Hey there! From Vancouver Island B.C.

[Stabby]

Hey everyone (everyone who reads this anyways) my name is Kevin, I have been a lurker here on this forum for a while now. I live in Victoria B.C. and have been angling, surfing, biking, hiking the island my whole life. I decided this year to take up spearing for the first time ever.

A little background on myself, I have been free/breath hold diving my whole life in lakes and rivers, usually to retrieve such things as golf balls or crayfish from lakes and keys, glasses, other misc stuff and ofcourse more crayfish in the rivers also...

I wouldn't consider myself to be overly experienced or a "pro" by any means, just some casual diving. I am always learning. The deepest I've dove ever is right around 60 feet and I really do not have much desire to go deeper at the moment. I like to work between 15 and 25 feet deep. Shallow I know.

My target fish are Greenling, Cabezon, Rockfish, Flounder, Halibut, and maybe a Ling once a year, though I don't feel right taking Ling due to how old they are. Greenling are my primary target and I plan on hunting them all year long.

My equipment is as follows:
5/3 suit
3mm gloves
3mm hood
5mm boots
Cressi Frog fins
Nylon belt, plastic latch
4lbs of lead with positive buoyancy at roughly 20 feet
American divers knife on my belt

Cressi Comanche 90cm single sling gun

Pointy end:
Standard Cressi braided line that came with the gun from the butt of the spear attached to a halibut shock then attached to the end of the gun.

The dumb end:
Home made 50 foot float line using 3/8" PVC braided hose designed for air compressor hose, clear with 3/8" light green braided rope.

 

[ReefTroll]

Nice post and nice gear, looks like you're well hooked up! Let us know how your dives go and what you catch!

 

[Stabby]

Nice post and nice gear, looks like you're well hooked up! Let us know how your dives go and what you catch!

I found a few nice spots about an hour out of Victoria. Pebble beaches with an average depth of 5-7m. I have a couple people I've gone with a few times now and been somewhat successful. Out of probably 15 fish I've shot at, (all greenlings) I managed to impale and land 4 of them. All about 12"-18" and have made homemade fish and chips from all four! I am going to add another 4 pounds of lead to help me get down faster and stay down easier since I'm working at such a shallow depth.

I had a bit of an issue with my spear bouncing off of greenlings backs. I would shoot and they would turn at just the right angle to have it glance off of them. A bit frustrating but it brought to my attention that I should probably sharpen the tip of my spear a bit better than it was from factory. I got snuck up on by a huge bait ball on my last dive and it blacked out the sun at about 5m of depth. Scared the hell out me for a second because there are Tuna running about 15miles off shore and they tend to have GWS's following them. Turns out there was only seals following the bait ball. I didn't even get see a school of salmon, not that I can shoot them in the first place but still would have been cool.

I keep looking for flounders to stab but I'm thinking it had to be a sandy bottom. I have cleaned up most of the reef in this area of fishing line and other random crap. I keep finding buzz bombs and other lures with absolutely no hardware whatsoever attached to them. They are everywhere on these reefs. The only thing I can think of is somebody chumming the location with hookless shiny lures to help bring in the fish.

More update to follow after some more dives.

 

[ReefTroll]

Yeah I am hearing you on the fear with the black sea for that moment, I'd be a nervous diver too in those conditions knowing GW's follow up!

That's a bit odd with the lures!! Here we find golf balls, a lot of them!