Hey guys, new member, I've been lurking for a little bit, really a great forum, I've learned a lot, the information and experience is appreciated.
I've never gone spearfishing before, but I used to scuba dive and snorkel a fair amount. Been a few years though and I'm certainly out of practice.
In a few weeks, my family and I (my dad, my wife and our two kids) will be heading up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to my great uncles cabin. It's a beautiful area, right on a mid sized lake. My dad has been going there since he was a kid, his grandpa built it, and when I was a kid we were there every summer. Not great visibility but on calm days I think it should work just fine. The deepest point is 18 feet, but it's about a half mile wide by about 1.5 miles long, so plenty of places to go.
I was looking on the Michigan DNR website and found that it's legal to spearfish for catfish. I've seen that it's legal to spearfish for things like carp, but I have no intention to eat carp, but catfish is tasty and spearguns are cool. Armed with that logic, I eventually talked my wife into letting me buy a speargun.
My initial plan was to just buy a polespear and keep it simple, but the reasonably priced ones are all one piece. It would be quite a pain to transport a 7' pole in the middle of my car for a 12 hour drive. The ones that break into sections cost more than an entry level speargun. Also spearguns are cool.
So on Friday I will be purchasing the Persistent Intro 90 off of Amazon. I realize this is not a great brand or a great gun, but for my purposes and considering how much of a rarity it will be that I'll be able to use it, it should work great. Plus if I get really into it, I can always upgrade.
So I've gathered all my gear, my wetsuit still fits (quite happy about that), sharpened the dive knife and I'm getting real excited now. I know there's catfish on the lake and I haven't got to go snorkeling in forever. Should be a great time.
Next on my to do list is to make a dive flag float. I'll post some pictures, got a few good ideas (at least in my mind they're good ideas) and I'll start building tonight. I had started and nearly finished one before I realized that I should probably look into the Michigan state regs on dive flags and the one I started wasn't nearly big enough, so it's scrapped and I'll be doing it right this time.
I didn't realize how poor my breath hold abilities have gone so I've started training those also. Right now I'm at 45 seconds, but I bought an Apnea trainer app and an iHoldBreath app for my phone yesterday and I've started my training, really interested to see where I can get to in a month. Those apps are pretty cool for anyone interested, the iHoldBreath one is just O2/CO2 tables (which I first heard of on this forum) but you can adjust them and keep track of PB times. the apnea trainer is interesting, it's just breathing patterns, but the reviews were good and they swear by the science behind it. I'll be doing both and I think the combination of the two techniques should really help me improve my time.
Like I said, thanks for all the free info, looking forward to getting in the water!
I've never gone spearfishing before, but I used to scuba dive and snorkel a fair amount. Been a few years though and I'm certainly out of practice.
In a few weeks, my family and I (my dad, my wife and our two kids) will be heading up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to my great uncles cabin. It's a beautiful area, right on a mid sized lake. My dad has been going there since he was a kid, his grandpa built it, and when I was a kid we were there every summer. Not great visibility but on calm days I think it should work just fine. The deepest point is 18 feet, but it's about a half mile wide by about 1.5 miles long, so plenty of places to go.
I was looking on the Michigan DNR website and found that it's legal to spearfish for catfish. I've seen that it's legal to spearfish for things like carp, but I have no intention to eat carp, but catfish is tasty and spearguns are cool. Armed with that logic, I eventually talked my wife into letting me buy a speargun.
My initial plan was to just buy a polespear and keep it simple, but the reasonably priced ones are all one piece. It would be quite a pain to transport a 7' pole in the middle of my car for a 12 hour drive. The ones that break into sections cost more than an entry level speargun. Also spearguns are cool.
So on Friday I will be purchasing the Persistent Intro 90 off of Amazon. I realize this is not a great brand or a great gun, but for my purposes and considering how much of a rarity it will be that I'll be able to use it, it should work great. Plus if I get really into it, I can always upgrade.
So I've gathered all my gear, my wetsuit still fits (quite happy about that), sharpened the dive knife and I'm getting real excited now. I know there's catfish on the lake and I haven't got to go snorkeling in forever. Should be a great time.
Next on my to do list is to make a dive flag float. I'll post some pictures, got a few good ideas (at least in my mind they're good ideas) and I'll start building tonight. I had started and nearly finished one before I realized that I should probably look into the Michigan state regs on dive flags and the one I started wasn't nearly big enough, so it's scrapped and I'll be doing it right this time.
I didn't realize how poor my breath hold abilities have gone so I've started training those also. Right now I'm at 45 seconds, but I bought an Apnea trainer app and an iHoldBreath app for my phone yesterday and I've started my training, really interested to see where I can get to in a month. Those apps are pretty cool for anyone interested, the iHoldBreath one is just O2/CO2 tables (which I first heard of on this forum) but you can adjust them and keep track of PB times. the apnea trainer is interesting, it's just breathing patterns, but the reviews were good and they swear by the science behind it. I'll be doing both and I think the combination of the two techniques should really help me improve my time.
Like I said, thanks for all the free info, looking forward to getting in the water!