Another Northeast Newbie

[Marlinman]

Greetings all,

I've been lurking around here for a while, gathering info before jumping into the spearo world. I've been scuba diving for about ten years, neophyte freediving in warmer climates for 20 before that, and been a hook and line guy all my life.

I've got a gun question, that is, what are you guys using in this part of the country? I've been doing some research, but info on northeast spearing is not as prevalent as other areas. Most of my hunting will likely be from South Jersey to the Carolinas, up to about 100 fsw on scuba, with occasional inshore freediving to about 30 fsw.

Any ideas or suggestions will be most welcome.

Thanks in advance,

Dave

[Tree Shark]

Hey MarlinMan:
I have been diving mostly in NJ since the late 70's and have only used a couple of guns. Your choice would really depend on what kind of diving you want to do. While wreck diving 99% of the time I will bring my pole spear. Most of the fish that you are going to encounter will be face to face while you are looking in holes for lobsters. While on the wrecks you will see Taug, ling, whiting, cod, all-mouth (monkfish) mostly, depending on the time of year that you are diving. The pole spear also works great to try to reach around bugs and tickle them out of the holes from time to time. In the spring on the shallow wrecks you will want to carry a medium length gun for tog shooting. Something with a 3foot or so shaft. That way you can have 1 wrap of shooting line and get about 7-9 feet range. Vis is usually very limited in NJ. I have seen anywhere between 0-70" . Freediving the shore is a different story but most any decent quality gun will do. I would not spend a ton on a new gun at first, plenty of decent stuff out there for reasonable price. If you intend to freedive for stripers and tog you might consider putting a reel on the gun. If you are going to spend most time on the wrecks get yourself a good polespear. Hope this helped.

[bruce_s]

Howdy,
Around new jersey,delaware area you are probably better off with a mid size pneumatic gun.One around 70cm or so would do fine for most fish you would see.I have an old nemrod clipper2,seabear32,seac sub 90cm.These are all air guns and have plenty of killing power.There is nothing wrong with band guns either.The limited vis in jersey and most of the ne limits your length of gun so banded up to 100cm would be ok.Basically I guess between 70 and 100cm would be your best bet.Good luck and be careful out there.

[mjacobs]

I've used a 70 cm pneumatic, a pole spear and band guns between 48" and 36" in NE waters. I prefer the 70 cm pneumatic most of the time bt do consider going back to a pole spear once in awhile just for the fun of it. I had a good buddy that used a pole spear on the wrecks for years and he was VERY effective with it on medium sized togs, monkfish of all sizes and flounder.
Mark

[Marlinman]

Thanks for the input guys, I appreciate it. As much as I want to get a gun, I think I am gonna start with a pole spear and work on my stalking technique for now, and move up to a gun next year. Unless I start making a lot of trips farther south this year.