Hey mate, good question and one I asked my dad back in the day.
I take it you mean double flopper with one Hawaiian and one Tahitian style, as in one on the bottom and one on the top?
It was used before slip tips in Europe and was generally used for big soft bodies fish and thin
fish like John Dory, or if your in warmer waters a queen fish would be an example.
There are two schools of thought on this topic though, one is you need a heavy shaft to penetrate the fish enough to engage the second flopper. The other is never to use a heavy shaft because the heavier shaft will cause the fish to rip and you will loose the first flopper for sure and maybe even the second.
I have never lost a fish using a double flopper, but I rarely loose fish using a Tahitian or Hawaiian flopper either.
I would just like to mention I'm no expert with pole spears, I only have Ann aluminium jobby that I use for squid, flatfish and other easy targets.... But I think that if you are chasing BIG fish with these pole spears then a sliptip would be a better option. If you think about the amount of force that will be acting on that pole spear when you horse a big fish up to the surface there is a good chance it will snap.... You can get detachable tips that are double floppers but I don't see the point.......
However if the fish you are hunting are not likely to hole up on you and you have a float line then I reckon a double flopper would be ok, reefies would use the leverage and snap you off or rip off.
It's all relative to what your hunting bro, if its monsters stick to a sliptip. Maybe tell us more about the size and type of fish you are targeting??
About the twin flopper spears, two barbs on one pin, I don't mind them, but they are generally for euro mech not South African but I'm sure you can get them for S.A shafts. They are supposed to shoot straighter as the weight is evenly distributed, but I don't notice a difference. I use them on my 105 seacsub for small fish and for free shafting.
You asked why not 3 or 4 or 5? The simple answer is the more floppers you have the more penetration you need and the more penetration you need means the more weight you need which increases the risk of the soft, thin or powerful fish ripping off. It compounds itself with more floppers, I hope I explained that clearly enough:confused1:
The double flopper shaft is more popular in Europe for that reason, where a big European fish is generally an average sized fish for Aus, S.A, U.S.A and so on.
Hope that helps...
Rusty
