Posts by kmo

I'm a relatively young diver and unfortunately know this feeling all too well already Don. The ocean is an unforgiving place and it is a thin line between life and death when submerged below its surface.

I think we all grow out of the initial feelings of doing battle with the ocean when we start our spearfishing journey and start to feel embraced in its cool, clear waters. Our sport both demands and provides a feeling of calm and relaxation until the point where we almost forget the inherent dangers of what we are doing.

Looking at the jocks playing football or guys riding motocross, this doesn't feel like an extreme sport. But I don't know anyone who has died playing football, and have only one friend who was seriously injured riding motocross. I have lost 3 people to freediving who I've known well, another to a shark attack, and have heard far too many stories of friends of friends drowning.

Everything you've said rings true for me Don. I'm terribly sorry for your loss.

Another good thing about the thin shafts is when a big fish takes off the shaft will arc back rather than levering the shaft out of the flesh. Being carbon steel it should return to shape most of the time.

I'm glad you all enjoyed the report Hopefully I'll get out a few times soon and write some more.

Thanks guys, it is good to finally have a report to add to the forum. A couple of photos from snorkelling the house reef at Castaway:

My Castaway catch with a whole bunch of kids wanting to feel the skin and eyeballs of the different species:

The Castaway catch all cooked up putting big smiles on all of our faces:

I've just got back from a two week family holiday in Fiji with the wife and two little kids. I managed to sneak out for a 2 hour spearfishing session in the Mamanuca islands, and a full day charter in the Beqa Lagoon from Pacific Harbour.
The diving was great - the variety, colour and amount of coral was more than I've seen anywhere else and the water pulsed with aquarium fish on every coral head.
To get a dive from Castaway Island in the Mamanuca group took a little bit of work, and I was stoked when one of the locals asked the village chief for permission to allow me to spear the reefs offshore from the island. The ground was pretty outstanding once out there, with a coral wall dropping from the surface down to sand at 18m and then coming back up in a series of coral bombies which varied in depth from 10m to 15m and which dropped off to around 30m on the outside. Going was a litte slow here fish wise, but I picked up a coral trout and a mu before moving to a channel further around the reef.
The channel was pumping with reef fish with large schools of unicorn surgeons, large mu, red bass, maori sea perch, and a variety of tropical snapper. I've never seen so many fish in the one spot and picked off a large unicorn surgeon for the local who asked permission for me (his favourite eating fish) and a small mackerel of a species I've never seen before. I missed a couple of shots here and spent too long looking for the big fish, but I didn't have facilities to store large amounts of fillets so I was happy just to watch the action.
The locals were a little dissappointed that I only shot 4 fish, but they have a different approach to spearfishing where they are filling empty stomachs rather than just enjoying a sport, and they have good reason to take their fill of fish when the opportunity presents itself.
The resort cooked up my coral trout and the mu immediately on landing and both fish were beautiful. The coral trout was steamed whole in a Chinese style and was by far the best fish I have ever eaten.

After a week or so, we headed back to Viti Levu so that I could get on a charter with Freedive Fiji. The charter boat was fantastic and fitted the six guests and two staff with ease. The fishing was a little slow, however I think that if I had more experience chasing pelagics on coral reef atolls I would have seen a lot more fish. The charter operator certainly reported seeing a lot of fish when I felt I was swimming in a desert, just because I didn't position myself relative to the current correctly. This is something I've been wanting to learn more about for a while, so I was happy tp pick up a couple of tips for the future.
I finished the day with a nice mackerel of around 20kg, another small mu and a reasonable size blue spot trout. One of the other guests on board shot a great maori sea perch and a few other macks and trevallies were shot. I think on a day where the fish were firing there would be some incredible fish landed from these locations.

I'd highly recommend Fiji as a family holiday and spearfishing destination. The stay at Castaway Island in the Mamanucas was fantastic for the family with great kids swimming pools and beaches and a beautiful house reef for snorkelling. If you had a couple of spearos with you I think you could do a very reasonably priced spearfishing holiday from this destination as well. :thumbsup2:
More photos to follow once I get home from 'work' .

