Speargun Rigging

[ickledevil]

Hi all,
Finally Im seeing my technique depth times the lot improving, but now Im beginning to concentrate on my equipment, I want to re-rig my speargun. At the moment it is mono straight to a reel, which as served well, but I want to change for two reasons.
1) I want to use the reel to drop an anchor from my float (much neater)
2) I had a scare the other day and had to cut my reel line after a bass doubled back on me with spear and line in tow... ending with my legs tied together. Much to much line in the water.
It shouldnt have been a problem but I panicked a bit.
Any way
I think that Id like the spear rigged straight to the gun, maybe a bungee, any ideas on how to do this, I have the mono and crimps but no bungee... any household items I can use? Just after some general ideas... oh and fast Im diving tomorrow!
Joe

 

[andrsn]

rigging

what sort of gun are you using? there could be many solutions. it sounds like you could use a break away system.

the system allows you to swim away from a predicament with only your gun in hand. the fish will just have your bouy in tow. depending on hunting depth, a ski rope(somewhat household) will work. you'll have to re-rig your mono to where your wraps terminate at the butt of your gun. here you need a snap/swivel. mono will be crimped here... the snap will be able to tether the ski rope(going to your bouy) and you'll need some sort of bungee aparatus for the "break-away".

here's a pic of my buddy's setup(top). it's a little extravagant, but it works for him. a simple snap swivel will work at the junction of all three lines. this is me(bottom) after a shot. i just shoulder my gun and have both hands free to do whatever, ie. chum.

hope this helps.

anderson

 

[ickledevil]

Cheers, I had wondered about a breakaway system but I think it might be a little bit of overkill for the UK conditions Im shooting in, the gun is a 75cm Beauchat with 6.5mm spear and a single pair of 20mm bands. Is a line attached straight to the gun acceptable and should I use some sort of bungee as a shock absorber and if so what can I use? I have a bouy etc but tend to drop a line to the sea bed and dive around the bouy so Im not attached, I mainly fish reefs and kelp. up to about 20m deep.
But maybe a scaled down version Mmmmmmm.......

 

[andrsn]

you could always freeshaft if you're shallow enough and are an expert marksman.

in the picture, the line going to the bouy has a shock bungee with a pigtail swivel. this is what would be attatched to your gun... then the mono... then the spear. probably how the gun was setup at first, unless you bought it rigged with the reel.

the bouy system sucks around kelp, but on the reefs it's great. i have a small gun that i usually tie a 60' ski rope to the butt. i don't use a huge float, but a tiny bobber like thingy. something i can pull under easily and won't get tangled in anything because of its size. normally i'm just shooting snapper with it, but if something big comes along i don't have to pass it up in fear of losing my gun cause i have the ski rope that will let me come up for air and still have a tether on my gun.


later,
anderson

 

[Jay Styron]

gun rigging

I agree that a break away system may be a bit much for the type of fish that you would mostly encounter. Andersons idea w/ the line going directly to your gun will work just fine, you shouldn't need a bungee. Most of the guns have a hole in the end of the handle. I run a loop of line through mine and then have a longline snap on the end of my float line. Then just snap it on whenever I need it. But personally I prefer reels on my guns unless I know I'm going after something very big. You could make your own float line out of clear tygon tubing and run a pice of parachute cord through it with stainless metal plugs on either end to make it H2O proof. It would slide through the kelp pretty easy and float. Not necessarily household items though. There are also dive companys that make dive flags w/ a reel built in the bottom. Take care and good hunting.
PS- Hey Anderson I'm back in the Keys and the weather bites.

 

[andrsn]

bungee

jay,

i was down there for the last good day of weather!

the bungee i was talking about was the shock bungee that is between the mono and the gun. the thingy that dampens the full line extension tug from a shot.

i tried emailing you but it kept coming back. i shot my first king! about 10lbs. not a monster, but it's a king. check out my website and you can see it. it's under "florida trip" going through the gallery link.

later,
anderson

 

[Jay Styron]

gun rigging

Hi Anderson,
Congradulations on the king. I'm not sure whats going on w/ my email account. Got ya on the bungee, how many wraps of the shooting line do you put on your guns?
Jay

 

[andrsn]

that would be 4 wraps

i'm going to try pm'ing.

later

 

[Aquiles]

Hey there jay,
Anderson told me about you and let me tell you a bungee is a great way to keep fish from ripping off your spear. The way that I have my gun set up you can hunt the pelagics and the reef at the same time and not have to worry about your setup.
I always like to have a breakaway system. I like that struggling fish as far from me as possible. I have had nasty experiences with large barracuda and wahoo.
There is a large population of pelagics off of that research station of yours. I have seen wahoo in the 40 to 50 pound range there. They are not uncommon.

One of the great advantages of getting your gun back is that you can use it to defend yourself in case of emergencies like our toothy freind,,, the shark. The other day I shot a Cuda that was about thirty pounds and I felt better that I had a club to beat the Blacktip shark that came to eat it if necessary. Luckily he left the fish alone and I retreived it intact.


