The island was the only gun I have ever shot in my life where I could miss a point blank shot.
I believe jbl is now making a product up to par with riffe and they cost so much less.
A great wsb gun is the new jbl elite mid handle if your on a budget. Or you canshoot em with euro guns. The speardiver euro in a 120 or 130 would be great.

Edit: Don I have shot a bunch of whites with my 90 and a flopper. Never lost a white with flopper shaft either.

Quote from yardsale

Edit: Don I have shot a bunch of whites with my 90 and a flopper. Never lost a white with flopper shaft either.

What I say ....Stone cold killer.;)

Cheers, Don

Quote from Hookinfish

I went out and saw a ton of mackeral, smelt, Baracuda, Calicos and a couple of WSB and a large halibut. I guess however I was just not in the zone. I missed the Halibut as I saw it while it was swimming away, I missed the Baracuda and I missed what must have been a 10 pound calico. I need to be patient and practice getting my arm fully extended on fish prior to pulling the trigger.

Make sure your shaft is straight and that the gun is not over powered.

Quote from Don Paul

What I say ....Stone cold killer.;)

Cheers, Don

I'm not that good just quite yet!
I've seen some pictures of ernst with some tanker fish he took with a 75.

im definately not a slip tip guy either as i have lost a few soft flesh fish(aka COBIA) due to the small diameter of the slip tip line cutting thru the fish. I always shoot a 7.5mm large flopper shaft now on any fish im hunting. I think the slip tip does more for keeping your shaft from getting bent, but its very rare for a fish to bend one of the spring steel shafts ive been using for a few years. In general i always try to take a quartered away shot just behind the gill plate. I use home made tube style float lines when theres no current or bad structure to get hung in, and i use a reel around heavy structure, boat traffic, high current/ wind. This is just my setup though and ive never hunted kelp or west coast, but works great for what i do.

By middle of summer i hardly ever have any shaft hole in my fillets if you get my point.

Quote from Dan

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..

You'de understand it if you dove in the thick kelp forests of California.

If you want a large whites seabass then use a slip tip and don't shoot all the other stuff. Shooting and loading your gun, dealing with fish and all that other commotion with assure you to spook seabass that may have just swam right underneath you. IF you are going to shoot a WSB with a flopper you better be damn close to make sure you penetrate the fish all the way and you will want to be broadside or directly above the fish. If you shoot a fish know that you can land it before you shoot it. Everyone loses fish, but if you choose you shots carefully you will be rewarded with more fish and less frustration. More importantly you will not injure and needlessly kill a beautiful fish without cause. Don't be reckless out there. Have respect for what you are hunting and the fish will come much easier.