Posts by hank

Those are double barrel crimps by the way. Maybe you can't see it in the picture. I got them from the store in Honolulu where Dr Wong gets his supplies. The crimps are made for that cable according the the salesman there.

Dan and psychobilly, I"ve ordered a crimper from Mako. Thanks for the tip.

Thanks. I've been waiting for good weather lately. Then Sunday, I had a fuse burn on my motor but didn't figure out what the problem was or fix it in time to get out. Been dry for 3 weeks now.

Many thanks Phil. Excellent presentation.

I got all excited when I saw the pics you posted so I went home and tried it. It's amazing how easily the cable goes back together. Really strong. I was pulling real hard on it before I even crimped it and it held. Thanks again. No more lost fish.

So far no problems with the mono. It's held a 130 lb grouper and a few 40 lb plus cuberas.
I ordered a proper crimper from Mako. I was using an electrician's wire crimper which is levered so it has a lot of crunching torque, but it's square shaped the grooves.

Quote from Dan

You're talking about SS cable? Yes it's easy, I did it the first time following the pics in Terry Maas' book. Undo the strands like Phil said, after you do the loop twist them together again, they snap together on their own. You still need a crimp.

What fish did you lose and how much do you think it weighed?

A king mackerel. I would guess 40 lbs or more based on a visual and how hard he pulled. I hit it in the solid meat between dorsal and tail behind the abdominal cavity. Was using my Wong 63 super magnum with a slip tip and it held for 4 good hard pulls. The tip had gone through and he was on. He pulled my 100 foot floatline out to the blue and I could clearly see the fish near the surface that far away. Unreal. I had visions of him laying on the deck of the boat....and then he was off. I pulled my line back in and felt sick when I saw the crimp had slipped where the shooting line attaches to the shaft.

Quote from phil herranen

i can take some pics when i get home on sunday .its very ez you just unwind 3 strands about 4" cross them in the middle of your new loop and re wind
phil

I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.

Lunkerbuster. Thanks also.

Quote from Don Paul

Shot by a pro Jeffery Malone with a Hasselblad ten years ago , I will use him again when I do a gun book .

Cheers, Don

Don, really nice picture of those two fish on the bottom...or near it. Are those white sea bass? (sorry for my ignorance but I've never dived in water outside of 22 degrees latitude :D)
Due to a recent hurricane and some other bad weather before that, I've only been in the water once in the last 3 weeks. Those fish pics are getting me really stoked to go Sunday.

Anyone have a link or step by step pictures on how to braid....I believe it's 7 strand shooting line, as an alternative to crimping?
I had a crimp slip and lost shaft, slip tip and a very nice fish. I'm now using 3 crimps but have read in Dr Maas's book that braiding is the best.
Thanks

Quote from Tin Man

T
My thinking goes like this. Suppose I am pushing my kid in a wagon. No matter how big or strong I am, (or how big or small my kid) that wagon will never go faster than I can run. I can get three friends to help me, and we might get the wagon up to to speed sooner, but it will still never go faster than we can run. All the extra strength of my three friends is wasted, because the limit is how fast we can run.

This would relate to spearbands if you had a unit of measurement (15 feet for example) that you and your three friends had to get that wagon up to maximum speed. (your kid would be having a blast with this)
As long as the spearband can reach its max speed before it releases from the shaft, you're getting the most out of it's potential energy. ?? I think.

Really nice looking gun.

Many thanks. My mouth is watering thinking about it. Never knew you could add all that brown sugar. But raw fish on hot rice....mmmmm

Ocean Man. Try send another one. I haven't received any.

Quote from Dan

Thanks for the great info Hank. I didn't know spearfishing was allowed in Belize.

In May of this year, Fisheries announced that no tourists were allowed to spearfish here anymore.
But about a month ago I read that someone on one of the boards had just been here and had brought his gun in no problem and found a guide....I forget where...to take him out.

I then called Fisheries again and asked about the "no tourist" rule. I was told that the Minister had addressed the issue and to tell my friends that it's ok to bring their spearguns, come on down and shoot some fish. During the phone conversation we both agreed that the impact of tourists spearing here has little to absolutley no impact on the fish populations of the reef.

You can only free diver here and there are Marine Protected Areas where no spearing is allowed. Glover's Reef is almost entirely an MPA, Southwater Marine Reserve, Bacolar Chico up on Ambergris Caye and a few others.

