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Tonight...East winds 7 to 10 knots. Seas 2 feet. Intracoastal waters a light chop.

Tuesday...East southeast winds 7 to 10 knots. Seas 2 feet. Intracoastal waters a light chop.

Tuesday Night...East southeast winds 5 to 8 knots near shore to east southeast 8 to 11 knots in the gulf stream. Seas 2 feet. Intracoastal waters a light chop.

Wednesday...East northeast winds 8 to 11 knots. Seas 2 feet. Intracoastal waters a light chop.

Wednesday Night...East winds 8 to 11 knots. Seas 2 feet. Intracoastal waters a light chop.

Thursday...East winds 6 to 9 knots. Seas less than 2 feet. Intracoastal waters a light chop. Slight chance of showers and thunderstorms.

Thursday Night...Southeast winds 7 to 10 knots. Seas less than 2 feet. Intracoastal waters a light chop.

Friday...South winds around 5 knots becoming south southeast 6 to 9 knots. Seas less than 2 feet. Intracoastal waters a light chop. Slight chance of showers and thunderstorms.

Friday Night...South southeast winds 6 to 9 knots. Seas less than 2 feet. Intracoastal waters a light chop. Slight chance of showers and thunderstorms.

Saturday...South southeast winds 6 to 9 knots. Seas 2 feet. Intracoastal waters a light chop. Slight chance of showers and thunderstorms.

Its looking better and better!! Too bad I have to study for MCATs this weekend hardcore!! :angry5:

what are the advantages of the band set up you used compared to the traditional band set up used on most guns? and what is it called? thanks.

I've never heard a Goliath croak, so I dont know if that's what I heard. But if so, he wasn't inside the wreck because I could see pretty much everywhere inside of it and there was nowhere for a fish that large to hide.

Dan - It was not what I would describe as a boom, but more of and extended vibratory noise. Like what croakers and grunts make, but a zillion times louder.

You are right on both points, and I wouldn't use PVC on a "real" polespear. This was just a kind of experimental afternoon project for my son to play with, and PVC is very forgiving on the lathe. It probably wouldn't stand up to heavy use, or years in the sun. But it doesn't get either because it is lightly banded and only gets used ocaisionally.

Only pic I see is a slab of wood... maybe they didnt attach?

Turned on a lathe, but yes, cut from solid stock. While making a couple of CF guns since then, I have learned a bit about the different weaves. My next polespear will be much narrower, with primarily uni-directionional weave.

well if you put it that way, it sounds completely nonsensical. but yes, I think that there was a GG on the wreck. It may have come in off the tires just as TinMan came in, i dont know. All we can do is speculate.

I've heard GG's croak like that, i know that other fish do that too, but in order for them to split like that it would have had to frighten them a little bit. Maybe the other grouper didnt know that the GG was there...

The grouper probably didnt take off, they most likely hid in the wreck or took cover in the tires.

I dont think that the croaking sound is coming from the movement of the tail but movement of air inside of the air bladder. Thats now drum/hogfish/most other fish make their croaking sound.

I totally agree 100% The max I dive with in 4.5mm of wetsuit is 10lbs and thats when i'm super positive on the surface. Right now with the 1.5mm that I wear during the summer i wear 8 lbs of weight.

it might be a Goliath Grouper like you said. I've heard GG do that on wrecks and reefs but never spook the fish like that. As we all know GG eat those gags, so that might be it... Those grouper may bet trained to hide whenever the GG's come around on that wreck cuz they get eaten! lol

I've never seen a hogfish here, but black drum is certainly a possibility. I've never seen one while diving, but I know they are fairly common a little further up in the bay.

Quote from mrmike

whats the specs on the spear? any idea how much it weighs? I know my odor is typically too slow for mangroves im hoping my homemade is perfect as it is about 11 or 12 oz lighter.

It was this one http://spearfishing.world/spea…quick-pole-spear-try.html

I'll have to weigh it. But it's also a much larger diameter than necessary.

I finally caught one my shallower grouper holes in Pensacola Bay with the right combination of conditions for me to freedive today. It was near high tide, so the current was very slight, and there had been clean gulf water coming in with little boat traffic all morning, so visibility was good by our standards (about 15-20').

