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Surface Hunting

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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Originally posted by shaneshac
That guy is incredible.

Murat, the torch is used to illuminate the darkest parts of the caves. At that depth most of the fish are either bottom dwellers or in a cave.

:D

I know that but i thought they also use torch's bright background to attract fish. Some of local divers use this to attract AJ.
 
A toch will attract pelagics but tends to scare cave dwellers. The rule is to use the torch only if you really have to.

The spear extractor is just a T-bar that hooks on to the notch at the very back of the spear. This gives a lot more grip on the shaft when pulling. It can also be used to pull on the shaft if you ahve a caved up grouper. Most euro spearos carry one attched to their bouy.
 
hi

Shane do most of the spearos in the med also use weight that he calls the "Pendlum" I think. On his deeper dives he some how attaches a weight of 3-5kgs which has a rope and bouy attached. It seems to be clipped to his belt, he uses the extra weight on descent and dumps it on the bottom giving him an easier trip to the surface. He then recovers it after each dive and uses again.

Very neat trick indeed, Im, just trying to work out what kind of weight it is and how to attach it.

cheers
 
The pendulum is usually half the weight you would normall carry on your belt. I you carry 8 kilos normally, you would have 4 kilos on the belt and 4 on the pendulum. This would allow you to have a much easier ascent.

They are usually made by filling a stainless steel tube with the required lead and then flattening one of the ends. You would then drill a hole at this end to the rope. Most good spearos use thick transparent monofilament which they roughen up with sandpaper to give grip. The monofilament will stop fish see the line and getitng frightened.

The s-steel tube is then civered with a bicycle inner tube to avoid it slipping through the weight belt on the way down

Never use a pendulum to go deeper than you normally would. It is solely to be used to fish more comfortable at the same depth.
 
hi

Do you personally use it ?

That sounds fairly hard to make, Alberto seemed to have a flat kinda weight with a clip attached to it.

Why wouldnt ya use as much weight as you can handle, ie pull back up. I was thinking bout tying a bessa brick to a rope and just holding on till ya get to the bottom. that way you dont have to kick at all on descent = way more bottom time.

I have always found descending much harder then ascending cos I hate bouyancy and equalising, ascent I simply bolt for the top.

BTW alberto gets to 40m in roughly 40secs.

cheers
 
ALberto measures 6 ft 3 and Omer BAT 40 were designed for him. He has very powerful legs which accounts for his decent speed.
Every one uses different methods to make it. The one I described is shown in Pedro Carbonell's video "Hunting for Grouper"

Some other euro spearos attach a link to their weight belt which is in turn attched to the bouy. Once at the bottom they take the belt off and pull it up from the surface.

It is not difficult to make one:

1. Get a s-steel tube
2. Fill it with molten lead
3. Squash one of the ends
4 Drill a hole

There simple :D
 
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hi

6ft 3 !!!!! far out he didnt look anywhere near that big in the movie. Do you have any idea on Lung size probably 8L +.

I like the idea of using a link on the belt that is something Im gonna try, ill have to get some more lead on it though.

cheers
 
I think he has close to 9L

HE is the best athlete in the Spanish team.

Remember you have to pull the weight all the way up.
 
hi

9L well that explains the deep diving then :cool:

Yeah guess I better not put too much on thats a long ass haul back to the top.

cheers
 
Just let this top european speros dive in one of your fishy locations and watch the fun:cool: They will capable of rid all the fishes. But if you think the current situation in med sea they probably think twice before do that;)

In my video Alberto uses this top down tech, while searching in caves for groupers and sorgo. He is top down, he hold torch in one hand and small gun in other hand. He find and shoot fish in very tight caves ( you can't even guess there might be a fish ) although he score 100% hit in vital points.:cool:
 
hi

Hell yeah this guy would be capable of gettin all our reef fish, although 90% of the time we hunt for pelagics here anyway.

cheers
 
I watched a video and I saw an article about JB Esclapez on a trip to Australia. From what I saw he wiped off quite a substantial mass of your pelagics too... :)

It was interresting to see the old fa*t in action!

In one of his other old video he swims in the seabass heaven shooting one after the other while explaining the basic hunting techniques. There are some perfect shots taken with a gun cam. Later i heward the roumor that he was actually hunting in a private fish farm, owned by another one of the top french spearos, but forgot to inform him about it. So he ended up in the local Police Station... Heh

About the hunting in caves, we don't have much breams (sars, sargos) and other Sparidae, but we hunt a lot on Sciaena umbra or Brown meagre (corba, corvina). They also live in caves and the behaviour is pretty much the same as the one of the Sparidae. And you won't beieve it, until you have to squeeze out a 1.5 kilos fish through a slit no more than 2 fingers wide... These are the favorite "houses" of most of the breams and Scienidae. Since they live a kind of a sheltered life and keep a territory, they need a safe place to hide during the day (they are mostly nocturnal) where the predators can't enter. Sometimes you see the fish enter a cave, go after it quite sure it's already yours, and you find the cve empty. And when you turn around you see the fish watching you very carefully from another entrance... They are like foxes, I'm telling you :)
A simple trick... When you notice a fish entering a "house", don't rush after it. First check the rocks for other exits. You can do that by using some light on the holes and slits but from a distance. When you re sure you've found the other exit, just leave your 2nd gun infront of the hole. The foreign object would scare the fish and it won't leave the area. You can actually cover up more exits by anchoring your buoy in front of another exit or even leaving your short gun too. As it is a short gun and you know where you'll be shooting, you can load it down on the bottom.

But you have to act responsible in such cases. You can wipe off the whole family in the "house" by applying this technique. Don't do it! Take 2-3 fishes and move to the next hole... Don't visit the same house too often - you may force the fish to leave it. Another consequence is that you may see the fish run like bats out of the cave cause they'll recognize the sound of your dive...

Huge fun! :D
 
hi

Im not exactly sure what fish Alberto was getting out of these small caves, I think he said the name kinda sounds like kap, or krap or something :D

There was also a school of what looked like smaller versions of the Australian Jewfish, I think he called them Joes.

Ivan what sort of depths are you fishing in.

cheers
 
Hi wishbone,

Yes those small cave fishes are fox. You have to be silence while diving. I figure out that if you directly drop to the cave fishes run away. I preffer dive away from the cave and swim on the bottom, if the cave is not very dark that i can see the fish from 2 meter away from gun tip, then i snipe it from that distance. But Alberto directly dive to cave and immediatelly shoot them. He is top down while searching in caves probably he only shows his head to fishes to not scare them anyway...

When its Alberto, it seems very easy like piece of cake.....:eek:
 
By the way.... Today i got my new OMER Alluminium. It looks pretty cool i will write something about it when try it soon. But there is something that i nottice, it has not got shaft guide. Probably Italians think it does not need it???. I ask the shopowner if he has any spare shaftguide but he hasn't. Anyway i will see how it performs without it..:hmm
 
Ivan,

I am not sure what kind of fish you're talking about, but there are many species of Sparidae and Scienidae. Besides, they have different names in the different parts of the Med, of course, and what is worse - even diffrent local names in one country!
I have some of them listed here . The species are listed with our local name, so the foreigner can get familiar with them but you may recognize the fish on the photo or the drawing. The English and scientific names are also provided.
I am not diving this season. Had an accident and I am waiting for the doctors to tell me if, an if the answer is yes, when will I be able to spearfish again. However I used to hunt most of the time at depths 12-20 meters since the most practiced technique here is the ambush. Can't really sit and wait down there at 30+ m, you know... :)
However, until the last season I used to do hunting in holes around the 30th m. The big weight you guys talked about is the only weight I used=
You know that the deeper you go, the calmer the fish is. That's the main reason why these guys just drop at 40m and shoot at the fish. First - they know for sure there's a fish there. At 40m, you can't just do the regular search of all holes in the zone, as you will do at 15-20 meters. It is a bit hard to constantly dive at this depth for so many hours. All the teams from the big Euro federations arrive at the site of the big international competitions weeks before the actual event and they research the aquatory very carefully. I wouldn't dive at 40 m if my fishfinder is silent the whole time...
Murat, I can't help you with the alluminum - Sorry, buddy. I saw few pictures on the web now and I didn't notice a guide either. Which is quite strange. And I didn't pay attention to this when I was looking at the models in the store... My Excalibur Carbonium has a guyde.

Ivan
 
Murat, you will not need a guide on the alluminum. The muzzle and handle have been designe so that the shaft is at the minimum distance from the barrel. The only thing which I would be concerned about is that the back of the shaft leaves marks on the barrel on each shot. That is the only reason you would need a guide. As mentioned in a previous post, you can always cover the barrel with duct tape and change it as needed.
 
Originally posted by Wishbone
Ivan,

I am not sure what kind of fish you're talking about, but there are many species of Sparidae and Scienidae. Besides, they have different names in the different parts of the Med, of course, and what is worse - even diffrent local names in one country!
I have some of them listed here . The species are listed with our local name, so the foreigner can get familiar with them but you may recognize the fish on the photo or the drawing. The English and scientific names are also provided.
I am not diving this season. Had an accident and I am waiting for the doctors to tell me if, an if the answer is yes, when will I be able to spearfish again. However I used to hunt most of the time at depths 12-20 meters since the most practiced technique here is the ambush. Can't really sit and wait down there at 30+ m, you know... :)
However, until the last season I used to do hunting in holes around the 30th m. The big weight you guys talked about is the only weight I used=
You know that the deeper you go, the calmer the fish is. That's the main reason why these guys just drop at 40m and shoot at the fish. First - they know for sure there's a fish there. At 40m, you can't just do the regular search of all holes in the zone, as you will do at 15-20 meters. It is a bit hard to constantly dive at this depth for so many hours. All the teams from the big Euro federations arrive at the site of the big international competitions weeks before the actual event and they research the aquatory very carefully. I wouldn't dive at 40 m if my fishfinder is silent the whole time...
Murat, I can't help you with the alluminum - Sorry, buddy. I saw few pictures on the web now and I didn't notice a guide either. Which is quite strange. And I didn't pay attention to this when I was looking at the models in the store... My Excalibur Carbonium has a guyde.

Ivan

hi Ivan

How come you were a 30m hunter and not now. Do you mean you only used the pendulum without any other weights on ?
On the video I was timing one of Alberto's dives at 40m and on one dive he actually swam along the bottom occasionally looking into ledges for 40secs, then shot a fish and went to the surface.

BTW you will probably know better than me but is anyone over there who I dont know of fishing deeper than Alberto ???

I have shown a few people my new video and none of then believe that he is diving 40m they say that there is some tricks to it :duh Cos over here if you can dive to 15m you are considered extreme by the locals :head

cheers
 
I must go over there then. Most good Euro spearos fish between 20 and 35 meters in the summer. The water gets really cold and murky in winter so there is no need to go deep then.
 
Originally posted by shaneshac
Most good Euro spearos fish between 20 and 35 meters in the summer.


Exactly ! ! !

If you want here to somebody call you good spero, you have to be 30+ meter.

BTW i test my new gun today with 2 hours surface hunting. I am writing new thread now...
 
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