(11-21-2018 02:53 PM)gmoneysauce Wrote: Bump.
So, I started SCUBA, then Freediving, and now I'm just starting to get into Spearfishing. I am fascinated with it. I'll be in a town in Latin America in December and January where I can spearfish about two or three times a week. Heavy currents there so I'll probably be using a boat.
Anyone else active on the board now that is spearfishing?
G
I was in the water really early and spearfishing with and in circles with some of the best divers in the sport. Still, I had a huge amount of time out of the sport, so I'm not an expert by any means and I'm learning again. For what it's worth, there are a ton of spearfishing resources out there but the sport has grown exponentially, so there's a ton of shitty information and poor to middling spearfishermen willing to take you and teach you all kinds of nonsense. I've even seen at least one "datasheet" on this forum as well as information in this very thread that's questionable.
I wouldn't look to this forum or any other forum to learn spearfishing. I'd seek out a very experienced and knowledgeable/respected diver in your area and see if you can befriend them and learn the sport from them. Ingratiate yourself with better divers than you and go out with them. You'll learn far better information and things that you could never learn from the internet or the jokers out there.
Alternately you can take a class from PFI or FII if they are offered in your area. Like franchised gyms you need to learn about the instructor and see what their experience and true knowledge base is. Keep in mind these classes are usually geared towards "line diving" and freedive only competition. That's not to say you can't learn a lot from them, but some of the techniques will only apply to line diving or there are alternate techniques that will work better for spearfishing.
I highly recommend learning freediving or scuba (if that's your preference). It's the closest thing to weightlessness that's affordable on this earth and it truly is like an alien world down below. I enjoy spearfishing but could dive for hours even without a speargun, simply with a camera or just my mind's eye. Like anything related to the ocean, mother nature will not catch you out if you are not highly aware and don't plan things well.
Not as a deterrent to getting into the sport, but a few ways that you can go from having fun to being in danger are below:
Current in some areas can easily pull you out to sea never to be seen again.
Swell and wind chop can make you seasick (even if you don't easily get seasick).
Spending a lot of time diving deep down under a thermocline can chill you significantly and put you in a dangerous situation as your body fights to try to keep you warm leaving you very little energy to get to shore/boat.
Lack of vigilance/line management can get you wrapped up in your own shooting line, trail line float line, kelp/seaweed, etc... Worse so if you have a strong fighting fish on.
Selection and configuration of equipment can be done poorly. You can have too much of a loop or hook on your weight belt and end up hung up on the rock structure or stuck in a hole that otherwise you could get in/out of easily. Poor choice of speargun/equipment can make you miss fish or have fish tear off.
Not extending your surface time as you dive longer or in colder conditions can make you more susceptible to a shallow water blackout.
Hyperventilating can leave you in a state of calm and put off your body's natural insistence on breathing from the build up of CO2 in your bloodstream (it's not from the lack of oxygen like many people assume).
I could go on and on.
I have mutual friends with Kimi Werner. I hope I get a chance to go dive with her some day. Diving with Kona would be great, but he'd probably laugh at me for being used to grabbing bugs by hand (among other things I'm sure).
Finding someone knowledgeable to mentor you is by far the best way to go. Some questions for example really shouldn't be answered with regards to equipment without having context. Wetsuits depends entirely on the conditions you'll be diving in. Spearguns, reels, float lines, and floats will depend on what types of fish you'll be hunting and what areas you'll be diving in.