Go spearfishing

Funny enough, I’d forgotten to change my default paypal shipping address and it was sent to work. Felt a little awkward going down to the front desk to pick it up after getting the email notification. Fortunately no one asked what it was despite the that fact that the box was three feet long. I’m guessing most people thought it for some kind of site plan being sent over.

I opened ‘er up when I got home and from my limited experience, this being the first pole spear I’d ever physically seen, it didn’t look too crappy. Felt like solid aluminum parts throughout, although the spear might be something else. The rubber is pretty thin, from the looks of it, however I’m going to take that as a good thing for now as it’d probably best to learn on stuff that’s lower powered and work my way up. Two things I wasn’t expecting but really worked out are that 1.) it disassembles small enough to fit in my large suit case or my kayak bag and 2.) I can wrap the rubber around the disassembled poles so it makes a nice tight little package. The latter of which should make this thing pretty easy to transport for future trips, although I’m going to have to find a longer cap for the trident as it’s only about a half inch deep and keeps sliding off.

While drinking over at a friends place last week I made the classic mistake of looking at eBay while I was waiting for the smokers to come back inside from the cold. Wound up getting about the cheapest 3 piece travel pole spear I could find. Came out to ‘bout $50 with shipping & handling.

Now I know, it’ll probably be made of some material that’s either to heavy or too fragile (my guess would be plastic,) the rubber on it’s probably crazy thin, and I don’t know how well a trident will hold carp, but at least now whenever I talk about doing this at least it’s something that could actually happen. After doing some further digging around on eBay, I found some extensions, adapters, and different spearheads that could be added/swapped out and I could always upgrade the rubber.

My guess is that after using this a few times this’ll probably become the backup/buddyspear which might make it easier to convince people to strap some fins on an jump into some cold lake water. Speaking of which, I looked and apparently there’s some campsites available up north next to the lake still this summer and should I bring the kayak, that could actually work out.

The thing gets delivered next week and in the mean time I’ll have to see what interest in camping I can stir up while it’s still this cold out.

Strangely enough I’ve actually decided to pick this one back up, partly inspired by a friend who really wants to go hunting.

After digging around some more online, mainly on youtube, I came across some amateur vids of people spearfishing in Wisconsin, and after doing some more digging, I was able to figure out where they were diving, so there’s a chance this might actually happen.

But even with the locations picked out, I still need a dive buddy. If the old roommate really does move back from Florida that’s one possibility because even though we’d only be freediving, he’s PADI certified so he has more experience in the water. Otherwise I might be able to let the other friend borrow some fins and we can check out the lakes.

The only thing that makes me nervous is visibility. The closest any of these places are is a two and a half hour drive, so if things are murky, the odds of me being able to drag someone out a second time is extremely unlikely.

Oh well. In the mean time I can check my gear and shop for a speargun online.

So apparently there might be some semi-clearwater lakes in Wisconsin. I guess this might be worth checking out sometime.

so I’ve seen a few pics from people freediving in Lake Michigan, and I figure, hey, maybe I can make this work.

Weeelllllllll, aparently it goes like this. From the Chicago shore, the bottom Lake Michigan deepens very, very slowly. From what I can gather from maps (and my own personal experience), it looks like the lake hits the 30 foot marker somewhere about a mile out. Which is a pretty good way to get struck by a boat.

Yes, I actually did attempt to freedive just off of Loyola beach a month or two back when the water was about as blue as possible. I may be mistaken, but it looks like the lake is just too shallow, and the sand gets kicked up by the waves, reducing visibility to arms length at best.

looks like this one is going to take a while to get accomplished.

where I live the water’s not always clearest, but we shall soon see if I can gig any carp, quilback, buffalo, sucker, bowfin, or gar.