Bluewater Spearfishing Gear Breakdown - Spear Tip To Float

Bluewater Spearfishing Gear Breakdown - Spear Tip To Float 

Bluewater spearfishing gear can be a complicated, especially to a novice spearfisherman. In this blog, we will attempt to explain all the equipment in an approachable way from the tip of the spear to the floats on the end of your float line. There are, of course, hundreds of variations of how to set up your gear. This article is general, but for more in-depth explanations, explore our other Neptonics blogs.

Slip Tips

Slip tips are the dominant tip for bluewater spearfishing. The flexibility that slip tips provide allows the fish to run and fight without putting too much strain on the fish’s body. Flopper shafts create too much force on a fish’s body and cause the spear hole to become larger because the fish can use the weight and drag of the shaft as leverage to continue widening the hole. In many cases, this hole can get big enough that the spear shaft can pull or tear out of the fish. A threaded shaft and slip tip prevents this from happening by allowing more flexibility. When it comes to slip tips, your big choice comes down to using spectra or cable, which is covered more in-depth in other articles.

 

Spear Shafts

Slip tips require a threaded spear shaft. It is how they connect to the end of the shaft. While installing the tip, you should use loctite thread locker or teflon thread tape on the end of the shaft to ensure the slip tip base is secured on the end of the shaft. Without some kind of security, the slip tip base could be jostled loose from the threads. 

Spear shafts also tend to be thicker for bluewater spearfishing. The added weight and heft of the spear shaft help to put more force on afish in an effort to penetrate all the way through its body and to terminally injure it. The added weight also helps to slow down the fish once it has been shot. Thicker spear shafts also tend to be less prone to getting bent by the fish.

 

Shooting Line

There are three types of shooting line. Dyneema/Spectra, Cable, and Monofilament. All have their pros and cons. Dyneema is great because it is easily adjusted. It can stretch a little, but it is simple to adjust dyneema knots on the boat. Cable is preferred for extremely large fish, like tuna or billfish. Mono is inexpensive and stretches under extreme pressure, but cable and mono both need additional tools to be adjusted. For more information on different shooting lines please read this article.

 

Bluewater Spearguns

Bluewater spearguns tend to be longer, bulkier, and have more bands than standard spearguns. There are several reasons for this. The number of bands is important to the amount of power the speargun can hold. The speargun has to be larger to compensate for the recoil of the number of bands. For general applications, the speargun needs to weigh at least two times the weight of the spear shaft.

For spearguns using five or more bands that math can be a little off and the speargun may need to be three or four times the weight of the spear. It comes down to basic physics. With six (6) 5/8’ (16mm) bands you have up to 660 lbs (260 Kg) of force pushing a 3 lbs (1.5 Kg) object around 30 feet (10 M) through the water. You need mass in the speargun to compensate for that amount of force. Most six band tuna spearguns average around 14 lbs (6.5 Kg) to compensate for the force. Without that amount of weight the recoil causes inaccurate shots, or even injury to the diver. For more information on the right speargun read this article.

 

Breakaway Adapters

The breakaway adapter, or floatline adapter, is what connects the shooting line to the floatline or tuna bungee. Breakaways tension the shooting line. This keeps both the shooting line and floatline streamlined to the speargun. To get a more in-depth look at different rigging options read this article. 

 

Floatlines and Bungees

Floatlines and tuna bungees are a critical part of landing big fish. There are several different options on these pieced of bluewater spearfishing gear. The biggest determination on what you need is based on the species you are targeting. The more extreme the species the more specific equipment you will need. After looking into the type of species, you may want to consider your diving ability in determining what floatline or tuna bungee you may need. For more information on selecting the best floatline or tuna bungee for you read this article.

 

Bluewater Floats

Floats go at the end of your flatline and fight the fish for you,.  For a basic guide to selecting the right float for you read this article. For an in depth explanation of how these floats work and why you may need multiple floats read this article.