Posts by Reefchief

Quote from hank

A hole gun is a pretty good tool to have on the boat. About two months ago I shot a nice black that tore off and got in a hole. I could see it but there was a coral head outside the hole that prevented me from being able to line up my 55 for a shot and I couldn't get to it with a knife or anything else I had. I didn't get the fish, which really sucks.

Exactly hank, the last red grouper I got was hiding in a hole and I had to get a mostly lucky upside-down handle behind the head with a light in the other hand shot on him.

Quote from LunkerBuster

No, if the spear hits while still in the track it is bad news for the track

At that point it would become an open track gun lol :laughing: In reality I think with the kind of shots im expecting to do It should be fine. But I will keep it in mind.

Thanks guys,

Marco, is your concern with the shaft bending and not fitting in the track? I think the gun and the shaft will be short enough to really take a beating without much risk of bending. And If I do shoot something in a hole big enough for that to happen ill be happy it did its job and fix the shaft at home.

Visited Dan today to get a reel on my Speardiver carbon 120. I really like a floatline usually, but sometimes I need something for those situations where a floatline is too cumbersome. Ive found myself shooting with nothing but a shooting line one too many times. So I went over Speardiver HQ and Dan did a ton of work and an exceptional job on the install. We disassembled, epoxied inside the tube in the area where the reel mounted, and reassembled. If I like the reel we will epoxy on the reel base for a little more security.

I cant wait to try this thing out this weekend. Hopefully sat will be as good as the forecast predicts. You could say im reely excited.

Ive been talking with Dan about wanting a hole gun, and also about wanting to build a gun. And today he came up with a pretty awesome idea. Use a short unfinished teak blank he had lying around and build a hole gun.

Im really excited about putting this thing together. Dan got me started with a nice enclosed track and shaping on the blank. I picked up a Speardiver reverse trigger mech and I started working on a template for the handle. Going to power it with one 19mm band. And all said and done it should be about 85cm or 33.3333 inches.

Hopefully I find some things in holes to shoot it at. But if not It will be great practice/cadaver for a longer gun.

Thanks again Dan for the hardwork and expertise.

Cool video. Water is looking pretty nice. How the hell do you get turtles to let you follow them like that? Im always trying to film them and as soon as I get even a little close they usually bolt away at 20 mph.

Really really neat video.What an interesting and cool technique. It makes so much sense to use the guy who can breath to do work from the surface.

Nice stuff. Nothing beats nice fish on a not so nice day. Is there still a bad theft problem off the president streets and dania?

Looking nice :cool2: Ive been thinking about a pneumatic hole gun for a while. Just a short one. Ive shot a friends larger cressi and found my loading abilities and technique lacking. But its definitely interesting, especially aiming.

Coming from a railgun what do you think about the loading?

Congrats Dan! Im more aware then most of how much time and effort you have put into making your new store and its products so nice, but the results speak for themselves. Its looking really great.

Quote from JimCuda

I have a 4'x8' pegboard and pegs sitting in my basement for a year now. Haven't gotten around to it yet.

You want one of these for your float line. Cable Cuff | Medium Cable Cuff | Home Depot Canada

I dont blame you, Its quite a pain to hang the stuff. They have kits that use little spacers but I find that makes wavy floppy pegboard, I put up wood strips and mounted the boards to that.

Here is the other side of the room.

Also great idea for the lines, just bought a few of those things on amazon.:thumbsup2:

Worked on my man-labratory today. Having a whole room to fill up with dive gear/bikes/books/tools instead of a closet is great. Installed pegboard for tools on one wall and dive gear on the other.

Also picked up a banks board from Dan. Really looking forward to doing a lot more shore diving with it. Thanks again Dan :D:D

Nice report, looking forward to more pics. That sure is a nice schoolmaster. Looks like the ones that were teasing me on sat. They are definitely very skittish and skilled in evasion. The big ones seem to have a knack for only coming out of holes between dives.

Today did not go as expected but still turned out pretty well for me. Not as much for my dad.:( His boat had some fuel troubles we noticed after leaving the ramp. We ended up having our buddies who were on the way out tow us in. Since it didn't look like it could be resolved dockside I jumped on the same buddies boat who was going to hookah for lobster.

we headed south to the hollywood area second reef.

Weather waves and water started absolutely beautiful. Current was minimal, clear top to bottom viz on the second reef. As the day progressed the viz got worse and the current and wind picked up big time.