I lived worked and dived there for 5 years and never heard of any specific spearfishing guides. I didn't know of or ever see anyone but me spearfishing there. There are some dive shops and hook and line fishing guides there. Placencia is pretty small so if you get there and start asking around you'll find someone. You could start with Sea Horse or Splash dive shops which are right on the end of the penninsula.
I used to spear down there a lot. It's a long way out to the barrier reef (20 + miles) from there but the inside cayes are not bad for hogfish, snappers, jacks.
Start at Moho Caye and work your way north along a reef bank from Baker's Rendezvous to Crawl Caye. You can then head east to Rendezvous Caye (another one) across the Victoria Channel. I used to find some big snappers there.
I haven't been down there for over 5 years but it's not commercially fished there like here near Dangriga.
PM me before you get here. I have a lot of spots up this way. We get out to Turneffe too. I'd like to hook up with other spearos. Not many around here.

Quote from Pucho

I inspect all my equipment frequently for any sign of wear,I have a 55" Wong and love that gun,I have 2 5/8 bands on it and I always shoot with one hand but after checking one day and see a small hair crack on the handle screw holes, the first thing that run trough my mind was what happen to Sheri, some scary stuff, since that I shoot my guns with the other hand on the guns butt, also email Daryl and he send me a new handle, but I really want a Tin Mans handle.

at

Wow. That must pack a wallop. I have a Wong 55 hybrid and I use two 9/16 bands. (not sure the length) It knocks down some big fish and shoots really nice. No big recoil.
I'm sticking with Daryl's "factory design" (I've been in his factory :D) handle.

Except for that ugly guy in the picture, this is unreal. Untouched, natural color of a sunset near Coron, Palawan, Philippines. We were diving on the wrecks there. Lots of fish.

There was a thread started about breathing up on O2 recently. Obviously it would not be wise to breathe up to 1.0 pp O2 and dive down to 20 or even 10 meters, but I was wondering what the effects would be sitting on land.
So, my son and I went down to the shrimp hatchery on Sunday and gave it a shot. We use O2 for shipping baby shrimp to other farms and here.
First off, my personal best on air is only 4 min 5 sec.
I laid down on the floor and breathed up normally, deep and slow for a couple minutes. I then took 5 deep, breaths of pure O2, followed by 4 quick hyperventilations.
I felt a little dizzy at first but just laid there. The first attempt I reached 3 min 40 sec. I started feeling a little dizzy near the end and saw a few stars so I stopped. Also, my diaphragm was slowly spasming.
I waited another 8 minutes or so and repeated the process. This time I reached 6 min and 20 seconds.
Same thing with the spasms.
I think that the CO2 was building up, telling me to breath, thus the spasms. But I had enough O2 left in my blood that I didn't feel the need to breath.
I think I could reach 8 minutes easily. But then, what's the use? This isn't something I would ever apply while diving....or even sticking my head under water in the bathtub.
But, the weather was bad so no spearfishing that day....life in the country.

Quote from Roberto Reyes

We will probably loose the rights to shoot permit
and African Pompano here in Puerto Rico.

I will be in the advisory pannel meeting,
we will see what happen, but it is already
on paper.

I have mixed thoughts, is not really a comercial
fish, and the guys with fly fishing and R&R
get crazy about them for catch and release.

I am also having problems with the parrotfish,
they will also probably be offlimits.

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It's kind of the same here. Permit are not protected but I don't shoot them at one of our favorite spots, where we see them every time we go there, because the fly fishing tourist/purists come here just for those. We see the guys out there on charter boats with the permit swimming all around us. But I've yet to see one of the hook one while we were there. Maybe that's why they love it. The challenge of getting them to bite?
Last Saturday I had a school of about 100 nice size ones follow me up from a dive right near the reef wall. They hung around with me near the surface for about 20 minutes.
And parrot fish here are really overfished. The old guys tell me of the 6-8 lb ones that were common in the "old days".
I don't have a problem not shooting a few species. Also we generally let the Nassau groupers go too.

Pretty amazing.
"Dad, can we get to the doctor"?

"Just a second Honey....a couple more pictures of the fish".

I had one come by me in low vis water by our sea water intake once. He was chomping his jaws and came streaking past as I was getting a small snapper off my spear. Pretty spooky. I've seen them cut grunts in half like nothing while h and L fishing.