I also find that when hunting soft fleshed fish like mutton snapper, kingfish and wahoo the chances of loosing the fish are greater if it can drag your gun all over the reef. Wahoo also like to blast off and you should avoid putting too much drag on them at first.

Take this for what it's worth,

Happy hunting

Aquiles

 

[andrsn]

aquiles, maybe if you were a better shot, your fish wouldn't run so much! ha!

go study, cuban! keep thinking "SeaVee" to get you through. "Angler" got me through ok. now it's your turn!

and, don't mention shooting cuda's around jay. he's the cuda savior, remember?! the cuda you shot looked deathly ill and severely sickened with cig, right? right.

hey Joe, how big are these bass you're after? what's the water temp, visibility, conditions, etc.? and where exactly are you? if you don't mind sharing. i'm just fascinated to learn where others spearfish in this world.

later guys,
anderson

 

[ickledevil]

little ol' england

Well course I dont mind,
Im based slap bang in the middle of England making spear fishing a bit of a trek, but hey its worth it!
I mainly fish the south west.. Cornwall area. Water tempurature doesnt vary much between 10 and 15 degrees C all year the visibility on the other hand does! The best Ive ever seen it is 10-12m but ocassionally it can be more, more often though its up to 5m. In the winter the rains and wind stir it up and you cant see the end of your gun, so my season is about over (I dived yesterday and swam into the bottom, I couldnt see it infront of me, a good sign the seasons over! The most common fish we find are Wrasse (about 3 types but they are generally avoided as they are confident and easy to shoot and dont taste as nice as the others) Bass, not really sure what the actual species is but they get up to 14+lbs although 10 is an excellent one. Mullet and gold spot mullet similar to bass but tend to be smaller. Good old Cod and Pollock (same family) can grow BIG but generally small in shore then theres flat fish: Plaice, Skate etc, Dog fish and the occasional Blue Shark, Conger eel and some other species either lost or passing through but these aren't as common. We also get Lobster, Spider and edible Crabs and shellfish (mussels scallops etc)
Fishing is generally up to 30m but more often shallower (its mighty dark down there!) We have reef and rock structures almost always in Kelp and weed.
Other than shooting the fish theres some nice places to look and smaller species to watch/photograph. In the winter I still train a little but just the diving side of things, this winter Ill be training in a 110m deep reservoir, but I think Ill be staying to the top 30! (might try 31 for a PB!)
So dispite it being cold,dark murky and no big pelagics I love diving here and theres only one place id change it to and thats New Zealand (with a bit of luck that change will be in about 2 years!) Ive dived there, Fiji and a little in the US. What about everyone else wheres your favourite area of the world?

 

[Jay Styron]

gun rigging

Hi Aquiles,
I would probably use a bungee if I didn't use reels. I have about 100' of line to let them run and still have my gun. If this isn't enough I clip my float line which I have attached to my belt to my gun so in theory I have about 200' of line to play w/. I'm thinking of putting a section of bungee on my float line just in case I need to let the big one run.
Don't worry about shooting Barracudas. I'll help them if I can but when they mess w/ my fish they're history. Last month when I was in the Keys I had some mangos on my bouy and this barracuda swims by me. I knew what was going to happen next. I felt some tugs on the line and went to ck it out. Sure enough he ate half of my biggest snapper and chewed on another. I tried chasing it off but he kept coming back. Well the rest is history. He went from top predator to chum. He was about 30#. I didn't really want to shot him but apparently he had suicidal tendencys(or he was used to divers feeding him, hopefully he wasn't one of Capt. Slates buddies).
I've seen some of the wahoo and dolphin around our site and always hear about the sail fishermen catching them in the winter. Hopefully I'll be able to get down there this winter and try to get a few. I'd really like to get a sail but I hear it's illegal, but I guess it's alright for the rod and reel fishermen to kill them. Makes perfect sense, NOT! Well happy hunting, maybe we'll run into each other down there.
Jay

 

[Ballew90815@aol]

For fish to 20 pounds on reefs, in California, we use a 36 to 48" gun, with double barb head and two wraps of line (about 12 feet). Buy 6" of polespear rubber (thin with large diameter hole) and make a shock absorber by tying 2 knots on the line about 10" apart near the muzzle and feed the line thru the rubber. Leave enough excess line to tie a solid knot to the gun muzzle. Fit the line inside the shock absorber by stretching the rubber over the knots near each end, causing the line to coil up inside the rubber. Tie off the rubber just outside each knot just like you would tie rubber slings to a wishbone. To power your gun, consider one 5/8" rubber sling or two 1/2" rubber slings. This should provide you with sufficient power to land most fish on the reefs.

 

[icarus pacific]

Riffe rigging

Hey Anderson!

I saw your post with the picture of your gun's rigging and wanted to ask you about the line termination to the gun...

