Posts by black1

Sorry for your loss as well Don, I just mentioned FRC diving or empty lung diving on another thread on here and even said it is not suggested for spearing but maybe shallow water, even that to me personally is not acceptable but have heard of some doing it. There is a big difference between freediving disciplines and spearfishing and we all must be reminded by each other of those differences when we talk about our love of spearing. Again I am sorry for your loss.

Good eye Dan, that's the Riffe Euro 100 I got for my friend in Costa Rica, he wanted me to pick it up for him so when he comes in December he can bring it back to my house (he lives in my house in Costa, and yes he is paying me back for the gun) he is gonna be the proud owner of it for spearing over there.

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Riffe Euro 130
Aimrite Super Venom 120
Riffe Euro-x 110
Deathstick 55inch

Riffe 75ft float line in black
Mako 100ft float line in blue
Riffe Float w/flag

Wow that is alot of packing, very impressive though, go to deeperblue forums and read up on FRC diving (fractional residual capacity) or exhale diving, pretty interesting form of freediving. A passive exhale then dive, first part is a static dive with no movement (similar to pendulum dives) because there is no buoyancy to deal with and dive reflex kicks in very strong. Not suggested for spearfishing unless in shallower water, maybe for aguatto style hunting? not sure if I spelled that right.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGh9lMxHp1Y

here is Eric Fattah doing a 67meter one, he is always on deeperblue and easy to talk to about this unique way of diving.

Wow that should be pretty cool hau, hope it works good for you and we get to see some good photo's.

Here is a couple of photo's of my Deathstick handle, it's real nice.

Good post's guys.

Yeah those are real nice guns.

choppy conditions here in Boca as well, still windy at the beach and it doesn't look good.

Love it, I actually like the handle, some don't , but, everyone is different right? I also like how light it is but has a thick strong carbon barrell, mine is the super venom model, Rick was a stand up guy when ordering and answered all my questions. The line release is on the side and the trigger mech is real nice, all in all a great gun.

What exactly is he famous for Monster? besides killing or is that what he is famous for?

MonsterSlayer my Aimrite is 120 so it is a little smaller than the Riffe 130 so that is why it is slightly better as far as maneuverability in the water, I dont think I am going to sell my 130, been thinking about it and it is just too nice to sell and yeah I would probably regret it too much...lol.

Does it shoot better with the dyneema, no drag from mono? what lb dyneema do you use? which model Mako did you get, was that your Mako I remember seeing with Tinmans muzzle? looked good.

avOO1 yeah I have 2 Riffes at the moment, a Euro 110x and a Euro 130, I might sell my 130 because I know it will be difficult due to it's length in wood to track easily or at least comfortably. I have not even gotten it wet yet but by using my 110 for some time I think the 130 will be a difficult gun to track up and down , maybe not so much side to side but definitely up and down. I also have a Aimrite venom 120 and it is a great gun, easy to track and swing and nice and light when surfacing with fish.
I am just curious about the 2 guns (Mako/Rob A) and may get a 130 to add to my others. I love the wood guns, great looks, super accurate, easily sanded and varnished to look like new again, etc, etc but I also like to streamline look and feel of pipe guns, a bit better in tracking, nice and light when descending and ascending, powerful, etc etc. Right now I am debating selling my Riffe 130 and getting a pipe 130 or not so I thought I would ask about these 2 guns to get different opinions.

I would like to have 2 wood and 2 pipe guns and be done with it, but, I have 3 wood ( I have a beautiful Deathstick) and 1 pipe so I may thin out my collection and get another pipe, well see.

That is the main thing I have been contemplating, loading pad or no loading pad, both are nice guns for aluminum and the prices are good, especially the Mako. I always use a wetsuit with a pad so that is not a problem, any ideas on durability of one over the other? they both have SS mechs in them but anyone here of one of these brands "falling apart" if I can use that term, screws loosening easy or anything? thanks guys.

avOO1 is yours aluminum?

