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Quote from seahunter49

So what's it like sticking a knife into a flounder? Apart from the "man the hunter" ego trip is it a better option than using a short flopper shaft with a wood grip? Is the interesting aspect of it making due with what you just happened to have (a knife) as opposed to planning to be more productive?

I don't spearfish at night, so the flounder were taken when I was making night scuba dives just because I enjoy seeing all the wee beasties that only come out after dark. Certainly, the knife would be far less effective than just about anything else if you were planning a hunt. In each of the cases where I took fish that way, I was ending the dive and moving up towards the beach to make my exit, when I happened upon the fish.

Flounder trust their camouflage to the extreme, and almost never bolt. So from that standpoint, they are usually very easy to approach and stab at short range. It would be a real stretch to call it sporting, so the reward is not in the chase. I guess there is a little satisfaction when you successfully improvise, though. But mostly I just like to eat them!

Quote from seahunter49

You have to be kind of intelligent to come up with these brain fucking ideas . . .[/URL]

It is my opinion that there is enough money, and enough intelligence, in the world to solve all of our problems. But neither are evenly distributed, and the things that both are wasted on . . .

I have some pics of the fish posing with my kids, but the wife has a non-negotiable rule against me posting pics of the kids on the web.

The Gulf flounder we get are easily recognizable by the three prominant spots, and usually run smaller at 2-3 lbs. The Southern flounder are larger. I have gigged them to six lbs, and they run as large as about 8 lbs in my area. They get much larger in other places, however, with the world record over 20 lbs, I think.

I get them diving from time to time, but mostly we gig them from a small boat in shallow water around sand bars at night.

I have taken flounder with a knife several times when night diving.

I know that there are numerous species of flounder, and I don't know what kind you have in South Florida, but the Gulf Flounder and Southern Flounder that we get in the Northern GOM are excellent table fair. Certainly my favorite inshore fish. The thin, white, flaky fillets are especially well suited to baking (with crabmeat and cornbread topping), pan frying, or encrusting with pecans or other nuts.

Nothing yet. I was hoping that you would have more rail kits available soon. I have also heard that Josh at Neptonics may have some, although they aren't listed on his website. I need to drop him an email and find out.

I'll have to ask them this week how they came to use pneumatics originally, and if that is still what they use. If I were to guess, it was probably because the only band guns that the local dive shop carried were simply too long, so they used what might have been commonly available. Although these two guys are machinists and could build any type of gun imaginable, they probably just keep using what they first learned with.

The two that I know personally are machinists where I work. One is a former commercial diver who isn't easily rattled. The other just grew up doing it, so it seems perfectly normal to him. They have invited me several times, but I have never been able to go. It's something that I would love to try, though.

Yeah, but noodling is usually practiced in water shallow enough to wade, I think, so that you can plant your feet and drag him out of the stump. The guys I know are generally freediving among sunken cypress logs in 6-10 feet of water. They routinely shoot catfish in the 25-35 lb range, and sometimes up to 45-50 lbs. Not unusual to come upon a gator resting on the bottom either. :0

I think there are guys here in South Louisiana who hunt catfish in the local freshwater lakes, and typically in about 3-5' vis. I think they generally use pneumatics because they are looking for adequate power in the smallest possible package. If not with a pneumatic, how would you approach that application?

Looks like another great trip! I hope I can get down there one day.

Quote from Dan

. . . I think hunting in really bad vis is more difficult. You have so little time to react when you finally see a fish. It has an element of fun in it . . .

You know that I agree! Every situation has something to teach us, right? I am often surprised at how the lessons of a completely different experience can make me a better hunter in the now.

I have three children of my own, and have to be mindful of what I browse while they are about. My boys, in particular, will always stop to look over my shoulder when they catch me on a spearfishing site. <img src= " height="23" srcset="https://spearfishing.world/forum/images/smilies/emojione/1f606@2x.png 2x">

That said, I recognize that other people's situations and preferences are different. It is certainly not fair to impose my standards on them just because I have kids, and I want them to enjoy the site as fully as I do. My preference would be to allow as much content as possible. But it would help me a lot if people could somehow label any questionable content, links, or thread titles as such (NSFW, or Not Suitable For Children, or whatever), so that I can exercise my best judgement before I open it. Things that show up unexpectedly in an unrelated thread will always be a problem, I guess, but not worth causing a rucus over.