Get this- I just scored both a Riffe Island and a Metal Tech #1 from an estate sale... for $300.00!! How's that for karma?

Anyway, as I'm rigging the gun with a 100' floatline, should I still terminate the line from the shaft to a bungie to the gunstock's front swivel, or do I just run the line to a swivel, then to the floatline...? The idea o f having the gun loose while the fish dicks around with the float's drag is somewhat appealing, but then again havinf all the stuff attached seems to be less of an inventory when stuff's happening.

I've sent a mail off to Riffe to see what the deal is, but thought I'd ask around too, as there's always different and better...

By the way, what's that fish you're chumming with?

sven

 

[andrsn]

new and improved..

sven,

wow, such a bahgain! you should have fun w/ the islander, but be prepared to do a bit of target practice with that m.t. and, you'll probably want to pick up a 9/32" hawaiian shaft for the m.t. if it doesn't already.

daryl wong has introduced me to a new setup that is probably the smartest way to go for any setup involving a float line. for our riffe C3x's and our bluewaters, we finish our line raps back at the line release lever with a small piece of bungee cord. this cord is only about 6inches long and is sewn back onto itself so it forms a teardrop shape. (the ends are what's sewn together). anyways, this piece of bungee(which is at the end of your shaft line) just stretches right over the line release lever when you've completed your last wrap. so now, everytime you shoot, your spear will have no connection to your gun. and, your floatline is clipped to the loop holding the bungee cord, not the bungee cord itself(obviously :duh).

we used to use the tube-in-the-whole mechanism, but realized that your initial attention on the shot fish is alot more important than farting around with a manual release of your line from the gun. especially since most of the fish we shoot now are all worthy of pulling us around on our floats.

hope this helps,
anderson

 

[Aquiles]

Hey Icarus pacific,
What we are chumming with is barracuda. We only shoot as much as we need. It stinks a lot and is very good for bringing in the big ones. I don't like to shoot what I am not going to use but I will trade barracuda chunks for grouper fillets any time.

Till next time,

DQBN

 

[andrsn]

fish in the pic...

sven,

the fish in the picture is a bar jack. we prefer to use cuda because it has so much more meat and it's easier to chunk up.

~anderson
dqbn's partner in crime

 

[icarus pacific]

sodat'sdaticket!

Anderson-

Ah! That makes sense. I was wondering if the bungee loop was acting just as a "jam plug" in the hole in the stock, but having it loop around the line release lever makes mo betta sense.

I was actually looking for a Competitor 3x to replace my beat-up JBL 56"magnum and then lucked into this sweet deal. The Island came with three shafts- two w/floppers and the third an ice pick, as well as a 100' floatline and float so all I need to get or make up is the ring-bungee-bungee loop rig. It's probably going to be too much gun for the white seabass in So Cal, but then I can throw it on ebay if that's the case...

The Metal Tech #1 came with shaft and a rock point along with a reel loaded with kevlar- dakine sweet halibut rig!

Thanks for the rigging info and the chum ID. I'm not really thrilled with the chumming idea as I've been looked at reeeealy closely a couple of times by the "locals". But that's another story...


sven

 

[andrsn]

steel ringer..

sven,

yeah, disregard that pic. the steel ring is just another noise maker. aquiles uses it to get my attention when i'm fixated on other delicious looking morsels. and the bungee plug(actually band-plug) is old school nowadays. if your floatline has a clip or pigtail swivel, it's best to use that directly to your spearshaft line.

from the top:
spear shaft on the gun... your mono gets looped and crimped through the hole in one of the rear spear tabs. you wrap as many times as you see fit, and then your "tag" end comes back toward the butt of your gun. visually mark off an inch or two(all stretch preference) from the line release lever. loop over your tag end and crimp it on itself. if you've already made the bungeye aparati, then make sure you slide that on your loop. so now, without your floatline, you can wrap up your speargun line(mono) and secure it on the line release lever with the bungee and all is nice, neat, and complete.

bon chance mon amie,
anderson

 

[Aquiles]

hey there Icarus,
If you are hunting white seabass with that Islander you will be able to appreciate the extended range availible to you. Those are some spooky fish. They also come in the trophy range of 40 to 60 lbs. If you are not satisfied with the gun Andrsn and or I will love to relieve the gun from your grasp for a mild fee, as we know the sweet deal that you got.
On a serious note, the extended range is of great benefit when stalking those spooky fish. Don't get frustrated with the new gun cause it will shoot differently than your tired JBL. This is like driving a new mercedes; trust me.
Also try to stay away from the breakaway tip when hunting the reef cause you can get it stuck in the rocks in a heartbet. You will not get it back. If it toggles in a rock it is very hard to get out. This is advice given to me by a spearo that left the head of his spear stuck in Andrsn and I's boat. That's a story for another time though. blackeye :blackeye

Be safe and look out for the unwanted natives with teeth

Till next time,

Aquiles

DQBN
Andrsn "PIC":hmm :