Just want your thought sguys on these 2 aluminum edition not carbon. Which would you get and why the Mako 130 or the Rob Allen 130, looking MAYBE for an aluminum for a cheaper price than carbon but still good construction and durability, thanks all.

http://www.deepww.com/online/

http://www.vimeo.com/memomedfish/videos Some really nice med diving videos by Memo, one of the managers for deep magazine. Enjoy.

http://www.performancefreediving.com/cgi-bin/pfi_upcoming.py

there coming to San Diego in April!!! great course, well worth the money.

Thought I would let you all know I received my first copy of Deep magazine and it is a beautiful looking magazine, filled with great articles and superb photo's of spearing around the world. I would say is is a little better than Hawaii Skin Diver as far as the articles and superb photo's. It is in English and they also have it in other languages and comes from Greece which is why the majority of the articles and photo's come from Europe, but, it also has alot of Africa and Coral Sea stuff. The best thing about the magazine is the 30 to 40 minute dvd that comes with every issue, it is high definition video of different areas, this issue is mainly in the Coral Sea and has some incredible spearing and great narration along with it.
The 6 issues a year cost $90 but I believe is well worth it to start a nice collection of these fine magazines and also to have several hours of good dvd's. I got my subscription through a well known spearo named Harolf Dean which some here may know or have heard of, nice guy and good to talk to gentleman. If you guys here want I will shoot him an e-mail to see if I can give out his number or e-mail so people can place orders.
It talks not only about spearing, but, about freediving and it's blend with spearing and features a "training apnea section" so we spearo's can train in a pool (with a buddy) for O2 and CO2 reservation and tolerance respectively. Here are some of the articles titles:

Shaft Velocity: nice article about different shaft velocity with different band setups

Spearfishing in Mozambique

Training Tables

Interview with Martin Stepanek

R U a Good Spearo?

Take care guys and safe diving to you all, Im out.

Thought i would chime in on the Sphera mask for a bit. I use a micromask and as we know it is a great mask, but, I also have the aqua lung Sphera mask which many freedivers use and is a mask of choice by the Performance Freediving crew which is when I was turned on to it. A few things about the mask, very low volume a bit more than the micromask I believe which is great for freediving and spearfishing, it is a plastic lens so there is no fogging, no needing to clean and scrub out with toothpaste or anything which is real nice, it has a good size nose piece for easy clearing as well.
The dislikes by those who try them on are the slight distortion out of the corner of your eyes due to the curved lens, at first I thought the same thing...this sucks...but after giving it ample time it was no longer any problem and I actually started to really like the mask. When you look straight ahead it is fine like all masks and it is only when you look to the corner of your eye left or right does it "bend" only a little the image, but, not to any extreme point I must say. I started to realize that this extra width of the lens were it bends does a few things which can be beneficial for a spearo.
The first thing is fit comfortably to your face during deep descent, that extra little curve bends to your face while descending and there is absolutely no mask squeeze at all, very nice for me. The 2nd thing is that it acts almost like a clear silicone mask in that it allows you to catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of your eye which can be helpful to spot a fish, it does this without letting in alot of light like a clear mask frame does because the mask itself is black. The 3rd thing is the sheer lightweight of the mask, after a few minutes you completely forget the mask is on your face, it is very lightweight and comfortable. The 4th and final thing is no fogging at all, because it is plastic lense (yes it can scratch easily, but, keep it in the plastic case when done and your golden) there is no need for toothpaste, lighter or anything of the sort to keep it from defogging and because it is plastic there is no magnification of the lens!!! what fish you see or objects you see is the actual size underwater, this can be very handy for eyeing up certain size fish, we have all shot a fish and then upon surfacing realize, crap, it's not really the size I thought it was, this mask eliminates that problem. I know several very good spearos here and in North Carolina that use it for spearing and love it for these same reasons.

This is my little review of the Sphera mask, may not be to everyones liking, but, that is what I have learned by using it for some time now, I now have both the micro and the sphera which do a great job, the Sphera is much less money though, around $55.

Take care all.