Posts by Akira dkt

Quote from Liquid

I think what would be cooler is a shaft that houses a slip tip "bullet" in the end. With a purposeful short single wrap. Upon reaching the end, ejects the bullet into target. Because that is just as magical as this shaft increasing accuracy by 4-5cm.

4-5cm at what distance? 30% further... huh??

Can someone just make an underwater railgun already so we can launch spears so fast they create supercavitation and just blow things apart? :thumbsup2: :laughing:

I'd be willing to give it a try. who knows. maybe the thing is awesome. but I highly doubt it.

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Lol. I've been trying to design a bullet, internal slip tip.... Basically because I don't wanna buy a slip tip. ( broke ) and no lathe...( because broke)
I doubt a force strong enough to launch a smaller projectile from a shaft, into a fish would be good for your shooting line/reel/ anchor, during the abrupt stop in motion at the end of the shooting line. It would be magical though if it was effective.:laughing:

I have thought of engineering a spring loaded tip that pushes the slip tip through upon impact.... A little insurance on long shots... But then again maybe It'd be better to just work on my bottom time so fish come in closer.

Quote from hank

Jack told me a theory on Cig a long time ago. He said the dinoflagellate Gambierdiscus, that produces the toxin, is very similar to the lichens that are the first to populate a new lava flow (not sure how long that takes) And this was why Cig was rather rampant in the S Pacific after WW2. The US and Japan both dynamited reef structure to get material to build airfields and roads on the islands. The dinoflagellate quickly grew on the newly exposed calcium cabonata.

If that's true, it makes sense that parts of the Big Isle with new lava flows interring the water may have higher levels of Cig?

I've never heard that theory actually, but it sounds interesting. From my experience, I've observed the opposite. the most cig prone areas are generally on the west side, the side with older lava flows,more coral cover, dry climate and warmer water. The east and south east side especially has relatively new lava, less coral cover and more rain, and generally less reported cases of cig. May be due to the smaller population compared to kona. I've come to understand that G. toxicus likes to grow on macro algae (seaweed/limu).

What makes sense is areas of disturbance like bombing having high incidence of cig. Coral death and bleaching will expose the CaCo skeleton of coral ( not basalt/lava), a good place for turf algae to grow, providing a good environment for gambierdiscus to settle.

There is definitely much more that we can learn about ciguatera, I'll look into the lichen theory.

Its pretty amazing and sad, but also hilarious. The female usually strangles and eats the smaller male, during or after they mate.:laughing3:

Yeah that, one theory, the eutrophication may cause a plankton (G.toxicus) bloom. But in places less developed there is still a problem. I think its the lack of a biological barrier, where streams flow out to sea. West side is very arid, little terrestrial plants to soak up the nitrogen so most of it flows out to sea. Also its hotter and saltier, better environment for dinoflagellates of that genus to grow.

Ive heard of odd cases from tako and lobster, none really confirmed tho. Lobster and tako arent really in the same food pyramid as fish. Tako i highly doubt, They don't really feed on fish, and they only live up to two years in general. I doubt they would be able to accumulate very much of the toxin to cause sickness. A large roi (>48cm) on the other hand can be over 20 years old.

Anyone know the exact specs of the Mako ETR rail height?
I'm planning on building a custom gun, Id like to use a Merou/Aimrite or pathos handle. Ill definitely need to shim the handle spigot, but I'm unsure if the rail height will be compatible to the trigger mech.

Thanks

Quote from hank

Dr Randall tells me it's crazy to eat those big Uluas. But he always gives me shit for eating the bigger snappers we get here in Belize too. It's pretty bad if you get it so he figures, why risk it.
Too bad about the Roi being prone to Cig. They're everywhere on Oahu now. Like the lion fish here…..:(

Yeah, Roi tastes so gooood too! I ate a medium sized one years ago before I knew what cig was. Flakey, white grouper meat.

I agree with Dr. Randall, most large reef fish here will probably have a little cig. Interestingly, I shoot most of my fish on the east side of Hawaii island, which is said to be less prone to CFP. This idea is the basis of my thesis, comparing two sites on the island, east vs west. So far, over 90% of Roi collected from the west side are hot, with only 40% of Roi being cig positive from the east side.

Quote from Hookinfish

Can you still buy the cig kits? I remember they use to sell them and some people would even test for you.

I believe the Ciguacheck test kits were discontinued, due to them being unreliable and showing false positives and negatives. This may have been user error, but at $10.00 a kit(fish) they were just not making money. All of my thesis samples are tested in the lab using a mammalian neuroblastoma assay (N2a) followed by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS). I believe these are the most reliable methods for detecting CTX, and determining relative toxicity.

Personally, I tend to avoid cig prone fish. But I was taught to eat what I catch, so i try to eat at least a small piece of each every fish I catch (other than Roi).

Quote from Don Paul

Jack had that gun for 20 plus years, and it killed more than a few really large tuna, his gun designs were a long process of trial and error.

