Posts by Dan

  • Southeast Alaska

    Nice catch. For no particular reason I didn't think there are octopus so far north. Are they common? Yours are much bigger than the ones we find in the Caribbean. Anything special you do with them?

  • Water spouts

    I agree with everything you said Xan. But there's a line that when crossed in photo manipulation, the image becomes too far removed from reality. This is akin to cheating, more so when the image is supposed to be of a natural phenomenon. And that's the feeling I get when I look at the image, like someone is trying to fool me.


    I've seen 3 or 4 water spouts at the same time going out of Homestead, but they didn't look so close together maybe because we were closer. The day became overcast and grey. The feeling I got from the event is definitely not what I get from that picture. The other feeling I get from the pic is that I'm about to have a religious epiphany :)


  • Help w/Fish ID, please

    Post em up.


    He is big and beautiful. When I look at him starting from the bottom, my eye keeps running up to the cheek expecting to find those blue dots.

  • Help w/Fish ID, please

    Hybrid is the first thing that came to my mind.


    Here's a Cubera Mangrove hybrid.

    Quote from Shei Daye

    Awhile back Bill Crawford turned in a beautiful fish to the IUSA for a record which looked like a giant mangrove at 29 pounds. In that case, it had the tooth patch of a mangrove, but it had the scale count of a cubera, and it had the lower teeth of a mangrove, but it had the upper fangs of a cubera. (By the way, the hook and line record for a mangrove is 17 pounds.) It was very weird, so in the end, the IUSA relied on tissue samples that were sent to a lab. It was determined that that particular fish was a hybrid. I guess in rare cases they can cross breed. The IGFA (for hook and line records) has also received a few hybrids over the years.


  • Antigua spearfishing reports

    Interesting, the same thing happened to me when I shot a nice rainbow runner. Barracuda was acting unusually persistent/aggressive. I swear it was looking at me and measuring me. I really wanted to kill it but was unloaded. It did manage to take half the fish.

  • Antigua spearfishing reports

    Well done George. Those are huge rainbow runners. For me one of the best fish to eat, the meat looks so clean. Maybe just an illusion because of how nice they look on the outside.

  • Salvimar Voodoo V-Pro and Vuoto speargun review

    At first glance that drawing may give the impression the muzzle is quite complex. In reality the only thing different about it from a conventional pneumatic muzzle is the part "vacuum seal" which the rubber washer I mentioned. The only other thing is the screw-on cap that keeps it in place, it unscrews by hand. Pete, do you believe this makes the Vuoto a dry barrel pneumatic? I doubt it.

  • Salvimar Voodoo V-Pro and Vuoto speargun review

    Some of you know I have special feelings for Salvimar from way back http://spearfishing.world/fins…-foot-pockets-review.html. I've seen the Voodoo speargun before and it crystallized in my mind that Salvimar is a company that makes gear to look unique, with complete disregard for functionality. I really can't fathom it, if I had those resources to make new gear possible I'd work miracles.


    Anyways back to the Voodoo gun and to clarify some points. The bands come with the finger remover type metal wishbones. To make it worse the loading tabs on the shaft are made of smooth wire with the back rise being perpendicular to shaft. This makes it very easy for the even metal wishbones to slip off, and Spectra wishbones impossible to use.



    Even if the metal wishbones could be made to sit securely on the tabs, they are not articulated, so the bands don't stack on the tube, rather they're spread out wide increasing the profile of the gun making it inconvenient to carry.


    The special Salvimar flopper requires an O-ring to keep it closed. After every shot the O-ring ends up somewhere down the spear or even on the shooting line. It's a PITA to have to work it back up to the flopper and into position. After a few shots the tendency is to lose it altogether. Once the O-ring is gone the flopper will open and due to its design will not close from the momentum of the shaft leaving the gun, thereby severely affecting the trajectory of the shaft. I would never use a shaft with this kind of flopper.



    Bottom line is shaft and bands go into the scrap bucket so expect to replace them if you buy this gun.


    The line routing on the Voodoo muzzle is absurd/complicated, I don't even want to get into it. Again change just for the sake of change. The muzzle has a "special" shape that does stack the bands neatly if you load them in the right order. But in reality bands will stack correctly with any decent muzzle.


    The broken up track profile really makes me laugh.



    Even if it were to have some miniscule beneficial effect on tracking, which is what the marketing claims and I seriously doubt, when the bands are stretched they completely cover this area :dumb:



    The Voodoo handle is comfortable :@


    The reel is dinky.


    A few days after getting the Salvimar Vuoto pneumatic speargun, Liquid needed a new shooting line slider as the original one broke after a only a few practice shots. I've never seen any other slider do that. On close inspection the plastic material looked to be too soft for this application, and the overall design of the slider not robust enough. We replaced it with a conventional slider and spring for easy shooting line routing, as the shaft came without a spring and the gun without a muzzle bungee.


    The Vuoto is supposed to have a vacuum/dry barrel system. All I saw was a little flat O-ring inside the muzzle. I don't believe this gun has true dry barrel functionality.