Safety Rules for spearfishing

Before leaving the shore decide where you are heading, make a dive plan and estimate the weather and the sea conditions

Never spearfish alone and select your partner


When hunting is taking place in deep waters, it is highly recommended that you dive in turns and watch your partner


When hunting is taking place in shallow waters with poor visibility, you might consider diving separately from your partner maintaining a safety distance at all times

Never spearfish without a line attached to an appropriate buoy with a flag


Speargun is a deadly weapon; you must always maintain absolute caution on safety matters when handling it


Don’t underestimate the risk of shallow-water blackout. It is probably the most serious threat for the safety of a spearfisher


Always spearfish well inside your capabilities! A spearfisher should always monitor himself and be aware of his daily limitations caused by his present physical condition and mental state

                                                                                                       SECURITY

This sport of leisures or competition is not without risk because we evolve in a environment known as "hostile" where the errors are not allowed, even fatal. Many are the accidents due to failure to comply with the elementary rules of safety, as I will give you some councils as I recommend to follow.
To always trail with oneself a rope with buoy or board, provided with the diving flag, which will announce your presence to the boats and yachtmen. To always fish in doubles, that on the surface supervising his comrade who is down in order to intervene in the event of faintness or incident.  To have on oneself a blade to slice cords or lines which could cling to you and to prevent you from regaining surface.
Not to over-estimate its forces and to have enough resources to regain the shore or its boat. On this subject, consume water and energy food products with regular intervals: they will avoid you cramps, overtiredness and even hypoglycemia.
A bad balancing of eardrums can involve irreversible lesions. If during the apnea, an ear does not pass, not to hesitate to stop the shooting party, because its continuation will expose the hunter at the risk of tympanic tear or a traumatism of the inner ear.
For those who fish beyond the 22 yards of depth, attention to exaggerated hyperventilations, the repeated apnea and the efforts made at the seabed, which, combined, can cause a fainting fit, and of this fact death by drowning.

                                                                          THE  BALANCING OF THE EAR DRUMS

The apneist, as soon as it starts the descent, must prepare to balance his eardrums.

The ear :
With the free air, the eardrum receives on its external face a pressure equal to that which it receives on its internal face. The cavity of the middle ear, isolated from outside by the eardrum, emerges by the Eustachian tube inside the nasal passage.
When the body penetrates in water, it is subjected to a pressure which increases by one kilogramme every ten meters. The Eustachian tube, which are a channel anatomically narrow, long, and subjected to multiple attacks like the cold, is not permeable any more with the air, and the inner ears are not any more in communication with the nasal passages.
The pressure which is exerted on the eardrum, external side, is higher than that which is exerted on its internal face. Consequence : the eardrum will become deformed and become painful. To make disappear the pain, and better still, to prevent it, it is necessary " to balance " the pressure in the inner ear. For that, it is necessary to free the Eustachian tube. This operation can take place in two manners.

Vasalva :
To plate the tongue against the palate. To hold one's nose between thumb and index by the intermediary of embossings of the mask. To send air of the lungs towards the nose as for blow one's nose. A definitely perceptible catch occurs : the air penetrates in the inner ear and the eardrum picks up its initial shape.

Voluntary gaping passage :
It remains the primacy of some divers privileged by a particular anatomical form their Eustachian tubes. The swallowing or the opening of the jaws allows balancing. During the climb up, the air contained in the cavities will dilate and no average credit will allow its aspiration. Only the swallowing or the opening of the jaws could be used.

Risks :
It will be advisable to stop the diving as soon as an ear does not pass because its continuation exposes to risk of tympanic tear or a traumatism of the inner ear. In front of similar incident, to blow one's nose, to wash the nose while making pass water if possible from the throat. To spray with a vasoconstrictor. In the event of persistent blocking, to stop the spearfishing party. In front of the presence of an impression of blocked ear, whistles or giddinesses, a fast medical consultation will be necessary.

                                                                                            HYPERVENTILATION

The apnea, it is the voluntary stop (or not) of breathing. The preparation with the apnea consists in exchanging a part of the carbon dioxide contained in each red cell of blood, by an equal quantity of oxygen. This exchange taking place in the lungs, the method will thus consist in ventilating to the maximum the air of the lungs.

Implementation :
Hyperventilation is practised with the body lengthened on water and the dangling arms. All the relaxed muscles, it is necessary to be let float like a fish float. To expire completely with the help of the arms to compress the chest, and then to breathe deeply by largely opening the arms on both sides body. To expire again slowly and completely. To breathe deeply. To repeat this operation 4 or 5 times. To make a return to a calm state by 2 or 3 normal exhalations and inspirations ; to empty the lungs again completely, to fill them to the maximum and to start the descent.
During the clim up, the hunter looks to the depths of sea, the chin almost on the chest, the slightly arched shoulders, in most total relaxation. When it bursts surface, it exhales to drive out the water of the tuba and takes again its breathing.
Time between 2 apnea will be sufficiently long to allow the brain and the body to proceed to a physicochemical rebalancing.

