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All About Guns What's your weapon of choice, and why? Discuss the beloved speargun here!

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Old 08-05-2019, 08:23 AM   #1
ninjagazz
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Spearguns for Dogtooth Tuna

Hi Guys,

I am seeking some advice here, as I am a total blue-water newbie.

I have booked a spot on a 10 day charter on the coral sea.
There will be reef hunting and bluewater hunting for Dogtooth tuna.

I need to have the right gear specifically spearguns.

I have a riffe islander clone (mine has 120cm band stretch, a bit smaller than a real islander) with 8mm spear and slip tip. I have only used it once but it seemed pretty ordinary (may need to invest in some better rubbers), I was concerned this gun would be too small.

I also have a "Salvimar hero 135", this gun has about 145cm band stretch (x2 16s) and shoots a 180cm 7.5 floppered shaft, this gun shoots well but has a tonne of wrist jamming recoil and given its fixed angled loading pad, shooting it with 2 hands is not really possible (in any way i have figured out).
The salvimar should have no issues killing at 7mtrs.. but i am not sure about more.

I am trying to figure out if these guns are to small for dogtooth tuna and what a cost effective alternative might be.

I was going to run these guns with breakaway attache to 30mtrs of spectra cored vinyl floatline followed by 2mtrs bungie followed by X 2 30 liter floats.

Thanks guys.
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Old 08-05-2019, 11:29 PM   #2
popgun pete
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Re: Spearguns for Dogtooth Tuna

It may be worth reading this https://forums.deeperblue.com/thread...1/#post-972293.

Dogtooth Tuna have to be enticed from the bottom by food, or curiosity about potential food, to bring them up within shooting range. When hit they will head down and try and bust you off on any nearby structure. Your existing guns should have the range, but what you want is momentum at the target and heavier shafts carry more energy down range to punch holes in the fish around the head/shoulder area. Generally the first shot engages the fish and a second shot secures it once you have got the fish back within gun range, so it is handy to have a second gun which can be passed to you.
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Old 08-06-2019, 06:31 AM   #3
ninjagazz
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Re: Spearguns for Dogtooth Tuna

That's really helpful, thanks Pete.
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Old 08-06-2019, 08:14 AM   #4
2fishin2
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Re: Spearguns for Dogtooth Tuna

Quote:
Originally Posted by ninjagazz View Post
Hi Guys,

I am seeking some advice here, as I am a total blue-water newbie.

I have booked a spot on a 10 day charter on the coral sea.
There will be reef hunting and bluewater hunting for Dogtooth tuna.

I need to have the right gear specifically spearguns.

I have a riffe islander clone (mine has 120cm band stretch, a bit smaller than a real islander) with 8mm spear and slip tip. I have only used it once but it seemed pretty ordinary (may need to invest in some better rubbers), I was concerned this gun would be too small.

I also have a "Salvimar hero 135", this gun has about 145cm band stretch (x2 16s) and shoots a 180cm 7.5 floppered shaft, this gun shoots well but has a tonne of wrist jamming recoil and given its fixed angled loading pad, shooting it with 2 hands is not really possible (in any way i have figured out).
The salvimar should have no issues killing at 7mtrs.. but i am not sure about more.

I am trying to figure out if these guns are to small for dogtooth tuna and what a cost effective alternative might be.

I was going to run these guns with breakaway attache to 30mtrs of spectra cored vinyl floatline followed by 2mtrs bungie followed by X 2 30 liter floats.

Thanks guys.
Your Salvimar would be best gun. Change to offset double flopper shaft 8mm. Make sure you pack 3 shafts per gun. Set up both guns with 14.5 small diameter rubbers cut @ 360%. There is no reason you cant shoot the gun single handed. The trick is 14.5 or 15mm small diameter rubber


Floats and lines....use the shortest line you can. I like 75ft Riffe lines as you dont need to dive so deep for doggies. Use the largest floats you can get. The Ocean Hunter floats are IMO best floats on market. If you feel you need 2 floats then use if not don't worry. If you can pack it, bring it.