When I'm pondering something like this, I often vist www.freepatentsonline to see how others have already approached it. Registration is required, but it's free, and the drawings are in pdf format. Alternatively, you can go to www.USPTO.gov, which does not require registration, but you will need a TIFF viewer to see the drawings.

The main thing that I don't like about dumbell shaped floats is that they are a pain to wind up if there is still tension/weight on the line. The line also tends to twist as you wind it, so a swivel on the end is good.

What you have drawn is very similar to a couple of marker floats that I have seen, and should work. They were intended to be dropped and retrieved from a boat though. Will you be swimming much with it? It looks like it might be awkward to tow through the water, as you fight current to search for your spot.

One other thing that I forgot to mention. Eventually, the weight will get tangled or lodged somewhere that it is difficult, dangerous, or just undesirable to retrieve. Instead of tying the heavier string or cord directly to the weight, tie it to a short length or loop of heavy (50#) mono, and tie the mono to the weight. That way, you can break it off if you need to.

Also, consider if the cord will tangle around your ballast weight as it drops. Easily managed if you are in the water with it, but more problematic if you are dropping it from a boat.

Cracking at the attachment screw holes particularly frustrates me because the solution is "elegantly simple".

Quote from seahunter49

Won't the welding rod rust?

Use stainless steel welding rod.

These are the "Bubble Joy" jugs. Although it's not shown in these pics, the 1/2 gallon jugs (on the left) have a small handle. Not sure about the quart jugs.

I don't like the mushroom shaped ones because they tend to sit straight up and don't "dig" into the bottom. A good way to make the grapling type weights is to use welding rod or some other wire that is 1/8" diameter or a little thinner. If the anchor gets snagged, cleat the line to the boat and pull, and the wires will straigten out and release the weight. Then they are easily bent back to their original shape when back on the boat. You're going to loose a few from time to time, so keep them simple and cheap.

Dan - We have often made cheap floats out of the 1/2 gallon "bubble juice" containers that you can usually find in toy stores or Walmart. They are bright colors, cheap, and just the right size and shape. Fill the inside with a little foam to keep it hard. Then use a hose clamp to attach a bent piece of wire onto the handle. This little wire clip is then used to keep the line from further unwinding once the desired depth is reached.

If I have one around here, I'll take a picture.

We dive on marker buoys almost exclusively, and generally in heavy current. There are a couple of things that I have learned.

The amount of string deployed is important. Buoys which have a drag system to stop deploying line when the weight hits the bottom are nice, if they function properly. A low budget alternative is to have several of the cheap markers, with different lengths of line, and marked on the float. This way, you can deploy a marker with just enough line to reach the bottom, so that it will remain nearly straight above the target.

A simple lead ball shaped weight will often drag with any significant current. We pour ours in the shape of a 1" diameter lead rod, about 12" long, with heavy wire at one end to make a grapling hook. It's important to make the weight long, so that it will fall over on it's side, and the hooks can dig into the bottom.

Also, those ones in your first picture will be pretty hard to see from in the water, with any wave action. A flag that sticks up a little is very helpful.

Isn't it also possible to drill a new line hole through the shaft on the larger diameters? Outside the mech, but preferably behind the last notch? I have no experience with Euro style guns, so I'm just mindlessly repeating something I thought I saw somewhere.

Drill press, slow speed, tap magic or threading oil, center punch the start. Carbide bit preferred, but high speed steel will work if it's a good one, and not cheap junk.

I may possibly, inadvertently, have run across the link somewhere else, in a moment of weakness.

If you only want the tabs only because you want to use dyneema wishbones, you can do that pretty easily with a notched shaft as well. I used the "edge" wishbone inserts from Florida Fredivers on my notched JBL shaft for two years before I built my first gun and they held up great. The wishbone material needs to be in the 1.5mm range, but you can also do that using the sheet-bend knot that many people use. Either way, it just takes a needle file, some 1/8" cord, and metal polish to take the edge off the slots.

http://www.ronsseacorner.co.nz…stainless_spear_notch.htm

Of course, if you want a shark finned shaft for other reasons, like the attachment of the shooting line, then the above is obviously useless and disregard my irrelevant rambling!