[Erik]

I dive almost exclusively by myself. I head out with friends and we might stay in sight of each other at the surface, but that's it. We have crap vis for the most part anyway and buddy-spearing is just not fun or practical. We take our chances and dive very conservatively. I can do a 6+ minute static, can do a 3 minute hunting dive with full kit in cold water, so usually I limit the dives to under 2 minutes.
But spearfishing deaths are number 1 within the freedivering community, so it's a risk you need to calculate, thinking of the consequences and sorrow that others might feel if you die.