Dont use slip tips. The trick with doggies is first to stun it with a good holding head shot. Put it in the head or gills and hurt the fish. Anywhere else just pisses them off and you cant control them. Double flopper shafts puts lots of pressure on fish and tire them out much quicker than slip tips.


Dont forget shooting line. I like Aussie line with ties or crimps. Dont use mono.
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Old 08-06-2019, 06:47 PM   #5
kavachi
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Re: Spearguns for Dogtooth Tuna

Quote:
Originally Posted by 2fishin2 View Post
Your Salvimar would be best gun. Change to offset double flopper shaft 8mm. Make sure you pack 3 shafts per gun. Set up both guns with 14.5 small diameter rubbers cut @ 360%. There is no reason you cant shoot the gun single handed. The trick is 14.5 or 15mm small diameter rubber
Floats and lines....use the shortest line you can. I like 75ft Riffe lines as you dont need to dive so deep for doggies. Use the largest floats you can get. The Ocean Hunter floats are IMO best floats on market. If you feel you need 2 floats then use if not don't worry. If you can pack it, bring it.
Dont use slip tips. The trick with doggies is first to stun it with a good holding head shot. Put it in the head or gills and hurt the fish. Anywhere else just pisses them off and you cant control them. Double flopper shafts puts lots of pressure on fish and tire them out much quicker than slip tips.
Dont forget shooting line. I like Aussie line with ties or crimps. Dont use mono.
just back from trip where got three dogs 40 to 50+kg, totally in agreeance with 2fishin2's reccos above
personally i dont pull the trigger on a decent size doggie with anything less than an 8.5mm double flopper shaft with three hot small ID bands, but a gun to comfortably and accurately shoot that is going to cost you.
For an off-the-shelf pipegun the Salvimar looks good! Peter at OBD has 8mm double flopper Hunt shafts, I cant recommend these enough, when you really need to put the brakes on a doggie these Hunt doggie specials wont fail. 8mm WILL bend tho, even top shelf 17PH SS, so you will need spares.
https://www.spearfishingproducts.com...20294215368763
Suggest keeping shaft overhang to a minimum as you're already going up in shaft diameter from stock, and the dbl offset floppers add weight to the muzzle. nothing worse than doing a whole trip with a gun thats muzzle heavy. I rig all my doubles with top flopper up on the track, per attached pic. may need to shave a couple of mm off the front of the track sides for the flopper to sit flush, very easy to do with the plastic Salvimar muzzle. 160 SHOULD fit perfectly, check with Peter to make sure
I use only 400lb coated steel cable for dogs, as its the only thing that stands up to getting sharked, which happens heartbreakingly often with dogs in the Coral Sea, BUT you MUST have shears or cutters easily accessible that will easily cut cable when you get wrapped up.
nothing beats small ID primeline rubber, Peter at OBD has it, think he calls it 'ultra force', make sure you get him to caliper it, make sure btwn 14.5 and 14.8mm. dont go the 16mm small ID on that gun, the recoil will wreck your shots.
Seven metres is a loooong shot, and shoulder or head shot on a big dog takes a lot of penetration, with two band 8mm rig i would be getting within 3 metres before pulling the trigger
Triple check that your shooting line, breakaway connection and floatline are all bulletproof, nothing more heart-breaking - or unsustainable - than losing a big doggie.
make sure your knives are super sharp.
and pack some wasabi and soy
lets know how you went!
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Last edited by kavachi; 08-06-2019 at 08:07 PM.
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Old 08-06-2019, 08:08 PM   #6
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Re: Spearguns for Dogtooth Tuna

a note on those double offset floppers, dont be tempted by a big trout to shoot into the reef with em, they are a BASTARD to extract from a hole.
the salvimar pacific shaft supplied with the gun should be great for that stuff
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Old 08-06-2019, 09:15 PM   #7
popgun pete
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Re: Spearguns for Dogtooth Tuna

I didn't recommend cable as you really need to know what you are doing and have a cool head when things go pear-shaped, but mono will not take a trip through the rocks with a Doggie towing it, so you need a multifilament woven line. I recently bought these snips which should go through cable and have a handy clip in the handle. Just how rustproof they are I do not know, but are very inexpensive to replace. There are also stainless steel Pro Blue versions, but with no stowage clip.

https://www.cesdeals.com/product/1pc...lack-300890.01


P.S. Just discovered that Tullen cutters are back in production and now in stainless steel.

The Tullen blunt cutters could cut anything, from flimsy cling-film to metal. Their versatility led to large export orders for Tullen Industries, especially after marketing manager Steve Bridges led a design team creating versions for the kitchen, the workshop and the playroom. Pictured are patent drawings of the kitchen cutter designed by Peter Davies. In 1985 Tullen was sold to the British-based Wilkinson Sword, which sold its Home and Garden division to Finland-based Fiskars in 1988. When the new owners visited the almost-completed Auckland factory, they were not impressed by the latest innovation: the world’s most efficient robotic plant, designed to make 360 stainless-steel scissors per hour, 24 hours a day – far more than existing Fiskar factories. The scissor plant was scrapped and the blunt cutter production was shifted to a Wilkinson Sword plant in Wales.
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Old 08-06-2019, 10:13 PM   #8
kavachi
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Re: Spearguns for Dogtooth Tuna

have bought about ten different shears for cutting the 400lb cable and only the Millers have worked well for spearing, the rest were just not up to the task. thanks for the original recco from Spearboard, cant remember who it was
shears are much easier to handle when diving than sidecutters. rinse and spray after every dive and get a year or so out of em


https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01D20Y97O..._t3_B0184KGOR0

Last edited by kavachi; 08-06-2019 at 10:22 PM.
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Old 08-07-2019, 02:39 AM   #9
kavachi
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Re: Spearguns for Dogtooth Tuna

Quote:
Originally Posted by popgun pete View Post
I didn't recommend cable as you really need to know what you are doing and have a cool head when things go pear-shaped,.............
fair call Pete!
agree - need to use readily-cuttable shooting line until you get the whole routine sorted out [as if you ever really ever get spearing dogtooth sorted tho!!!) and familiar with how bloody quick everything happens when you connect with a solid one.
even going up to 3mm LP hard mono the noahs are gonna slice straight thru it, and more often than not a big dog tugging it thru the coral will shred it too.
Nice stiff 2mm dyneema has much better cut-resistance, and is nice and hi-vis which makes things easier when you've got the fish up on the surface, but you HAVE to keep it nice and tight and routed perfectly to avoid bands getting tangled and wrecking the shot, has ahppened too many time on my guns. Hopefully with a good production gun like the Salvimar they will have tuned the whole rigging so that doesnt happen?
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Old 08-07-2019, 01:32 PM   #10
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Re: Spearguns for Dogtooth Tuna

Kavachi, try putting a second Line Guide a bit closer to the back of the gun and wrapping your second wrap around this. Should help avoid band tangles.
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Old 08-09-2019, 07:37 PM   #11
kavachi
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Re: Spearguns for Dogtooth Tuna

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Kavachi, try putting a second Line Guide a bit closer to the back of the gun and wrapping your second wrap around this. Should help avoid band tangles.
Thanks Jon! Only single wrap rig i want to use spectra on....
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Old 08-10-2019, 01:20 PM   #12
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Re: Spearguns for Dogtooth Tuna

Like this, you don't have any lines crossing or clumping. Should be a better system for using Dyneema lines. The last thing you want is too much line.. ie more than you kill range or more than you would shoot at. The full wrap uses about 10-14' depending on length of gun, so you become limited to either a short line or a long multiple. Using a half wrap, you can have 1.5 or 2.5. Further if you connect directly to the reel you can adjust by another 2'. For my UKU gun I like 18' of line. It still pulls line out of the reel every shot, but I get a lot of close shots, and I don't take long shots on the Reef.
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Old 08-13-2019, 08:06 PM   #13
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Re: Spearguns for Dogtooth Tuna

