Getting Started

Looking to order a few things to get started in free dive spearfishing... Any recommendations on necessities and specifics for type of dive suit, flippers, goggles, etc? I’ve got a good buddy in Monterey who dives a lot and he says that would be a good area to start practicing. I don’t plan on getting a spear gun or anything like that until I’ve free dove without any gear first.

Looking to order a few things to get started in free dive spearfishing... Any recommendations on necessities and specifics for type of dive suit, flippers, goggles, etc? I’ve got a good buddy in Monterey who dives a lot and he says that would be a good area to start practicing. I don’t plan on getting a spear gun or anything like that until I’ve free dove without any gear first.

Monterey is by far the best and safest place to spearfish in Northern California, whether you're talking about surf, swell, or sharks.  Have you ever done any freediving?  Either take a class, or go with some experienced buddies; as everyone will tell you, there's plenty of danger even diving shallow, although not if you mitigate it. 

For Norcal, unless you're a polar bear or only boat diving, you'll want a 7mm suit.  Spearfishing suits are nice because they will have a loading pad, and often have integrated hoods and boots.  I use my 7mm scuba diving wetsuit with a hood.  7mm is plenty of material to make loading comfortable.  Just keep in mind the more suit you have, the more weight you need, and you'll eventually learn about compression at depth (you might find it tough to get under the water at the surface, but at 30ft, you'll have lost half the buoyancy of your wetsuit, and therefore will be overweighted). 

My setup:
7mm diving wetsuit
7mm hood with collar
3mm gloves
3mm socks
Cressi Gara fins
Dive computer in freedive mode
Rubber weight belt
Z-cutter
Additional gear on my float (knife for bleeding, extra wishbones, extra rubber, etc).

I find 3mm socks and gloves are plenty for me to be in the water for 2-3 hours, and its nice to have the dexterity. 

For reference, I am 160 pounds and run about 20-25 pounds of ballast depending on what I'm going for.  If anyone is curious, that's about the same weight I use when I scuba dive, since dive gear is mostly displaced by the positively buoyant aluminum tanks. 

Once you're comfortable in the water, it can be helpful to practice freediving with your gun, just without it loaded or planning to get fish.  It's wayyyy different diving with a gun, there are techniques for keeping things low drag, and no matter what I always have a higher heart rate with a gun in my hand, which further reduces my breathold. 

Thank you so much. That’s a lot of great info. Glad I had a good place to  turn to for all this info!

"Freedive" by Terry Maas and David Sipperly has lots of good info if you're just getting started and haven't checked it out yet.


http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php?topic=93823.0

Hey GooseEgg,

Have you stuck with it?

I'm new to the sport, I'm trying to get into this more seriously. How have your experiences been so far?