Depending on the manufacturer, the breaking strength quoted will be either the spliced breaking strength or the unspliced strength. If it is the spliced breaking strength that Blackwater quote, then you could expect to get 100% from the splicing technique they have shown.
If you look at the ratio of diameter of the rope they have put in the splice, there is a lot of wastage compared with a locking tuck splice and for larger diameter lines it would get expensive to do it this way.

Quote from Dan

First it's questionable what the gun length measurement actually refers to. And they have it in millimeters? why. In any case if 900 is 90cm, then a 20mm band at 60cm is right where I started (30cm x 2). I have to call BS, there's no way an average person is loading the 90cm stretch speargun I have here with 60cm of 19mm rubber. And then there's the short measurement LOL. Well maybe with a 1' wishbone..

I've made up plenty of rubbers based on that chart and they load fine, but with some brands of rubber it can be a bit short. Did you click the link which gives a bit more info on the gun length measurement?
I never expected to get called out by an American for using funny units! :laughing:

A handy rubber sizing chart from Bluewaterfreedivers in WA

It doesn't have 19mm and is for conventional muzzles, but I think your rubber length would be very tight.
How to use the chart

Makes sense Popgun Pete. Any difference in roller friction between the sides could force the side with the slower roller or sticking point into compression and then kinking.

Quote from Dan

Interesting, those Triumph boats look like normal boats. They do state on the website that polyethylene is the material.

That's because they are rotomoulded rather than welded. I've visited a rotomoulding factory once - pretty interesting stuff.

A buddy of mine drowned in shallow water (around 10m), and I always considered him cautious and not an ego driven diver. I will always wonder if he followed a similar fate to what happened to you Dustan, only being in the water and by himself he had a very low chance of survival.

He was floating on the surface when we found him right next to the boat. From what I understand, the FRV (with Surface Minder Feature ON) would have deployed and put him right side up, giving him an improved chance of survival.

Hi Don, have you got hold of you FRV yet? I'm looking forward to hearing your review once you test it.

It hurts bare chested, but no drama to reload all day with a wetsuit with loading pad.

G'day Mick, welcome to Speardiver. Have you had the good fortune to meet Mary-Anne Stacey? She is a legend spearo from South Aus and well worth tracking down if you are looking for dive buddies down that way.

When I google search these images the only places I find them are on blogs about advertising or spearfishing. I can't find any evidence that Sea Shephard ever went ahead with this campaign.
I've never been a fan of Paul and his band of crazy pirates, but I think we are giving this more air time than anyone.

Welcome! I spent a bit of time working on an ROV boat out of Batangas, but unfortunately didn't get to do a lot of sightseeing or diving. What I did see was beautiful and the highlight for me was flying in a small plane out of El Nido back to Manila for a crew change.
I did see some great fish come over the gunnels of our boat when the chef put a cheeky handline over alongside a rig. Some big Seriolas, I would guess 20kg plus all caught on kitchen scraps.
I'm stoked for you that you are getting out every day and living the good life in the Philipines

I have seen some great inflatable floats used for spearfishing comps where they were setup with two hulls like a catamaran with a central mesh tunnel to keep the fish out of the water and away from sharks, and also plenty of room for spare guns etc.
They were quite large and custom made from hypalon, but I've also seen a ghetto version made from two normal inflatable floats lashed together. Unfortunately I can't find any photos.

A friend of mine had one chase him up off the bottom for no apparent reason. It took a coupla bites at the flopper and then bit him on the thigh.
He shot it between the eyes after that which didn't kill it, and it attacked him a couple more times (but missed ) and then a shark came in and got rid of the fish! Ended up with a few stitches, but could have been much worse.

I agree with Don ie "Two bands".
I would also add "one wrap". I'm not sure what the hunting is like there, but I string a lot of fish with a single wrap and have only ever had trouble when trying to shoot a double.
The kind of power and range you are talking about would be suited to penetrating thick bodied tuna and marlin and will likely result in spears bent and/or stuck in the coral/rocks if hunting reef fish IMHO.

I've seen some long forum wars on this subject! Do whatever works for you, I use palms down but have absolutely no reasoning for why.