Choosing a polespear

JBL 6 foot is inexpensive, I'm a beginner and it's the one I'll be using.

I have had a few polespears and have decided that there is no need to spend a lot of money on one to catch fish, however it is tempting to get the blingest and shiniest gear and don't get me wrong, if your doing something extreme then it may be worth spending big bucks for the latest carbon fibre creation or top notch big game spear but for 99% of us a plain lightweight aluminium or even fibre glass spear is absolutely fine, especially for small and smallish fish. I read a post once on a forum in which someone said how silly it is to spend big money on something which is essentially a rubber powered pointed stick and whilst this may be somewhat simplistic, I think its a fair point To sum up for me, if I were after big heavy fish I would use my Ray Odor with a single 18mm speargun rubber and for the rest of the time a JBL lightweight aluminium or similar or a fibre glass. Hope that helps and dive safe

I never worry about a direct hit on rocks. Just use a file to clean up blunt tip.

I have made mistakes with both polespears and spearguns shooting into rocks.

My first big mistake was shooting a large lingcod under a large boulder with polespear flopper shaft. Hit it in the head. I am fighting with it. I can not see anything because of all the sand swirling around. My wife getting pissed at me for hanging around a big boulder waiting for the silt to clear so I could see each time. My body moving around from the fish fighting. Bent spear no fish. The spear never went completely through the head. I hit it 3 times then lost it. I had to wait each time for the sand/silt to clear so I could see its head to shoot it. I swam around the boulder but could not find an exit. Aaron suggested a sliptip replacement.

I hit a lingcod with a polespear sliptip. Swims into the rocks and gets jammed. I spend I don't know how much time fighting to get it out. Complete loss. I can't unscrew the tip and I can't cut the cable. I will never find this boulder again. So now I replace cable with spectra and have a float line attached to my polespear.

Speargun with single flopper on shaft. Hit a lingcod, but the point after going through head hits the rock it is on and flopper did not come out the other side. I am swimming forward trying to grab the spear and push it against the rock. The lingcod wakes up and starts to fight while I am trying to keep it from slipping off by holding the now bent spear against the boulder. Lucky my wife was close to help me get the fish and slide the spear so the flopper deployed. It was all I could do holding it against the rock. I now use shorter floppers and sometimes sliptips with spectra instead of steel cable.

My gun has a flashlight. My buddy wants to use it to see a Cabezon. Bad shot through body not head. Swims up into hole and the spear bends and jams. We can grab the bent spearshaft, but can not get it free from rocks. We work on it for a long time. Have to cut the line. The Cabezon is still on the shaft too far in to touch. I now use a break away so my shaft has a line going to the surface independent of the gun. I do not know maybe have the chance to hike back to the car and use the tire iron as leverage to bend the shaft more to free it?

I experimented with some wicked looking 3 prong paralyzer tips Aaron sent me. Worked great on our rockfish. Hit them in the head. Easy to get fish off tip onto stringer.

polespear