Flashers

[LongFin]

What's the benefits of putting on a set of these flashers to your floatline and is it possibly to make your own or spend a fortune on premade ones.
I'm also wondering if they're going to tangle up if not rigged to my floatline correctly, in other words how far do you need to distance it away from your attachment to the gun itself.

 

[Griff]

now we're talking

hi longfin, welcome to the forums. I've got a special interest in flashers, and have been trying out all sorts of different ideas. in my opinion, the bought ones are guarenteed to work, but then you miss out on trying new stuff out for yourself. sort of like tying your own flies.

i've got a small foam filled float made out of a 500ml soda bottle that i hang the flasher off.
usual technique is holding the line in my hand, working the flasher up and down. if i do a dive, i let the float go. the problem is that you need to retrieve it, especially if you end up chasing a fish, which is a bit of a pain, but it keeps you tangle free.
about where to put it, if i'm covering ground i only attach mine to my floatline if i'm not using it and bored of dragging it with me. this is because it ends up way behind you and its no longer serving its purpose.
if i'm doing drifts and not moving very much, i have it clipped to the line, about 15m from the gun, depending on the depth the flasher is at (about 12m). the advantage of this is you can dive down to the side of the flasher and level off at the same depth. the float is small enough that it just gets dragged down without much resistance if you do want to go deeper.

the whole lot can get a bit tangled if i'm stringing a fish i've just shot, but thats because i like to keep my gun close to me, so everything is in the same area. having thick mono for the flasher helps if you get a bit tangled up.

 

[Pekka]

Flashers... I tried them twice.. I used simillar tehcnique as Griff, but I have not really had any luck getting fish close with that thing.. I mean not close enough.. I usually try to make all the flashy bits bounce up and down and then dive along the flasher..

how close have you gotten your fish to your flasher? I find it just irritating and usually after an hour of playing with the thing I end up letting it go and hunt without the thing..

safe diving
Pekka

 

[Griff]

what type of fish you after? flashers work better on the predatory fish

 

[LongFin]

The fish I'm primarily hunting for up here on Long Island would be the stripe bass which are attracted to small baby bunker to larger sized ones as well as numerous silver baitfish in these surrounding waters. These fish can average 20 to 40+ lbs. and can be very aggressive since I used to surf fish.
If i were to make one where would I be able to get the materials...I've look into some fishing catalogs and on the net but must be not the right ones???

 

[Jeff06]

Hello!

Sorry I cannot help you because I used flashers only once (for tuna).
But I have questions about them!

Have some of you already used flashers in the mediterranean sea? To shoot amberjack or dentex or something else?

+
Jeff

 

[Murat]

Personally i didn't see anyone uses flasher here. May be they are not aware of this equipment, but one of my friend use interesting method to attract AJ. He throw his torch to the fish and fish come close to investigate:head May be the fish get attracted by the shiny lens of torch, who knows...

 

[Jeff06]

Unfortunately spearfishing with a torch is forbidden here (in France)...

Any other idea?
Jeff

 

[Murat]

What???

How do you hunt the fishes in cave?? Night hunting is illegal here too but not using torch even in daylight. Thats too much...

 

[Griff]

the materials available are limitless. as long as its shiny and stands up to salt water. fishing stuff is a good place to look, but dont stop looking there. christmas is around the corner, and the fish love those decorations.

 

[Jeff06]

Hello Murat!

Yes this is very difficult when the caves are very deep or dark.
But sometimes it helps falling in love with a big moray!

:blackeye

But this is the law...
@+
Jeff

 

[Murat]

Let me guess, grouper hunting is illegal in France:waterwork

 

[Jeff06]

You won!!!!

But this is still legal to fish groupers with either net or rod....
Then it is still possible to eat them

@+
Jeff

 

[Murat]

Thats all bs ! ! !

They can be cought by net and rod which is easier to catch and you can not select to left babies. But when it comes to spero:vangry

 

[Jeff06]

I suppose that the spearfisher problems are equivalent in the other countries...

@+
Jeff

 

[Memo]

sure it is, in Turkey grouper hunting for speros are forbidden too! but all other ways of hunting is legal!! I saw many many fisherman hunting baby groupers with rod!

 

[Griff]

hi guys, can you maybe take this to a different thread. maybe call it general discussion or something, after all this thread is about flashers, isnt it? it'll just help to keep topics a bit clearer. like when you use the radio, you say, hi buddy, meet me on channel B.
thanks
mark

 

[w3ac]

As far as flashers go I won't pretend to be an expert but I can tell you from experience that they do work. As Griff said the flashers work on predatory fish. I opted to buy six flashers from a fishing supply and stagger them about a two feet apart and hang them down about 30 feet. We usually use them when we dive off of the Zodiac. That way we can just drift behind the zodi and let the current do the work. The most effective way to use them is to have someone actually work the flashers jigging then up and down. The Ono (wahoo) love this and often appear out of the blue to get a closer look.

As far as reef applications, a friend of mine tucks a big shiny spoon in his suit then throws it on occasion. Works in bringing in most reef predators here. I was thinking about setting something up where I could attach a few flashers to the bottom of a weighted float line and jig this up and down while hunting deep reef. When the fish comes in for a look, you could dive down and maybe get off a shot. A reel would be required just in case something sizeable comes around.

One of my dive partners made his own flashers. He bought some reflective mylar sticker, the kind fishermen use to make trolling heads, and put these on pieces of sheet metal. He then cut the sheet metal to his desired shape then bent them a little so they would give a good wobble while in the water. I gotta say that this works better than my store bought ones. The mylar never turns dull and it is also more reflective than the polished all metal stuff. The best part, they were cheaper than the all metal.

Anyone got some ideas about the reef stuff, let me know.

Brad

 

[Griff]

that spoon idea has been thrown around hear quite a lot :t it would be quite a cool idea if you got your divce buddy to throw it near you while you lie on the bottom. so you either nail the curious fish, or els you get to retrieve the silverware. then throw it for him.

 

[LongFin]

I looked into one of the nearby tackle stores and they had these spoons 2 in long very reflective, which I jeri-rigged to some line and zip tied it onto a floatline and this worked very good out in the currents. The spoons came with u-shaped attachment which made the spoons twirl around.