Hiya
5mm top and bottom will be fine for all round use. 3mm is a bit too thin, but is workable if you can tolerate cold water!! Water temp. varies between 14-18 degrees mostly, with 18-22 degrees in the tuna grounds. I dive with a "old" omer 5mm mimetic in the warmer 20degree+ water, whilst my normal 5mm Rabitech Predator wetsuit in 9-18 degrees water.
Water depth, well, we're extremely lazy divers here!!!! Yellowtail is our main pelagic specie in the Cape and you seldom hunt deeper than 10-15m for them. How-ever its a very different TYPE of diving, running up to schools of fish smashing bait on the surface, making very quick repetative dives, very little time for proper breath-ups, PLENTY of BIG 'tail (4-10kg's generally!!)....all is a very short space of time, makes for VERY exciting diving.
On the reefs, we seldom work deeper than 20meters. Depending on the area, you mostly hunt in 10-15m of water. For musslecracker, you're working in VERY shallow area's, where the white water is. That's where the waves break over reefs and pinnacles. Often less than 2m deep, requiring the dangerous method of overweighting yourself so that you can stay down. That type of hunting gets the adrenaline pumping as you're normally diving in big surf, with big fish that you WILL see, but not neccaserily shoot!!! Most 'cracker hunters have seen 'cracker in the 18kg+ class, but few have taken them!! Losing fins and masks as big waves wipe you out happens more often than you'd think :duh :duh
Other reef fish are much easier, with fish like red stumpnose, red roman, belman, galgoen, etc being in the 1-5kg class are much easier shooting on the 10-15m reefs.
Gun wise, a 150 is very long for our area. We seldom have the viz. to utlise the range of a 150. Our general all round gun is a 110-120cm gun. This being a good length for accuracy vs. range vs. manouverablity. Almost all of my inshore hunting is done with my 115cm Rabitech Apex. Your 95cm gun will work well if you're hunting in caves and crevices or hunting the kelp beds. It MIGHT work if there is plenty of yellowtail around. I have taken 'tail on my 90cm gun, but thats on rare days when there are plenty of fish and they're not spooky. Like i said before, don't worry too much about it, i'll loan you a 115-120cm gun for your stay here. Other gear, simply 11ltr RA type float or even smaller plus a 20m and a 40m float line is all you need. The shorter floatline works well for yellowtail where the long floatline tends to tangle too much with the other spearo's lines or the boats props.
For tuna how-ever, a complete different set-up is needed. Once again, just get here and you can use my gear. If you want to, your 150 will work for tuna, but a mid-handle simple tracks sooooo much easier. Besides, its a pain to travel with a 150cm gun plus spears!!!
Hope that answers some of your questions!!
Regards
miles
