My hawaiian sling skills are improving
Every morning I wake up with the sun, eat breakfast, talk with the neighboring sailboat crews, walk in town, buy bananas, go online and when the tide is almost low, I get on my kayak and head to the numerous reefs and wrecks in front of North Bimini.
Hunting with the hawaiian sling requires some major skills. The fish are not dumb and the sling will not let you shoot them from more than a few feet. I learned to dive bomb them since they often wait a little longer to get away and the gravity helps the shaft move forward; slings are not powerful weapons….
miami2montreal 
You are making some impressive shots there…
I just got a sling on a recent trip to Kauai but havent gotten close enough to something big enough to score a catch. A local Hawaiian claimed that he has had great success with dropping a spoon (teaspoon?) from the surface and then diving quickly and beating it to the bottom. Meanwhile the fish are supposedly mesmerized by the spoon and distracted from your approaching doom. If you ever try this, let me know how it works.
A few questions on your spearfishing video:
What speartip are you using? hawaiian slings often have 3 prongs, but yours looks like a hinged tip. is that because the tritip would not hold onto a good sized fish?
How deep are you diving and how long are you staying down…. it looks deep and your chase after spearing seems to take a while – nice air management.
best regards,
paul
Hey paul,
the hawaiian sling is not to be confused with the pole spear. the Hawaiian sling is like a slingshot trowing a shaft, the pole spear is a stick with an elastic. You can put different heads on the pole spear. I use a four prong instead of a paralizer three prong. I also have a detachable head for larger fish but since I’m using the sling most of the time, I haven’t had a chance to try it.
HI,
dont quite understand the difference you note between an hawaiian sling and a pole spear. I think I have a Hawaiian sling… it is a 6-8′ fiberglass pole with three straight pointed prongs (no barbs). There is a loop of (surgical?) elastic that goes around your elbow on your upper arm and you stretch that a foot or more while holding the spear with the hand on the same arm. Releasing your grip on the spear propells it forward. It has a range of a few feet(4′ ?) beyond where the tip is. I think that is how Hawaiian slings work; how does a pole spear work?
You have a pole spear Paul. An hawaiian sling has no pole. Only a spear shaft (in metal, it’s an arrow) and you hold a sling shot type thing to shoot the shaft away.It is very difficult to use and almost impossible to find outside of Florida and Hawaii. It is supremely inefficient but it has some advantages, for one you can get fish a tad further than with a pole spear. With a pole spear I can get fish two feet away, with the sling I can extend my range to 4 maybe 5 in a hail mary shot.
Here is an Hawaiian sling handle http://underwaterflorida.homestead.com/polespears.html
Most of the fishing is done between 40 and 80 feet. The deeper water is a little too sharky for my taste. Even the 80 feet area is a bit dicey.
so, you must be using Scuba or snuba? 40 feet is a long way down to stalk and chase down a fish 🙂
Nope, i can comfortably fish on breathold (the only legal way in the Bahamas and the rest of the world for that matter) down to 90 feet. I can shoot a fish with a normal speargun down to maybe 120 feet. I’ve been doing this for a while.
Have you tried getting your story in Adventure Kayak?
Yes, it’s coming. Still working with the editor at Rapid Media http://rapidmedia.com. Adventure Kayak is their magazine http://adventurekayakmag.com
Nice spearing. I bet the triggerfish is the best earing fish of all. What type of band R U using on your sling?
I have no idea. I purchased the bands at a miami diveshop