How to spear safely with others?

[Mr. X]

Hi, I usually spear alone:naughty. I wonder if any of you have safety advice on spearing with one or two others (with one or more spearguns) to avoid nasty accidents, like those described on the recent accident thread. [Apologies for starting yet another thread so soon!]

 

[Almostafish]

Never dive or hunt alone. Little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

 

[miles]

Hiya

One good thing about having a set group of divers that you dive with is that you soon learn each divers style. We HAVE to dive in close proximity to each other, due to the schooling nature of the fish we hunt as well as the shark threat. With up to 4 divers in the water, drifting in the currents, we easily and safely spear together. We normally will spilt up into two pairs. With each diver alternating with their partner. One up one down. I normally check when i surface where the other two are and try to stay relatively close........yet not TOO close.

Be VERY careful of where you point your gun!! In clean water, diving with a few other spearo's is easy. How-ever, this changes in dirty water. Always make sure you know where the other divers are before you dive. DON'T EVER shoot a fish if your dive buddy is in front of you!!! No fish is worth the risk of injuring your buddy!!!

Other than that, normal common sense will see you through most situations!!!

Regards
miles

 

[Mr. X]

Re. diving alone, you make a good point. I do it through necessity rather than choice (although spearing alone has its own unique charms). I don't push the apnea or depth & I stay relatively close to shore/rocks. Half the time I have some kind of support on the shore & occasionally a dive partner. When carrying a loaded speargun, there are some safety advantages to being alone too.

Good link on safe speargun handling.

 

[Mr. X]

Hiya

One good thing about having a set group of divers that you dive with is that you soon learn each divers style. We HAVE to dive in close proximity to each other, due to the schooling nature of the fish we hunt as well as the shark threat. With up to 4 divers in the water, drifting in the currents, we easily and safely spear together. We normally will spilt up into two pairs. With each diver alternating with their partner. One up one down. I normally check when i surface where the other two are and try to stay relatively close........yet not TOO close.

Be VERY careful of where you point your gun!! In clean water, diving with a few other spearo's is easy. How-ever, this changes in dirty water. Always make sure you know where the other divers are before you dive. DON'T EVER shoot a fish if your dive buddy is in front of you!!! No fish is worth the risk of injuring your buddy!!!

Other than that, normal common sense will see you through most situations!!!

Regards
miles

Hi Miles, how was your fishing today(/yesterday)?

A few more questions:

Do you normally just shoot down, sideways or where ever the fish are?

If no shot is taken, do you ascend with the gun pointing down?

Do the other divers stay near your float (I seem to recall that you use a special boogie board float sometimes) or boat, treading water or following you?

Do follow any particular path (e.g. zig zag, away & then back, drift, etc.) to ensure that your dive partners are always behind you?

Any difference when fishing reefs vs. blue water? I expect a lot of it has become automatic/habit by now.

 

[Huan]

A good meythod of spearing safely with a buddy is to share the gun.
One up spotting and one down spearing.
Diver comes up and hands the gun over to the spotter.
No problem with overexcited spearos plugging you on the bottom.

 

[spaghetti]

A good meythod of spearing safely with a buddy is to share the gun.
One up spotting and one down spearing.
Diver comes up and hands the gun over to the spotter.
No problem with overexcited spearos plugging you on the bottom.

That's a state of the art safety routine, especially when you dive deep: you go down and your buddy waits on the boat or by the float, timing your dive ready to rescue. When reef hunting, instead, people normally spear 50mt distant, sending "ok" signals once in a while and briefing about fish and water conditions for mutual advice. They pay maniac attention not to aim the gun towards their buddies, and they use the safe of the gun. This is the way people should do.
But apart of these wise safety rules, let's be true, real life is sadly different: when i go spearing with friends everyone goes for himself, looking for relaxing and self-satisfying experience and not caring about the others. Most of them take off the safe button from their guns (i don't) to avoid loosing fishes for safe-on shot attempts. So it's better to stay away from each other, and hope in God. Truth hurts, i know. :head

 

[Pocoshower]

A good meythod of spearing safely with a buddy is to share the gun.
One up spotting and one down spearing.
Diver comes up and hands the gun over to the spotter.
No problem with overexcited spearos plugging you on the bottom.

Two divers one gun.

If you find someone to spear this way, it will be great. You can dive deeper while your budy is looking for your dive without a gun at his hand.

Carlos

 

[miles]

Two divers one gun.

If you find someone to spear this way, it will be great. You can dive deeper while your budy is looking for your dive without a gun at his hand.

Thats not a very good idea. if a shark should come into the equation, only ONE diver will be armed!!

I've had a fish reef me on the bottom and when i surfaced i saw a small reef shark, not even 2m long, but just beause i didn't have my gun, i felt unbelievably vulnerable!!! Don't even want to imagine being in the water with a large shark with-out a gun!!!!

Regards
miles

 

[Marwan]

we have very clear waters most of the time so we always go in pairs, one is down the other is up and we alternate and cover distance as we go along, i find it very safe, only drawback is sometimes, when you see a fish from top, you secretely wish that your buddy doesnt see it

 

[poacher]

If your diving with a buddy or a few others better to have only one guy in close distance of yourself to worry about -within shooting distance , keep your guns pointed away from each other dont dive together into each end of a swim through cave etc. and then shoot towards each other make sure your mate is not behind the fish your shooting at etc.
when swimming up or down make sure your gun is pointed in the opposite direction of your mate.
Make sure your gun is not pointed at you r mate ever -if the water is so dirty you cant see him you would be better off unloading the rubbers from the spear dont rely on a trigger mech or safety -they fail sometimes.
If your not close enough to find your buddy in a minute or 2 then dive as if your alone -this is in regards to limiting your breathold to well under your limit its no good if he finds you 10 minutes after you black out you won't be likely to be reuscitated then.

 

[Spaniard]

Don't drop the loaded speargun when you are carrying it, gives you a hell of a fright.....

 

[Pocoshower]

Thats not a very good idea. if a shark should come into the equation, only ONE diver will be armed!!

I've had a fish reef me on the bottom and when i surfaced i saw a small reef shark, not even 2m long, but just beause i didn't have my gun, i felt unbelievably vulnerable!!! Don't even want to imagine being in the water with a large shark with-out a gun!!!!

Regards
miles

Oh, I allways forget the sharky part :hmm

 

[ajwaverider]

Hiya

We normally will spilt up into two pairs. With each diver alternating with their partner. One up one down. I normally check when i surface where the other two are and try to stay relatively close........yet not TOO close.

Be VERY careful of where you point your gun!! In clean water, diving with a few other spearo's is easy. How-ever, this changes in dirty water. Always make sure you know where the other divers are before you dive. DON'T EVER shoot a fish if your dive buddy is in front of you!!! No fish is worth the risk of injuring your buddy!!!

Other than that, normal common sense will see you through most situations!!!

Regards
miles

When i'm lucky enough to have a buddy,I use the system Miles stated above.
Seems to be the correct way to do it as other divers use the same system.

 

[Almostafish]

No mention of SWB or sambas then.. Diving alone is not recomended for many reasons not just gun safety. Sharks dont feature in the UK as a problem but cold and fatigue do.

This the reason why the instructions on my microwave say not to dry animals in it.:head

 

[Mr. X]

No mention of SWB or sambas then.. Diving alone is not recomended for many reasons not just gun safety. Sharks dont feature in the UK as a problem but cold and fatigue do.

This the reason why the instructions on my microwave say not to dry animals in it.:head

I am not unaware or unconcerned about Shallow Water Blackout...I started a "Dangers of free diving" thread that maintains a master list of free diving dangers to find out more. Like I said, I don't push times or depth and surface snorkel when alone, as, being large, I am not that optimistic that a dive partner would necessarily be able to save me either -- it improves the odds of survival considerably though. I dive with a partner when I can though (unsurprisingly, this November, December & January - nobody seemed very keen...).

[By the way, it is worth learning basic first aid/rescue techniques -- to my surprise, I have had to use it on at least 4 occasions & have been present at least 6 times when others have administered it. (All domestic rather than diving related). I never expected that I would need to use it.]

Fatigue & cold ...yes, have experienced both (the 5mm hooded spearo wet suit helps a lot with the latter). Spearing is surprisingly tiring -- & when its not you are getting cold, so one or the other is usually a feature of spearing, sometimes both (along with sea sickness/nausia:yack ).

 

[Huan]

TBH If I had to dive exclusively with a buddy I would have about 4 dives a year.
OTOH if I dive carefully and don't push myself then I can dive plenty.
Cold water is a powerful disincentive for buddies.

 

[Almostafish]

Tony ( Mr X )

Have you ever thought about doing a AIDA freediving course? I think that it would answer lots of your questions. The forums are good for getting peoples ideas but not all people have the right ideas and you are in a fairly precarious situation taking on both freediving and spearfishing at the same time. Make no mistake the water will bite you one day.

I can put you in touch with all sorts of people in my capacity as the Groups officer for the British Freediving association ( www. britishfreediving.org ) and as a recommended instructor for the LIC ( London international club ) I can also offer lots of help.

Real world training is worth a million words on forums, and I suspect that you will find a lot more people will be willing to dive with you and show you the hot spots if you took some.


Bryn Spencer

On the other hand what the hell do I know..

 

[johnny]

Other than that, normal common sense will see you through most situations!!!

Regards
miles

Eye contact on the surface very regulary....helps,...communication.

 

[StretchArmStron]

I hunt alont 60% of the time probably. its just something we do as spearos. Even when hunting w/ buddies we do not like to be near each other and unless we are in blue clean water (where we spot each other making deeper drops) we often find ourselves 100's of yards from each other.

Biggest thing is to pay attention to your body and never EVER push yourself. Fish are worthless if you can't bring them home to enjoy them right?

hunting alone is a common thing among spearos...for alot of us its our time for reflection, relaxation, etc.

dive safe!