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Before you spearfish — this comes first

  • Get proper instruction before you spearfish. A recognised freediving or spearfishing course teaches the things that actually kill people in this sport, and reading about them is not the same as being taught them.
  • Dive with a buddy, and dive one up, one down — one diver in the water, one on the surface watching them, every dive. A breath-hold blackout is silent and gives no warning; a watching buddy is the difference between an incident and a fatality.
  • Stay inside your own training and experience. Depth and breath-hold times are personal, they change day to day, and nobody else's numbers apply to you.
  • Understand the conditions before you enter the water: visibility, current, swell, tide, boat traffic and your exit. Conditions decide whether a dive is reasonable far more often than skill does.
  • Use equipment you have been shown how to use, check it before every session, and be visible — a marked float and line are how boat traffic knows you are there.
  • Never extend a dive for a fish. No catch is worth pushing a breath-hold, and the urge to take one more second is exactly what a blackout feels like from the inside — which is to say, like nothing at all.

Corrosion, maintenance and pre-dive inspection

Explainer · Last reviewed 2026-08-18

Salt water destroys everything in this kit, and the components it destroys are the ones under load — so maintenance is a safety practice rather than a housekeeping one.

Safety

Entanglement — Can cause serious injury or death

Salt water attacks the loaded interfaces preferentially — the mechanism, the crimps, the clip gates, the reel — and those failures put loose line in the water around a diver, frequently with a fish on the end of it. They also fail silently: cable frays inside a crimp where nobody can see it.

What reduces it: Rinse fresh water THROUGH the loaded components rather than over them, inspect on a schedule rather than after something goes wrong, and replace rubber and small hardware on age rather than on appearance. Carry a cutting tool reachable with either hand.

Line under tension — Can cause injury needing treatment

A corroded sear or a perished band can release stored energy without warning during loading, unloading or handling — which is when almost all speargun injuries occur, rather than during a shot.

What reduces it: Work the mechanism dry before every session and replace it rather than adjust it if engagement is not clean and crisp. Muzzle discipline throughout loading and unloading, and never rely on a safety catch as the primary measure.

Precautions that always apply here

  • Never spearfish or freedive alone.
  • Dive one up, one down: one diver down, one on the surface actively watching, every single dive.
  • Carry a charged phone in a waterproof case, or another means of calling for help.

Salt water is an electrolyte. It carries current between dissimilar metals, it crystallises in gaps as it dries, and it holds moisture against surfaces indefinitely. Every one of those attacks something in a spearfishing kit.

WHAT SALT DOES TO EACH THING. Steel shafts pit and rust, particularly at the notches and threads where the finish has been broken. Trigger mechanisms and line releases accumulate crystals and become gritty or unreliable. Rubber bands harden and crack. Dyneema wishbones and shooting line stiffen and abrade faster. Pneumatic seals degrade. Knife blades rust into their sheaths. Zips seize.

GALVANIC CORROSION is the one people miss: two different metals in contact in salt water form a cell, and the less noble one corrodes preferentially. A stainless fitting against an aluminium component will eat the aluminium, which is why fittings are chosen as much for compatibility as for strength.

THE ROUTINE IS SHORT AND IT IS NOT OPTIONAL. Rinse everything in fresh water after every session, with the gun unloaded and the trigger worked under the water so the mechanism flushes. Dry out of direct sunlight. Store cool, dark and unloaded. Periodically strip and lubricate what the manufacturer says to lubricate, with what they say to use.

A rinse takes five minutes and prevents most of what this page describes.

The pre-dive inspection, and why it is the same list every time

The components that fail are the ones carrying load, and there are not many of them.

BANDS — cracking, hardening, nicks. WISHBONE — abrasion on Dyneema, fatigue on metal. SHAFT — straightness, notch condition, thread and tip security. FLOPPER — opens and closes freely. SHOOTING LINE — abrasion at the muzzle and the attachment. LINE RELEASE AND TRIGGER — clean movement, no grit. FLOAT LINE AND FLOAT — abrasion, attachment points, float still holding air. WEIGHT BELT — buckle releases cleanly with one hand under load. KNIFE — present, sharp, reachable, and it comes out of its sheath.