O2 consumption and production of CO2 :
The oxygen uptake and the production of carbon dioxide are variable according to the type of fishing, the depth to be reached, the efforts made in the depth, the fight against the cold, the emotions...

Tolerance of the brain to the O2 and CO2 variations :
The bulbar respiratory centers are sensitive to the rise in carbon dioxide and, with a less degree, the fall of oxygen. This tolerance will be improved by the training which will make it possible to move back the recovery of the respiratory reflex.

                                                                                    FAINTING FIT

To faint is not very serious, but in action of spearfishing, it can take dramatic forms whose fatal outcome could be the death.

What to make to avoid it?
- to keep always in mind that can arrive to you;
- not to alone drive out deep;
- not to lose sight of its team-member ; to ensure of its presence before diving;
- to have a ballasting adapted to the depth so the buoyancy is positive on more half of the way;
- on the surfaces, to prepare each diving sufficiently;
- to save its oxygen uptake by limiting work in the depths of sea;
- to go up in flexibility, with calms without looking at surface;
- not to fish tired (after a travel, for example) and to stop the sparfishing party since the observation of signs of tiredness (weariness, legs heavy).

Known signs preceding the fainting fit :
Giddinesses. Tinglings. Nauseas. Heavy legs. Spasms ; jumpings of a member ; convulsions. Sudden feeling of wellbeing.

Intervention on fainted in water :
To recover or go up the victim. To release its belt, but to preserve yours. The rescuer, in vertical swimming, place the nape of the neck of the victim on its shoulder. To remove his mask and his tuba. To strike 4 or 5 times the thorax of the subject with the palm of the hand, make it possible this one to regain consciousness. If such were not the case, not panic : to call help.
To look at the pupils :
- normal pupils (the heart always beats) : to proceed to the mouth with mouth. Always in vertical swimming, to place the subject extended on the back. To maintain with the arm right under its shoulders; the left hand grips the nose while maintaining the head in hyperextension. To open his mouth and to check that nothing blocks it (sometimes barbs of the tuba were cut in a reflex of contraction of the jaw). To put your tuba in the mouth of the subject. To insufflate vigorously and calmly. If ventilation is good, the subject can find its breathing and its knowledge at the end of 5 or 6 blowings. While carrying out these manoeuvrings, the rescuer will calmly try hard to regain the coast or the boat.
- dilated pupils (the heart ceased beating) : it is imperatively necessary to proceed to a cardiac massage, alternate with the mouth with mouth. Always in vertical swimming, the rescuer will place himself behind the subject, takes it in one's arms, the right hand holding his left wrist, which, closed fist, will be placed between the pectoral muscles of the victim. In this position, to compress 5 to 6 times the thorax. Put your tuba in the mouth of the subject and insufflate 2 to 3 times. To take again compressions and blowings. To check the dilation of the pupils, which their return to the normal, will mark the resumption of the beats of the heart.

Shallow Water Black-Out Safety:

Without doubt the greatest risk facing spearfisherman is shallow water blackout. Spearfishing Magazine has reported that 8,000 drownings occur each year in the United States, and 81% of these deaths occurred in males between the ages of 14 and 32.

Shallow water blackout is a physiological phenomenon that occurs when an ascending divers lungs expand, creating a vacuum that sucks the remaining oxygen out of his blood stream causing the diver to black-out. This usually means the diver will start to sink, and if not assisted, will likely drown. 

 We recommend that you:

If you are diving with a diver that has suffered a shallow water blackout always ensure that diver visits a hospital as soon as he gets on-shore. Often a near drowning victim may have let salt water into their lungs, and the symptoms only appear hours after the event. The effects of salt water on the lungs are serious.

Fitness & Stamina

Perhaps one of the greatest dangers that spearos face are themselves. In freediving the diver exposes himself to a foreign environment, where the water is often cold, where strong currents and surf are prevalent, and the diver pushes himself to extreme depths in search of quarry. Overestimating ones ability in these circumstances is an enormous risk and a very real danger.

Surf & Currents

The ocean is a diverse and complex environment where the spearfishmen operates in a completely alien environment. As the spearfisherman gazes down on a boiling ball of sharks attacking a wounded fish, a majestic Marlin feeding, a shoal of tuna gliding through the depths, or a school of circling dolphins, the diver immediately understands that he is witnessing mother nature as close as is possible. And shortly thereafter should realize that the sea is big, and that he is small.

Big surf and strong currents present several potential hazards to divers: