These guns are individually handmade by Daryl Wong. I can't afford them, but maybe you can!
These guns are individually handmade by Daryl Wong. I can't afford them, but maybe you can!
{sigplus link=goprohero2 index=1} {/sigplus}I finally jumped on the HD bandwagon and bought myself a Hero2 HD digital camera by GoPro. These little beauties have been around for quite a while now so hearing about them isn't exactly news. But since I finally got around to purchasing one for myself and it happens to be that the Hero2 is the biggest leap in performance that they've given these cameras since their launch, I figured I would put in my 2 cents worth.
Throughout my relatively short history in spearfishing (as of this writing), I have only used a few different spearguns. Now obviously, my opinion in this matter is not one of extreme trial and error. Mostly it consists of recommendations made to me by those I spearfish with along with some of my own common sense. In the beginning (early 1990's), I used one of my brother-in-law's extra guns. Specifically, a 38" Arbalette. Now this gun had already seen finer days by the time I started using it....
The summer had been busier than I would have liked this year and I honestly hadn't had as many opportunities to post much less given much thought to writing a new SpearView, but after having time to really reconsider, I realized that I had actually had multiple opportunities to try out new equipment this year (not all of it successfully). Further to that point, when I took the PFI Freediver course back in March I had decided to invest in a new mask and ended up deciding on the Omer Zero Cubed...
I realized recently that I had overlooked the fact that I had purchased and used some new SpearGear at the beginning of the Summer of 2011 and hadn't gotten around to posting about it (here or in SpearGear). This article is going to be one that definitely crosses over between SpearViews and SpearGear because of the fact that I do own it but I definitely think it's worthy of a review as well. In the end, SpearViews won the coin toss deciding where I would put the article (especially after I...
Over the weekend of March 27 th & 28 th I took the Level 1 Freediving course offered by FII (Freediving Instructors International) at their Headquarters in Pompano Beach FL. FII was started by Martin Stepanek, a multiple time freediving world record holder. The Level 1 curriculum is taught over a 2 day course. The first day is classroom and pool based and spans almost 9 hours. This course is designed for beginning freedivers and is supposed to get novice divers to a depth of 66 feet.
Believe it or not my latest addition to my spearguns is not one for shooting fish (well at least not shooting to kill them). But it hopefully will help others watch online what I love to do underwater. I have made a camera mount for my Riffe Euro guns. This mount will fit on any Euro that has the reel inserts (basically all of them). It was terribly simple to make. The only fairly tricky part was putting together the actual mount screw for the camera tripod mount itself.
Winds: 10-20 East Seas: 3-5 feet Surf Temp: 84 F Viz: 5-10 feet Saturday was not too much fun. The seas were extra sloppy and the viz was not what I would like to see, even on the worst days. It didn't stop us from shooting our fill of mangroves, but it wasn't without it's effort. One of the spots we hit was only about 18-20 feet deep and we couldn't see the bottom much less the fish. We've gotten used to shooting in the low viz but its still difficult to do. You have to pick out the best of...
Winds: 10-15 SSW Seas: 2-3 feet Surf Temp: +/- 82F Viz: 20-25 feet First weekend back and it was both hard work and fun. It took us a little longer than usual to setup this weekend because we went back to our old campground this year and we are on somewhat smaller sites compared to last year. We did prevail however and got all setup with a little time left for a dive on Saturday. We headed out looking for clean water because we knew that we had missed the tide. Things didn't look too promising...
Wind Seas Viz Temp 15-25 ESE 4-5' 30-40' 81F Once again, the most anticipated weekend for Florida spearfisherman rolls around and this year I actually got to plan some time off and hit it for a few days in a row. I hadn't had many opportunities to dive this winter (with the windiest winter I can recall) and even on those few occasions I did get to go, it just didn't live up to expectations. I was so excited to finally get back in the water this year for a full weekend of diving and...
Seas: 2-3 feet (Sat) 1-2 feet (Sun) Winds: 10-15 S/SW (Sat) 10 S-SE (Sun) Viz: 10-15 feet (Sat) 40-50 feet (Sun) Temp: 82 F (Sat) 82 F (Sun) I had been looking forward to this weekend for months. My first weekend of diving and spearfishing since last December . Unfortunately it started going a little awry about a week ago when my wife gave me the news that she and my daughter wouldn't be coming along due to some last minute sports team issues. I'm not sure, but it seems that organized sports...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 SSW Temp: 85 F Viz: 10 feet Today we headed out with the whole family (families) in tow because the seas have been so calm. We headed out around 10a with a plan to be back close to home in time for high slack tide. Our goal was to hit some offshore spots for snapper and hopefully head back closer to home for some hogfish and hopefully grouper. Unfortunately, I am sure we are all familiar with the best laid plans of mice and men and what happens to them. Anyway, we...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 10-15 E/SE Viz: 15-25feet Temp: 82F On Friday once again, the winds and seas were cooperative and allowed us to get out for some more long awaited dive time. We stayed out west on Friday because we thought we had our best chances for clean water. We don't exactly get an early start as has been our habit this past week. We get underway around 10a and head southwest. We stop off at #67 to find that the water still hasn't cleaned up this close to home yet. In addition to...