That is a minute's work and it covers every component whose failure ends a dive badly.

The belt and the knife are on the list deliberately even though they are not fishing equipment: they are the two items whose failure a diver discovers at the worst possible moment, and the only opportunity to discover it early is before getting in.

Authoritative guidance

Stated by a fisheries authority, scientific institute or recognised angling body. Authoritative, but summarising rather than demonstrating.

  • BSAC diving safety guidance and annual incident report — British Sub-Aqua Club (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Diving safety guidance on equipment inspection, maintenance and pre-dive checks.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

Travel, storage and the gun that has been in a cupboard

A gun that has been stored for a season is not ready to use. Bands have aged whether or not they have been stretched, lubricant has migrated, and salt left in the mechanism has had months to work.

The honest routine after long storage is to replace the bands and wishbone, strip and clean the mechanism, and check the shaft and line before the first dive rather than during it.

Travel adds its own problems. Spearguns and their components are subject to carriage rules that differ by airline and by country, pressurised pneumatics especially so, and that is a matter for the carrier and the relevant authority. Salt and humidity in transit also mean a rinse on arrival is worth doing even though nothing has been dived.

Salt water attacks the loaded parts, which is why this is a safety practice

Maintenance in most activities is about making equipment last. In this one it is about making sure the parts under load do not fail while they are under load, and the distinction changes what gets inspected and how often.

THE PATTERN IS CONSISTENT ACROSS THE WHOLE KIT. Salt water attacks metal, and the metal in a speargun is concentrated at exactly the points where force is transmitted: the mechanism and its sear, the shaft's line attachment, the wishbone, the crimps in a slip-tip assembly or a shooting line, the pulley bearing on a roller, and every screw and pin holding those together. Those are the components whose failure is consequential. The barrel corroding is a cosmetic problem; the sear corroding is not.

WHICH IS WHY GALVANIC CORROSION IS WORTH KNOWING ABOUT SPECIFICALLY. Put two dissimilar metals in contact in salt water and one of them corrodes preferentially — the sea acts as an electrolyte and the assembly becomes a small battery. A speargun is full of dissimilar metals in contact, so corrosion concentrates at joints and fittings rather than spreading evenly, and it works from inside a joint outward where nobody can see it.

SO THE RINSE IS NOT HOUSEKEEPING. Fresh water, promptly, into and through the mechanism rather than over the outside of it, is what stops salt crystallising inside the parts that matter. A gun rinsed on the surface and put away wet has been cleaned where it does not matter and left salted where it does.

THE PRE-DIVE INSPECTION IS THE SAME LIST EVERY TIME, and being the same is the point — a checklist that varies is a checklist that gets shortened. Bands and wishbones for nicks, cuts and hardening. The mechanism, worked dry, for a clean crisp engagement. The shaft for straightness and the barb hinge for free movement. Every crimp and cable in a tip assembly. The shooting line at the shaft attachment, at the muzzle and anywhere it has been dragged over rock. The float line and its connections. The knife, in its sheath, reachable with either hand.

THE COMPONENTS THAT FAIL QUIETLY ARE THE ONES TO LOOK AT HARDEST. Rubber hardens with age and ultraviolet and gives no warning before it splits. Cable frays inside a crimp where it cannot be seen. A hinge pin corrodes and a barb stops deploying reliably. None of these announce themselves, which is why inspection is scheduled rather than triggered.

AND THE GUN THAT HAS BEEN IN A CUPBOARD FOR A YEAR is the specific case that catches people. Bands perish in storage, salt left inside a mechanism keeps working, and a rig that was sound at the end of last season is an unknown quantity at the start of this one. It gets the full inspection rather than a glance, and the bands get replaced on age rather than on appearance.

Authoritative guidance

Stated by a fisheries authority, scientific institute or recognised angling body. Authoritative, but summarising rather than demonstrating.

  • CMAS technical and sporting standards for underwater activities — Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (Standards body)Relied on for: Technical and sporting standards for underwater activities including spearfishing equipment practice and the conduct of the activity.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
  • BlueWater Hunting and Freediving — BlueWater Freedivers, Ventura, California, 1995 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: Established description of spearfishing equipment configuration, its failure modes, and the reasoning behind rigging choices, recorded as practitioner literature.FishingHQ's interpretation of what it saysCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

Where to go next

Where it matters

What these connections rest on (1)

Authoritative guidance — 1 connection

Stated by a fisheries authority, scientific institute or recognised angling body. Authoritative, but summarising rather than demonstrating.

  • Spearfishing

    A membership assertion rather than a topical one: this record teaches the discipline or its equipment, so the discipline's mandatory safety posture applies to it.

    • CMAS technical and sporting standards for underwater activities — Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (Standards body)Relied on for: Breath-hold spearfishing as a defined discipline with its own technical, equipment and safety standards, set out by the international underwater federation.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
    • DAN guidance on freediving safety, hypoxia and shallow-water blackout — Divers Alert Network (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: That the safety requirements of breath-hold diving apply across the discipline rather than to particular equipment or techniques within it.States this directlyPassage read and verified

    The check that covers every component whose failure ends a dive badly.

    • BSAC diving safety guidance and annual incident report — British Sub-Aqua Club (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Diving safety guidance on equipment inspection, maintenance and pre-dive checks.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

Gear this affects

What these connections rest on (1)

Practitioner consensus — 1 connection

Widely and independently recommended by experienced anglers and specialist sources. This is real angling knowledge, not proof: controlled evidence for it is limited, and FishingHQ records it as convention rather than as a demonstrated effect.

  • Shafts and tips

    An explainer carrying a mechanism the equipment record depends on.

    • CMAS technical and sporting standards for underwater activities — Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (Standards body)Relied on for: Breath-hold spearfishing practice, equipment convention and the safety expectations set out by the international underwater federation.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
    • BlueWater Hunting and Freediving — BlueWater Freedivers, Ventura, California, 1995 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: Spearfishing equipment and practice: gun, shaft, tip and rigging choice, and the handling of a shot fish, from a practitioner tradition distinct from the European one.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

Related reading

What these connections rest on (6)

Practitioner consensus — 4 connections

Widely and independently recommended by experienced anglers and specialist sources. This is real angling knowledge, not proof: controlled evidence for it is limited, and FishingHQ records it as convention rather than as a demonstrated effect.

  • Floppers, slip tips, and holding a fish

    A claim that this record rests on a mechanism explained elsewhere in the catalogue. It is the edge that makes the material an explanation rather than a list of equipment.

    • BlueWater Hunting and Freediving — BlueWater Freedivers, Ventura, California, 1995 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: Established description of spearfishing equipment configuration, its failure modes and the reasoning behind rigging choices, recorded as practitioner literature.FishingHQ's interpretation of what it saysCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
    • CMAS technical and sporting standards for underwater activities — Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (Standards body)Relied on for: Technical standards for underwater activities, including the equipment configuration and inspection practice expected of spearfishers.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
    • General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Widely restated descriptions of established spearfishing equipment practice and configuration, recorded as practitioner consensus rather than as scholarship.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

  • Reel jams, clips and the rigging that fails quietly

    One record resolves a question the other raises and cannot answer alone.

    • CMAS technical and sporting standards for underwater activities — Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (Standards body)Relied on for: Breath-hold spearfishing as a defined discipline with its own technical, equipment and safety standards, set out by the international underwater federation.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
    • DAN guidance on freediving safety, hypoxia and shallow-water blackout — Divers Alert Network (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: That the safety requirements of breath-hold diving apply across the discipline rather than to particular equipment or techniques within it.States this directlyPassage read and verified

  • Roller and inverted-roller spearguns

    A claim that this record rests on a mechanism explained elsewhere in the catalogue. It is the edge that makes the material an explanation rather than a list of equipment.

