just a thought,
reflectors like the ones off bikes... or street signs ??

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god made heaven and earth..
all the rest was made in china

No, they wont work as they are designed to reflect light straight back to the source.

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That's where I saw the leprechaun. He tells me to burn things...

true didnt think of that

cheers

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god made heaven and earth..
all the rest was made in china

if you have the tools and the skills then why not do what china do best?...... just outright copy (but of course its your own design and it was only co-incidence that it is identical) i mean they have done the research for you!!!

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god made heaven and earth..
all the rest was made in china

I built some home made flashers out of stainless and plastic mirrors (and plastic bags). There is discussion on them in the SpearOz forum gear section. They look pretty much like store-bought jobs, and were certainly cheaper. There was a little time involved in sourcing the stainless and the plastic mirrors, but no special tools were needed.

Ric

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Ric Fallu started spearfishing in Pt Phillip in the early 1960s, and never really stopped

Are they effective Ric?

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Breathing is cheating

Hi everyone, this is the flasher that I made a few weeks ago, I can’t help myself, always got to have a go at DIY.
The size was determined by the piece of aluminum I had in the shed- you could get a bit from Bunnings, the smallest piece they have is 600mm x 300mm x 1.6mm for about $19, which would be enough for yourself and a mate to make one. Being a keen fisherman, I had some wire traces, clips and swivels.
The lure is a Gillies Ockta 80g (the tassels on it glow) about $9 from BCF. I removed the hooks. The only other thing that I had to buy was the reflective tape, which is the same type they put on lures- 60mm wide & $9/metre from a sailing boat supplies (Sport Phillip Marine in Mornington).
Tools: hack saw, file, drill, vice, & some thinners or acetone for cleaning any greasy film off the aluminum so the reflective tape sticks well.
The 1.6mm thickness of the aluminum makes it strong enough to hold it’s shape, but easy enough to bend in the vice with your hands, so there’s no need to bash the buggery out of it with a hammer. Below are the sizes I made mine- I made two of every shape. Experiment with different ways & have some fun with how you hang and display them. Goobs

great flasher there you made mate,
hopefully it will look as good to the fish as it does to me,
let us know how it goes

cheers
frankie

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god made heaven and earth..
all the rest was made in china

Looks good. Have you got a photo of the whole thing?

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Breathing is cheating

Enspired by this thread i made my own with things i had lying around in my shed... CD's, Some shiny metal, Some Lures and Squid Jigs ... Will see how it goes and will let you all know ... Fingers crossed.

Thanks for the nice comments guys, this is how I have it at the moment stretched out quite long, but its so easy to change the configaration & experiment. I also picked up a rooster float from here http://www.spearfishing.com.au/ for $39 with $12 delivery, which I thought was alright.

For those of you who have said homemade flashers don't work, you need a reality check. There are plenty of blokes who make homemade flashers that are really effective, if not more so than commercial alternatives.

As someone said, have a look at the commercial varieties, find out which ones work well and copy the fuck out of it. You can find most of the stuff you need at Bunnings or a fishing shop.

Of course the commercial ones will work better than some backyard shoddy job that someone might have made with no research. Go to http://www.spearoz.org and search for flashers. I can't remember who, but someone makes them up there himself, and a lot of very experienced divers swear by them.

Hi Goobs
I'm in the process of making my own flasher (although set up similarly to a rope ladder design) and while searching for some details I stumbled on your post ... yours looks great

Just a bit of a tech question ... I'm rigging mine with 20lbs swivels and line, in your experience would you say that's enough or should heavier rigging be used?
I can only see the use of heavier rigging if fish tend to bite & pull the flasher, does this happen often?
What did you use on yours?
Thank you

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Il mio mare e i miei fondali sono quelli del golfo de La Spezia

Seems to me that the tougher the better. I have seen oceanic hammerheads rolling up and down flashers (this is unlikely to happen in Victoria of course - maybe a big 6 spine leatherjacket might do the same???). In the more likely day to day world of my diving, you could catch them on a rock, and be swept away by a wave, and that would tear up a lightly built set. If they are laying on the deck of a boat, they might have a bulky diver, or a weight belt dropped on them.

I use 4 mm braid, and would even consider black 6 mm water ski braid. Where I have mono (coming out of the mouths of my mirror "fish" with lovely eyes purchased from Spotlight) I use the 400lb BS stuff I also use for shooting line. In some places, I have stainless cable (I made the flashers modular, so I can chop and change by clipping in one style in, or unclip it - I use the small shark clips for this). To jiggle the flashers, you hold onto the line at the surface and pull them up and down. The thicker the cord, the easier it is to handle - so the 6 mm braid seems attractive - maybe even 8 mm. Thick cord is less likely to tangle, and tangling can be a problem when you first unravel them in the water. The cord is only about 12 metres, so thicker stuff doesn't bulk up too much when you roll it up.

So far, I have had no problems with the bulk of the gear, and no problems with anything breaking.

Ric

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Ric Fallu started spearfishing in Pt Phillip in the early 1960s, and never really stopped