Posts by Chase

Colors can attract sharks visually. A dive buddy of mine was spearing < 30ft. He had on some neon green gloves, grossly bright. Long story short, a lemon shark comes in his vicinity and is immediately attracted to his hands for some odd reason. He fends off the shark several times as it darts towards his free hand thats not holding the grip of the speargun. Finally, he says F this and drops the gloves and the shark follows them as they go down to the bottom and snatches them from sight. The shark was gone and left him alone. Weird stuff... But you are in a wild environment, and no matter your experience you can't predict a wild beast all of the time.

I recommend you blend in with your environment and dive safe. Your buddy should know your diving abilities if you're going to trust him with your life. But, you can't put all of the weight on your buddy neither. You must know your own ability as well.

If you want the bright colors as a visible safety net in fear of drowning, that doesn't sound like safe diving.

Welcome, good luck!

Excellent float! I have been using this float for past few months on a regular basis. The best part is that I forget it's attached my gun until I come up from a dive and see that blazing orange float. Very visible. :thumbsup2:

Welcome. There's a lot of good people here that are locals.

Kayaks are nice if you have spots further from shore that you want to hit. Inflatables are cool also but are better with a motor. I've never rowed an inflatable an wouldn't want to. Also, it is a lot more work to try and drift/tow a dinghy in comparison to a kayak. Unless you need to get further from shore a beach dive is hard to beat because of the amount of time you spend in the water compared to a boat.

Just my .02

Chase

I really like the large hatch on the front of that kayak. It looks like rigging a gps/ff w/ transducer would be fairly easy.

Quote from Andysmq

Fortunately most ( I think) don't push the limits when spearing, but it would be good to know your buddy has that info in mind if something did go wrong.

I believe it happens more than you might think. During our lobster mini-season here in SE Florida last year a freediver drowned in 40ft of water. Thats not really that deep, and yet when you over exert yourself wrestling on the bottom with bugs, or you're at the end of your breath hold and as you begin to ascend a nice fish comes into range and you decide to go back down for a shot. What happens next is someone finds their dive buddy floating on the bottom, but it's too late.

A lot people aren't weighted properly and are too negative. There's nothing wrong with being a little negative if you're a responsible diver, I do it for shallow water under 30ft. But people need to know their limits and have proper surface recovery time to match their dives. I personally go 3:1 recovery:dive ratio to be safe because it's easy to get separated from your dive buddy so really you are on your own in the aqua jungle.

Since spearfishing and freediving are becoming more popular world wide it would be cool to see more seminars or workshops where these professionals educate the public. And promoting safety should be free because it can save lives. Unfortunately, everything in the states is about $$$ so people will try to turn anything into a "service" and charge you $300-$600 for a freediving safety class... Unreal :crazy:

You can become scuba certified for around $160 on groupon, and in my opinion dealing with compressed air is far more technical since you wouldn't want to get an air bubble in your spine and become paralyzed for the rest of your life for failing to decompress on your ascent.

Just my .02,

Chase

PM sent

Sweet catch man!

This creates less drag than a mask mounted gopro? Just curious. I have mine mounted on my mask an I forget it's even there. I would think the shoulder would be more noticeable.

I found this cool website which calculates the weight of a rod (shaft). It's pretty cool if you playing with different shaft lengths of different diameters and trying to achieve the same mass. You enter the length, diameter, material (SS), and hit calculate. Then it calculates the total mass with the properties you gave.

Check it out if you're interested: Rod Weight Calculator

Banks board is the way to go fore swimming from shore.

So today was the opening day of grouper season in Florida for Atlantic waters. Me and my buddy took the kayaks out and worked the reef most of the day. Unfortunately, we didn't see one grouper.. So we took what we could and called it a day. My buddy landed an ocean tally and a spanish mack. I landed a decent mangrove snapper. The current was ripping so hard that it pushed us far north before we even realized what happened and we ended up having a nice 2 hour paddle back to our starting point :laughing3: All in all I still can't complain, I was on the water most of the day and the vis was right around 50ft. Better luck next time I hope :rolleyes1:

Unless you're fortunate enough to live somewhere like the bahamas where the fish are plentiful, you're bound to come up short sometimes. Thats why it's called fishing and not "catching". Personally, I've grown into a snob of a sort and am super picky with what I shoot. If I don't see the species that I'm targeting, or if another species passes by me that's not the size im looking for then I go home empty handed. I want the time/effort spent harvesting my catch to produce nice fillets or steaks.

Either way, every time I go out is a learning experience and I never know what I'll see. I recently had the opportunity to swim very close with a pod of dolphins.

Welcome. As far as good spots, you might find it like pulling teeth for fishermen/women in general to give up their spots. I do know that Dania/Hollywood allows beach diving with spearguns and all that from many locations along the shore. Dania pier is one place you can safely beach dive from with no hassels as long as you have a dive flag. Miami is a lot more strict in regards to beach diving & spearing. As far as good gear is concerned, check out: Spearfishing gear, freediving fins, wetsuit, speargun, polespear, mask. Fort Lauderdale shop serving Miami, West Palm Beach.. Dan hasn't let me down yet, even when I thought all was lost haha :rolleyes1:

Good luck, and be safe out there,

Chase

I have also thought about this mode of transportation. It seems like an awesome way to spearfish and get you where you have to go. I've seen them rigged up with a cooler on the back and fishing pole holders, so im sure you could think of a way to hold your guns. The only down side I see is the maintenance as others have said and also the fuel efficiency. I've talked to many jet ski owners and one of the first things they bring up is the fact despite popular belief they actually burn up gas relatively fast @ $50/full tank, especially high performance models. Also, it might be a PITA to drag around if its even possible. You may be able to drift with it and have the float line attached, but if the current is ripping that is also a PITA. It also sucks to have to drop anchor every where you go. I'd have to agree with macdiver, there's probably certain conditions where the ski would be better & others when the yak would be better.

Congrats dude!

Cool, thanks man.

Quote from Dan

I don't have experience diving in 120ft and meeting a grouper up at 80ft.

I meant like AJ's and Cobia, which I would see midwater then shoot and they go nuts for a little. Do you think this float is safe to use with fish like that?

Sorry, I just realized that I actually have the new 12L model.

Dan,

Is the float in that video foam blown? Also, when you say fish up to 50lbs does that mean they will be able to pull the float down, or will this float mostly stay at the surface for fish up to 50lbs?

Thanks for the feedback guys.