    • BlueWater Hunting and Freediving — BlueWater Freedivers, Ventura, California, 1995 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: Established description of spearfishing equipment configuration, its failure modes and the reasoning behind rigging choices, recorded as practitioner literature.FishingHQ's interpretation of what it saysCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
    • CMAS technical and sporting standards for underwater activities — Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (Standards body)Relied on for: Technical standards for underwater activities, including the equipment configuration and inspection practice expected of spearfishers.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
    • General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Widely restated descriptions of established spearfishing equipment practice and configuration, recorded as practitioner consensus rather than as scholarship.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

  • Shooting line: monofilament or Dyneema

    A claim that this record rests on a mechanism explained elsewhere in the catalogue. It is the edge that makes the material an explanation rather than a list of equipment.

    • BlueWater Hunting and Freediving — BlueWater Freedivers, Ventura, California, 1995 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: Established description of spearfishing equipment configuration, its failure modes and the reasoning behind rigging choices, recorded as practitioner literature.FishingHQ's interpretation of what it saysCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
    • CMAS technical and sporting standards for underwater activities — Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (Standards body)Relied on for: Technical standards for underwater activities, including the equipment configuration and inspection practice expected of spearfishers.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
    • General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Widely restated descriptions of established spearfishing equipment practice and configuration, recorded as practitioner consensus rather than as scholarship.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

Authoritative guidance — 2 connections

Stated by a fisheries authority, scientific institute or recognised angling body. Authoritative, but summarising rather than demonstrating.

  • Loaded speargun handling

    Where maintenance stops being about performance and becomes about safety.

    • BSAC diving safety guidance and annual incident report — British Sub-Aqua Club (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Diving safety guidance on planning, conditions assessment, buddy protocol, entanglement and equipment handling.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

  • Spearguns and slings

    Inspection is a safety practice rather than housekeeping.

    • BSAC diving safety guidance and annual incident report — British Sub-Aqua Club (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Diving safety guidance on equipment inspection, maintenance and pre-dive checks.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

How this compares

What these connections rest on (1)

Authoritative guidance — 1 connection

Stated by a fisheries authority, scientific institute or recognised angling body. Authoritative, but summarising rather than demonstrating.

  • Salt, corrosion and what it does to tackle

    The mechanism record and the routine that answers it.

    • BSAC diving safety guidance and annual incident report — British Sub-Aqua Club (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Diving safety guidance on equipment inspection, maintenance and pre-dive checks.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

Safety reading

What these connections rest on (2)

Authoritative guidance — 2 connections

Stated by a fisheries authority, scientific institute or recognised angling body. Authoritative, but summarising rather than demonstrating.

  • Entanglement while breath-hold diving

    A claim that a piece of equipment participates in a hazard substantial enough to have its own record, so that a reader meeting the component is routed to the full treatment rather than to a warning sentence.

    • BSAC diving safety guidance and annual incident report — British Sub-Aqua Club (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Diving safety guidance including entanglement, line management around a diver, equipment failure and the incident patterns that follow from them.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

  • The spearfishing buddy system

    A claim that a piece of equipment participates in a hazard substantial enough to have its own record, so that a reader meeting the component is routed to the full treatment rather than to a warning sentence.

    • CMAS technical and sporting standards for underwater activities — Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (Standards body)Relied on for: Technical and sporting standards for underwater activities, including spearfishing equipment practice, the conduct of the activity and its safety requirements.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

Environment and conservation

What these connections rest on (1)

Authoritative guidance — 1 connection

Stated by a fisheries authority, scientific institute or recognised angling body. Authoritative, but summarising rather than demonstrating.

  • Selectivity and what it is used for

    A claim that a piece of equipment participates in an environmental argument, resting on the responsible-fishing and welfare literature rather than on practitioner preference.

    • Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, 1995 (Standards body)Relied on for: That gear selectivity and the avoidance of unrecovered mortality are central to responsible fishing, and the framework within which those obligations sit.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
    • Humane Harvesting of Fish: percussive stunning and percussive equipment — Humane Slaughter Association (Angling or fisheries organisation)Relied on for: Humane harvesting practice for fish, including the obligation to render a fish insensible promptly and the consequences of failing to.States this directlyNot yet checked

Sources for this page

  • BSAC diving safety guidance and annual incident report — British Sub-Aqua Club (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Equipment care and inspection guidance for diving equipment in salt water.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.

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