Cheers, Don

oh no doubt. I'm just saying you probably wouldn't want to weld some fletching onto your favorite RA shaft and "hope for the best." :laughing4:

Im definitely a fan of spearfishing innovation, (Ive got the roller guns to prove it) ;D I even have a few torelli shafts that ive ground down to look like a letter opener (for better penetration) I feel like Beuchat's gliding shaft is not much more innovative IMO.....anyway thoughts on tube shafts? I recognize the shortcomings (tip and overall shaft strength, how to attach line floppers and notches/fins) but i could see these flying pretty fast and true. (sorry a bit off topic)

Not sure, but i have to say. If your muzzle band and line wrapping setup isn't perfectly designed, those fins would catch, and probably slice some line or rubber.

Im pretty sure thats welded metal "fletching" if im not mistaken.

I have attached a file....not sure if this is how to do it but here it is.
I was kind of blown away at this beast of a tuna gun,
Jack Prodanovich's speargun for tuna

Looks interesting, but I gotta say with a file I could do that. on cheaper shafts.
Also, fluting the tip would maybe help penetration, but I doubt it would change the trajectory any more than the flopper already does.
Spetton has a product testing video on youtube that demonstrates this. I feel like fletching would be a better answer to the problem, like on the old Prodonovich whale killers.

Would work for sharkfins and pins, but for wishbones...spectra will last way longer, and for the amount of line used, it wont cost too much.

Was not expecting the mooring to be dropped like that. Bad ass!!:notworthy1:

Thanks for the welcome all,
Hookinfish, yeah its an ulua, largest fish landed with a spear so far, at 98lbs.
Went out looking for ulua houses at one of our frequented dive spots the day before, and found a nice house we'd all heard about but hadnt found yet. Checked it, only a small Omilu (blue fin trevally) was home. We ended up swimming back and I hit my record depth at the time 98'.
Next day, my other buddy who had to work the day before needed fish for a bbq and fish fry. We set out with our three prongs with a goal of just shooting Kole (gold eye surgeon) bringing our guns just in case some dumb mus or ukus came around. After shooting about 30 kole a piece my buddy Tom started following this mu pile and ended up dive bombing one, so the hunt was on. After chasing mu and some skiddish omilu around the current had taken us back to the house from yesterday. I went down not expecting much and a fat Ulua swims up to the front entrance of the cave. Everything is in slow motion now, I line up the shot with my 120 roller and bam....almost perfect stone shot....almost. Tip barely nicks the fishs brain and probably turned out the lights. With the shaft imbeded in her head the Ulua starts circling the cave entrance smashing into rocks and coral. I try to play the fish lightly so the shaft doesnt pop out. During ascent i signal to my partner that I shot something and he should back me up. He does....and misses point blank....yup. My shaft ends up pulling out as Tom reloads his gun, im yelling at him to hurry up. lol ME: "reloaadd Tom!!" TOM: "SHIIIIIITTT!". Toms gun is loaded, line wrapped all hamajang. I re wrap it in what feels like forever as the fish is swimming blind on the bottom at around 65'. I make a dive, thank god the fish has lodged itself between two massive boulders, and didnt swim the other direction into the deep, I shoot it on the top of the head, i miss the stone but the flopper is securely engaged in the fishs mouth/gill area. I horse the fish up after Toms reel line gets tangled in the bands. At this time the fish throws up an entire Kala (unicorn fish) estimated at 3-4 lbs. I gill the fish and attempt to brain it using a 4 inch skindiver knife, while tom helps me out with a slightly larger skeleton knife stabbing the fish a little too close to my face. After we have the fish secured I praise god and scream some profanities in my excitement and joy. We swim back to shore, guarding the fish from potential taxation. We get out, pull the buoy up to the rocks, clip on buoy breaks from the weight of the fish. I jump back in with no fins or mask. Pass the tail up to Tom. We hoist the fish up. And for the next half hour or so carry the fish up a sketchy ass rocky cliff. Once we get to my car, I estimated the fish to be only around 60 lbs and attribute the struggle carrying it to dehydration and dive strain. We take the fish to S. Tokunaga's (local fishing and sporting goods store) to get a certified weight.....and Holy shit 98lbs. Im stoked, just shy of a hundo but in my eyes when i shot it it was over 100lbs, too bad she had to throw up. After we got the weight, we took the fish to Toms and cleaned it up. Pulling another 3-4 lb kala from its stomach and discovering some big egg sacks. We dig a hole, throw the guts and carcass. Strip the meat out, soak it, and have smoked fish for what seemed like forever.:thumbsup2::thumbsup2: No cig either.

Thanks Hank and Dan,

I have a friend working at NELHA at the shrimp farms, I believe they supply larvae to food production facilities. He gets free growout shrimp weekly and supplies us with 5lb bags of fresh frozen shrimp. Great place to work in aquaculture.

I believe Ive used Jack's books as a reference in almost every paper I've written. He's a legend.

Howzit,
Stoked to finally be on this forum after years of lurking.
Born and raised in Hilo, Hawaii. Been fishing and diving since I was young, got really into spearfishing in 2009 after graduating high-school. Im a senior Marine bio major at UHH and Im currently working on my thesis on ciguatera fish poisoning in Hawaii. Ive built some guns, wood and carbon, using a lot of information from this forum so I hope to continue the legacy of helping my fellow spearos out. Look foreward to conversing with you guys and gals in the future.

Mahalo piha,
Josh