So we marked the wreck with a buoy, and anchored up a short distance away so my boys could fish while I checked it out. I really didn't know if the conditions would be divable, so I figured I would make a quick bounce just to see and didn't take my gun. That won't happen again. The wreck (a 16' or so boat surrounded by about a dozen tires) is in 40' of water. At about 30' I paused and could see grouper everywhere. Quite a few looked legal, so I headed back for my gun, and the sweet floatline that John Hanson just built for me.

Armed now, I headed back down. Again, as I hit 30' or so, I had a clear view of the wreck, and a bunch of decent gags. I continued drifting down, and across the wreck, and lined up a shot on one. Right then, there came the strangest croaking sound. It was a very loud, BRRRUUP, BRRRUUP, and it was so forcefull that I actually felt it. Like when you drift over a little on the highway and hit those bumps they mold in the shoulder of the asphalt. Anyway, at the sound, every fish I could see, of every size and species, positively bolted. I'm not talking a little skittish flight here, and nothing like the way they ease off when I dive scuba. They dove immediately for any cover they could find. They were literally knocking each other out of the way to get into the wreck first. I made several subsequent dives, but only saw a fraction of the fish that were there at first.

This same noise happened when I last dove this wreck about 6 weeks ago. I have never heard it anywhere else. Anybody have any idea what it might be? On rare ocaisions, I have seen goliath grouper in the bay, but this wreck isn't big enough to hold one over 50 lbs or so.

haha saw that on facebook. Cam's mobile upload feed made me want to go diving today... till I remembered that the atlantic was pea soup.

To make a heat treated shaft like you would get from Riffe or any of the other common brands, you would need 17-4 PH stainless, and a way to controllably heat treat it to 950°-1150°F for about 1-4 hours, depending on the exact heat treatment desired. Different times and temperatures yield slightly different properties. Not something that most people can do in their backyard.

On the other hand, I think that even without heat treatment, 17-4 stainless is roughly twice as strong as 316.

But like I said, I think that a fair bit of the price for a new spear is tied up in welding, the fins and machining the notches. So I would certainly check around to some of the different shaft suppliers and see what they could do for you on some plain shafts. www.spearcrafters.com is another that I have heard good things about, though I have never bought from them.

Also, I usually find that Speedymetals.com has the best pricing around: http://www.speedymetals.com/pc…-630-stainless-steel.aspx

Not trying to be a jerk, check the crimp job on the shooting line at the front of the gun. It doesn't look like it was properly crimped with a good quality crimper - could be a weak link in your setup. I suggest unclipping the float from the waverunner when you start diving. Otherwise you will probably find yourself wanting to go a little farther only to hit the end of the line. Also, if you happen to run into a great fish when you don't expect it, you'll want him to be able to run if necessary.

Not all stainless steels can be heat treated. Most shafts are made from 17-4 PH stainless, which is also sometimes found as 630 stainless, I think.

the 300 series stainless (316, 304, 302, etc.) cannot be heat treated for higher strength.

One possibliity would be to contact Ray Odor and see what kind of price he might give you on some simple shafts (without the pins, notches, flopper, etc. of a regular spear).

Just a simple single flopper. The pole spear was actually intended as more as a gig for my son to use when gigging flounder from the boat at night, and is way to thick for what I needed.

Quote from Dan

No pics?

Let's just say they were just right for pan frying. <img src= " height="23" srcset="https://spearfishing.world/forum/images/smilies/emojione/1f606@2x.png 2x">

The building winds from tropical storm (or depression) Bonnie kept me from diving Pensacola Bay like I wanted to this weekend. So with few other options, I dug out the polespear that I built last summer, loaded up the little skiff, and headed the mile or so from Wood Guy's house to one of the little bridge rubble reefs that are in nearby bay waters.

I started off with a pretty crummy attitude about my busted grouper trip, but plinking away at 2-lb mangrove snapper turned into a lot of fun. The incoming tide, and GREATLY reduced boat traffic around here lately provided some pretty good 5-6 foot visibility in the 12-15' deep water.

As it turns out, I pretty much suck at it. But I managed a couple of decent fish and had a blast doing it. I'm sure bigger fish have their own challenges, but those little mangroves were so quick that I could see them evade the spear after I fired. I think I need a little faster spear, so now I guess I have another new project!