What To Have In Your Dive Bag For Spearfishing

Posted on April 05, 2021

Author: Roni Essex

The Bare Essentials

We get a lot of questions from new spearos about what to have in one's spearfishing bag. Some of us just take the bare essentials on a spearfishing expedition, while others overdo it. Fortunately, Daniel Mann has produced a pretty precise list on this subject, and we couldn't agree more, besides his choice of fins that is!

Bag - Mask - Snorkel

It's not actually a dive bag per se, it's just a 120 lt, waterproof, North Face bag. It's got straps on it over the shoulders, so you can carry it around. I have an Aqualung Micro Mask, simple the best mask I've ever used. There's a lot of knockoffs of this, but they are definitely not as comfortable and definitely not as good. I highly recommend this if it fits your face properly. I've been using this for maybe eight years or something. In Australia they are very expensive, about a hundred and fifty dollars but over in Europe here you can pick these up for forty euros. This is a Riffe stable snorkel, not much to say about this. It's got a purge valve, it is quite long and tall, sits above the waves really nicely. I tuck that into the back of my mask strap there, I don't actually use a clip or anything like that, so I slip it into the back land that's how it stays on, nice and streamlined. A lot of people don't like these purge valves but I really like how the snorkel works for me, it hasn't let me down yet.

Float - Fish Stinger - Second Float

This is a basic float that I use when diving in the UK and abroad. There's nothing fancy it, it works and I got it at a competition, as part of my sign-on fee. It has a little flag attachment here and it's taken a bit of a beating, I like this float. The stinger is for sticking your fish on the back of your float. It clips on their threads through the gills of the fish and sits on the back your float. Next float here is a DiveR float. This thing is pretty big, I would use this if I was going after halibut, dogtooth tuna, anything like that that's big, or if I'm going at a particularly long swim or in an area with lots of boat traffic. This is great because it's very visible, especially once you put a little flag on the top of it.

Lubricant

Something you may not have seen yet, because I'm not sure if it's on the market, is this stuff called Slippy. It is a powdered lubricant, kind of like talcum powder, but when you mix this stuff with water it forms the most amazing wetsuit lube I have ever used. I don't like using conditioners because sometimes they can irritate your skin and then you smell funky. This stuff's really cool, you can take this around with you on planes as well.

Dive Computer - Bug Bag

Next up is my dive watch. This is a trusty Cressi Edy Mark 2 that I've had for 10 years, that my wife bought me for my 21st birthday. It's been all around the world, hasn't missed a beat, I've replaced the battery myself. It's a central bit of kit that I dive with, not only to tell me the time obviously, but most importantly my surface intervals. I always try and stay on the surface three to four times my bottom time, so if I'm doing a minute dive I'll stay on the surface for three minutes at least. That's just a way to mitigate risk of blackout, that's not a way that's fail proof, so you always need to listen to your body. Here is a cray bag or shellfish bag, for scallops, lobsters, crabs or anything like that. This is a Rob Allen bug bag and this particular model was pretty cheap, about 17 pounds. Really good, really durable. There's a lot that you see that are made of pretty crappy nylon and that end up acting like a big sort of sea anchor in the water. This, whether it's full or empty, drags pretty well.

Weight Belt

The actual belt part of this is some sort of rubber stuff, it's not particularly stretchy, it doesn't stick to your wetsuit very well, so I've recently upgraded to a silicon weight belt from Alchemy. These stretch way more so they hug the hips a lot better in the water, they are way more comfortable. I have a knife, it's made by Omer. It clips on there, stays on my weight belt, I can get it from any hand, that's as complicated as my knife gets. Regarding the rest of the belt, I have a belt reel on here, made by Ossie reels. I've had this for five years, it's got 50 meters of Salvimar Dyneema line on it, it's really cool, really solid, used it a couple times, I only use it as a backup when I'm using a reel gun, in case my first reel jams. Here is my drop weight, this is a little bit more fancy, you can take it off the belt at any stage and I use this in conjunction with my float line. I will anchor this on the bottom with my float line attached to it and then swim around my float with a reel gun, pretty simple, pretty cheap, I've had it for a very long time as you can see.

Weight Vest - Float Line

When I'm using a thicker suit, I tend to use a weight vest and here I have a Polo vest. It's made of neoprene, it's got a few slots for your weights. I don't use solid weights because they hurt your back a little bit, so I have made up these out of lycra with lead shot in them so they conform to your spine a lot better. Next up float line. There's not much to say about this, it's pretty simple, 35 meters of rope, it's about five or six ml rope that I clip on to my drop weight anchoring the float. I don't like using inflated float lines, the ones with tubes and then Dyneema in the middle of them, they will always eventually leak so I tend to avoid them if I can and I don't really find that much benefit to them over this.

Booties - Gloves - Mittens

I am using simple Immersion booties most of the time here in the UK, 5mm is definitely sufficient. The important thing about booties is to get one that doesn't have a seam across your Achilles tendon on the back of your heel. There's so many manufacturers that will make this out of two pieces and it's just got a seam here and a seam down the front. I find them very uncomfortable and they tend to rub on the back your heel a little bit. These are 5mm Cressi gloves, pretty box standard sort of stuff, I replace them every year. You've seen me talk about these mittens on my channel a lot, they just keep your fingers so much warmer. These are 5mm, you can get 7mm versions, which I'll probably be purchasing soon because I'm going to go to Norway in April.

Wetsuit - Fins - Spearguns

It's no secret on this channel that I love Polo Sub wetsuits. They are custom made, they fit me perfectly, they do the job, they do what I want them to, that's why I use them. These here are my 7mm pants that I use for most of the time in the UK. I've got a piss set on them, this is a game changer for anyone that's never tried one, get one of these on your suit. It is amazing, you don't smell like a Yeti when you get out of the water. Next thing in my dive bag are my beloved DiveR fins. What I use the most in the UK is this 80 cm Under Pressure gun. It's a little simple tube gun made of carbon fiber with a 50m reel on it and 1.4mm Dyneema. Really cool gun, really accurate, I run a Pathos shaft on it, it's a pretty accurate single rubber gun. I also have the same gun in a 110, if I want to go after big fish like a halibut.