The boat I was on is a good friend and Ive dove with them before. basically I stick in the vicinity of the divers but ahead trying to fish out ledges etc before they come bubbling in:snorkle2:. I also help them look for lobster and point them to the good spots I can see from above.

Early in the morning I got a decent little schoolmaster. Some real fatties were teasing me but I couldn't stay long enough to wait them out. A while later I got a real nice mangrove. Then later in the day got a hog. Shot about 6 very small lion fish too. And the hookah divers got 6 bugs.

As the day progressed colder water moved in and it was pretty chilly for me. Kind of slowed me down a bit. I need to start bringing the top half of my speardiver open cell for these kinds of things.

Out of port Everglades on my pops boat, probably to the hollywood area, perhaps cuda reef. I'm being forced to first mate his fishing trip in exchange for diving. I live a tough life lol.

Quote from Dan

I think I recognize your method. It's the long methodical way that I learned as a kid over 30 years ago. Human physiology is an incredible thing. I don't remember the sequences, especially the last one which is the longest, not having played with rubik's cube since I was a child. But when my hands touch the cube, which I've done a couple of times since, they still remember the sequences. It was a big deal for me as a kid and I practiced it quite a bit. Back then you had to buy a book that would teach you how to solve it. I'm sure there's a way of looking at the cube that will solve it in a minimum number of turns, but I'll leave that to the flexible minds inclined that way.

Yes exactly its the algorithms/layers way of doing it. Each layer and corner has a repeatable algorithm to solve it or move a piece where it needs to go. As you said, there are much more elegant solutions to solving it. But they basically require remembering an exponentially larger number of moves and being good at using the right ones. My mind stopped being that flexible a long time ago if it ever was:crazy:.

And you are so right that once you learn it it becomes muscle memory. Ive tried to teach a few people and couldn't tell them the first thing about what I do until I pick up the cube and see the turns I do.

Going out tomorrow. Taking every chance I get and it looks like its gonna be nice. Hopefully its cleared up some this week.

Thanks guys.

Dan, you found my not so secret hidden talent. The 9 year olds on youtube that do it in a fraction of the time forced me to add the novelty of breath hold :laughing:

I really enjoy that the go-pro does 60FPS so you can do those slowmo shots. I hate that the shot is usually 1-2 frames total in most videos cause its hard to see what happened beyond "bands on" "Bands off". In my dreams my camera does 400fps and you can get shots of the shaft leaving the gun.

Thanks Yep it sure is the carbon 120. The nice shooting probably has a lot to do with it being such a killer gun :good:

Thanks guys!
:thumbsup2:

The ulusub rash guard is great and probably the most vital piece of summer diving equipment I have. Being a ginger any piece of skin exposed to the sun for more then an hour fries. So its really great to be able to stay covered 100% and dive all day. But I'm with you, I can't wait for the speardiver version.

As promised I slapped together some clips from monday for your vicarious speardiving pleasure. Apologies for the lackluster camera work and editing. Also ignore the michael jackson style, I brought two right gloves. :laughing:

Labor Day - Blue Water / Green Water Diving. - YouTube

Amazing fish, even without that amazing Cubera thats the kind of stuff spearo dreams are made of.

Went out Monday. Mostly to do some dolphin fishing. But we also hit the reef south of Port Everglades for a bit. The morning started out beautiful but rainy. But it looked like it would burn off and we were right.

Trolled around without much success most of the morning until we finally spotted a small verticle log in about 450ft of water. Pulled up and tossed some baits at it. Got 3 on hook & line but then they stopped biting. So I slipped in with my gun and took two more. After two awesome spine shots on Mahi I missed a wahoo that cruised by because I loaded my gun in a hurry and tangled the bands like a dummy :frustrated2: And by the time I fixed it he was gone.

After that we went in to the second reef south of Port Everglades around noon. The water was dark green and looked like zero viz soup. But I was dying to do some more diving so I geared back up and got in. Even from the surface I couldn't see a damn thing. I took a breath and dropped down to find that past the first 10 feet of sandy pea soup water was a clearer and warmer thermocline with about 30 feet of viz.

I had dropped right over some good structure and immediately spotted a really nice mangrove and got a good headshot on him. Then went right back to the boat to everyones surpise (I dont think ive ever shot a fish first dive of the day not to mention a 20 inch mangrove). Over the next hour I got a nice cero, and two more mangroves.

Ive been moving for almost an entire month, so it was really great to be out on the water again. And Ive been without internet for a month so its really great to finally be able to share and read reports and see pics of fish.

I also got some cool video I will post soon hopefully if I can find some time to put a few shots into video.