Flasher Floats - Important Gear for Bluewater Spearfishing

While flasher floats are not necessarily considered essential equipment for spearfishing, they are extremely valuable. The float is a versatile tool, and it makes bluewater spearfishing simpler and more effective. They are relatively small and are designed for holding a few pieces of gear at or near the surface, which frees up a divers hands for more important work.

 

Flasher Floats to Hold Flashers

The primary purpose of these floats is to hold a flare, or flasher rig at a specific depth below the surface. The value of flashers is often under appreciated by the novice bluewater diver. Divers with more experience understand that the ocean is large, with mostly empty space. Any edge you can have to attract your targeted species towards you can be the difference between an extremely boring day and the best day of your life. You can easily adjust the depth of the flashers so that you can best attract fish. One of the factors in the depth you put your flashers at should be based on your own dive ability. There is no point in setting your flashers to 60 feet if you can’t dive that deep. Another important factor is the expected depth of the fish. Flashers should help bring fish up from depth, and in from out of range.

 

Chum or Burley

One underutilized use of a flasher float is for chumming, or burlying as the Australians call it. This is done by shooting a fish you intend to cut up in the water. After you subdue that fish you can use some of the excess line on the float to do some impromptu hitches around the fish’s tail. From there you simply use your dive knife to cut away small pieces of the fish and let them drop into the water. The scales, oils, and chunks of fish dropping into the depths should help bring in more fish.

 

Key Benefit to Using a Flasher Float

There are several reasons to use one of these floats. One of the biggest is that it allows you to stop maintaining the flasher rig and focus on spearfishing. This is not so easily done if you just attach your flasher to your spearfishing float. The problem with attaching the flasher to the spearfishing float is that the flasher will be about 100 feet behind you, or however long your floatline is. Targeting fish 100 feet behind you does very little for getting them in the boat. It is also important to not have your flasher rig directly attached to you. It is an entanglement hazard, and it is not uncommon for sharks to come up to bite flashers and swim away with them.