Got you. thanks for posting the pics Jon
Single wrap on my daily driver wood gun gives me 5 metres range - from tip of muzzle to flopper - which is about as far as i trust 8mm shaft with two hot 15mm small ID bands to achieve real good penetration on bigger fish. Need to experiment with different top line wrap plates i think to overcome this spectra tangling, time to carve some stainless

I AM building a carbon pipegun tho using majd’s D1 mech, specifically for uku [aka green jobbies] and wary trout, and will have to go with double [or work out how to attach a mid-wrap to carbon tube for one-and-a-half wraps] to achieve those real long shots. That’ll be a 7.5mm shaft as powering up enough to throw 8mm shaft that far, starts affecting accuracy. Done a lot of recoil handle experimentation, and worked on that locked-straight-arm-thru-shoulder technique, but still cant fully channel recoil from twin hot 16mm small ID bands enough to get accuracy for that sort of shooting. Same with 16mm small ID on my three band bluewater gun. Next three band build tho is going to have even more mass back where it counts, which hopefully will handle the 16s. That’ll be throwing a 150 x 9.5mm shaft, a real doggie weapon
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Old 08-24-2019, 07:37 AM   #14
Diving Gecko
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Re: Spearguns for Dogtooth Tuna

Quote:
Originally Posted by ninjagazz View Post
Hi Guys,

I am seeking some advice here, as I am a total blue-water newbie.

I have booked a spot on a 10 day charter on the coral sea.
There will be reef hunting and bluewater hunting for Dogtooth tuna.

I need to have the right gear specifically spearguns.

I have a riffe islander clone (mine has 120cm band stretch, a bit smaller than a real islander) with 8mm spear and slip tip. I have only used it once but it seemed pretty ordinary (may need to invest in some better rubbers), I was concerned this gun would be too small.

I also have a "Salvimar hero 135", this gun has about 145cm band stretch (x2 16s) and shoots a 180cm 7.5 floppered shaft, this gun shoots well but has a tonne of wrist jamming recoil and given its fixed angled loading pad, shooting it with 2 hands is not really possible (in any way i have figured out).
The salvimar should have no issues killing at 7mtrs.. but i am not sure about more.

I am trying to figure out if these guns are to small for dogtooth tuna and what a cost effective alternative might be.

I was going to run these guns with breakaway attache to 30mtrs of spectra cored vinyl floatline followed by 2mtrs bungie followed by X 2 30 liter floats.

Thanks guys.
Hey Gazz,
I would be remiss if I didn't throw a curve ball in here
Thing is, you have some pretty long vacuum muzzled airguns, don't you? I have been shooting smaller DTs on a recent trip with one of my pneumatics but you need a heavier shaft.
I shot a 145cm 8mm shaft and though the biggest DT I shot was around 10kg, I have no doubt that with enough pressure in the gun that shaft would be fine for a DT at least 2-3 times bigger.
But here's the catch, I don't think that the pressures we can load our traditional airguns at in a single stage/stroke is enough to power these heavier shafts to the speed needed for DT hunting. So, you need to "cheat" and use something like a Tomba Easy Loader or possibly my own contraption - The Pulley Loader.

I know they might look cumbersome but the pulley loader was actually easier to use than I thought it would be. It does take a little while longer to load a gun with it than a two-banded gun, so that's a downside. But as I said, just a curve ball idea
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Old 09-06-2019, 07:34 AM   #15
ninjagazz
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Re: Spearguns for Dogtooth Tuna

Thanks guys for the advice.

So a bit of an update, i recently purchased salvimar 14mm acid rubber and put x3 rubbers with 380% stretch ratio on them all.
(I found out the original rubbers although identical in length and appearance had completely different mechanical properties)

I also cut off the stupid "loading butt" as i realized this was also hitting my wrist under strong recoil.

I tested the gun today and it was fantastic!!
Super accurate, all shots were prefect dead center, the gun had only one wrap and breakaway but the shot pulled the breakaway and float line past the muzzle, but not idea about true range.

The most impressive thing about this is the balance and stability of the gun, there was no effort holding the gun out waiting for the shot and the gun didnt seem to move much with the surge etc.

Last edited by ninjagazz; 09-06-2019 at 08:37 AM.
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