Hi everyone, I am interested in doing some spotlighting at night with a handspear or polespear. As i will mainly be targeting flatties and flounder i was wondering if a polespear is better than sling? I only discovered what a pole spear was after reading some of the reports and seeing blackys model. What are ppls opinions on them and what are the pros and cons? I own 1.1m gun but figure thats downright impossible to use safely

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As far as I am aware sling is sometimes referred to as a pole spear. Check the DEPI web for definition of a hand spear. I believe a hand spear has no rubber and can only have a max of two prongs. A sling is classified as a gun as mechanical propulsion is used by having a rubber.
Wouldn't use a conventional gun, to dangerous. Bit of a knack to spearing from air into water as there is an error due to refraction of light from water to air. Good luck

Blackys right mate. Just make sure the two prongs are barbless.

Fricken stupid rule. You puncture the fish it gets off due to no barbs and then probably will die a slow death. Add this to all the other great scientific based rules eg blue groper, ab limit, etc

Geoff

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My interpretation of the rule (never confirmed with fisheries so don't take it as law) is that a spear gun can have greater than 2 prongs and barbs as a max is not specified in the fishing guide. A hand spear however may only have max 2 prongs with nil barbs.

A Hawaiian Sling is technically a speargun a it uses rubber for propulsion so may have >2 prongs and barbs. If you were to remove the sling it would now be a hand spear and have to comply with hand spear regs.

Personally I prefer 2 barbless prongs for flounder and flathead because you don't need to spend 5 min try ing to pry the spear from the fishes skull. Just take a net slip it under the tail or face of the fish and use it to keep the fish on the spear. However if you are after squid, whiting, etc at the same time a sling is invaluable.

http://m.dpi.vic.gov.au/fisheries/recre ... ine-waters

Note the Hawaiian sling is listed under spearguns. No restrictions on prongs/barbs are mentioned.

Not sure why its taking you 5 mins Paul. Use a glove and a bit of force.

Brett on the site uses a sling most of the time and he'd have shot 3 or more fish in that time and taken them off a pranger and he has as many fingers and thumbs as Homer to work with.


I'm still searching for my 3rd fish after 3hrs

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You know what, I've never even considered wearing my diving gloves floundering. Genius move, will have to try it.

I always wear thick robust gloves. Due to fish spines, flattie spikes, etc.

Before i got the boys at legendary to make me a legal hand spear. I asked a fisheries officer early last year whats the deal with no barbs hand spear rule. His interpretation that he had been told was the no barbs was to allow people to release an undersized fish if they speared it.

My response back was should a boat fisherman gaff a fish that looks borderline!

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnsjOA1G3wE&sns=em