What should you be doing and not doing when using any spearfishing kit and general spearfishing guidelines.
Spearguns
Spearguns are a weapon and can be exceptionally dangerous if used wrong.
- Never load up outside of the water.
- Never point the speargun (loaded or unloaded) at anyone, or anything you don’t aim to shoot.
- Only load the speargun when you’re at least 100m away from other water users and try to maintain this distance.
- Use a float with a flag to warn other water users you’re there.
- Follow the local IFCA minimum sizes and catch limits and other laws implemented.
- Other laws include;
- – No spearfishing between Dusk and Dawn
- – No spearfishing on an aqualung (scuba)
- – Keep to the fish which are legal to shoot. Protected species can be found here
- Wash the speargun after use with clean water.
Knives
Knives over a 3 inch blade, and all fixed knives are illegal to carry without suitable cause. Don’t carry a bowie knife and claim it’s for spearfishing. Keep your knife in the deepest, darkest crevice of your bags until you’re getting kitted up. Better yet, keep it in a locked box. The reason for this is for keeping the blade inaccessible.
Wetsuits
We advise using lubrication such as Slippy or Octacle to get into open cell wetsuits. For rented wetsuits. Be careful of your nails. Watch this video for a good way to get them on without damage.
We also have this guide to trying on wetsuits here
Any nicks and tears caused by improper technique that result in us having to repair will deduct money from your deposit.
Fins
If you’re not sure on the stiffness of a fin. Ask the shop team. With carbon and fiberglass blades, you need to be careful around impacts. DO NOT drop anything on them.
The other main point is, DO NOT kick off the sea bed in them.
Floats
We will provide a line winder with 30m of line and a bungee with rental of floats. Always keep your float around you, and we do advise attaching your float to your gun in case of any mishaps where the gun may be lost. Floats make you more visible to water users and hopefully deter them from coming in close to you.