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Spearfishing: what to learn, and in what order

The discipline where the learning path IS the safety posture. A beginner who reaches equipment before they reach training and the buddy system has been failed by the platform.

19 steps, 66 pages, and no account to make. Every step below links to pages that already exist on FishingHQ — this is the ORDER to read them in, which is the thing nobody tells you when you start. 9 of the steps are marked do not skip. They are the ones where getting it wrong is not a wasted afternoon.

Nothing here records what you have read, and nothing asks you to sign in. Come back to this page and pick up wherever you like.

The steps

  1. Step 1 of 19

    What it is and what it demands

    • What spearfishing is, and what it demands — start here

      Hunting fish underwater on a single breath, at close range, with a weapon — three constraints that between them explain every technique, every piece of equipment and every rule in the discipline.

    • How to start spearfishing

      The order matters more than the equipment: learn to freedive with an instructor, find people to dive with, then buy kit — because the first two decide whether the third is survivable.

    • Spearfishing

      Hunting fish underwater on a single breath, using a speargun or pole spear — the most selective way of taking a fish, and the most demanding of the person doing it.

    • Why spearfishing is never a solo activity

      A blackout is survivable if somebody competent is watching and is close enough to reach you, and is otherwise almost always fatal — which makes the buddy the single load-bearing component of the entire safety system.

  2. Step 2 of 19· Do not skip this one

    Formal freediving training, before anything else

    • Training and courses — start here

      The one piece of spearfishing equipment that cannot be bought secondhand — and the only intervention that reliably changes what happens when something goes wrong.

    • Freediving for spearfishing

      The breath-hold discipline underneath spearfishing — the part that has to be learnt properly, and the part that decides whether the rest is safe.

  3. Step 3 of 19· Do not skip this one

    The buddy system, and never diving alone

    • The spearfishing buddy system — start here

      One diver down and one watching the surface, close enough to reach them and attentive enough to notice — because blackout is silent and a diver alone does not recover from it.

    • Why spearfishing is never a solo activity

      A blackout is survivable if somebody competent is watching and is close enough to reach you, and is otherwise almost always fatal — which makes the buddy the single load-bearing component of the entire safety system.

    • Fishing alone

      Fishing alone does not create hazards; it removes the person who would otherwise raise the alarm, which multiplies the consequence of every other hazard.

  4. Step 4 of 19· Do not skip this one

    Blackout, LMC and what a buddy is watching for

    • Breath-hold blackout — start here

      The mechanism that kills freedivers and spearfishers: a loss of consciousness that arrives without any warning the diver can detect.

    • Shallow-water blackout: what it is, and why it gives no warning

      Loss of consciousness from low blood oxygen, occurring most often at or just below the surface on ascent — and the reason it gives no warning is that the sensation people rely on is driven by carbon dioxide rather than by oxygen.

    • Rescue principles for a blacked-out diver

      The buddy system only works if the person watching knows what to do in the seconds after they see it — and this is the one subject in the discipline where reading is explicitly not enough.

    • A pre-dive safety checklist

      A structured run through the things whose failure is discovered at the worst possible moment — built from the safety family rather than invented, and short enough to actually be used.

    • Entanglement while breath-hold diving

      Being caught on a breath-hold is a time-limited emergency, and the response has to be already in place before it happens.

  5. Step 5 of 19

    Breath-hold physiology, without optimisation

    • Breath-hold physiology for spearfishers — start here

      The urge to breathe is driven by carbon dioxide while unconsciousness is driven by lack of oxygen — two separate signals, which is why breath-hold diving can fail without warning.

    • Equalisation and pressure

      Descending compresses the air spaces in the ears and sinuses, and equalisation restores the pressure balance — a technique that must never be forced through pain.

    • Equalisation, and the injuries that follow forcing it

      Pressure rises fastest in the first few metres, and the injuries come almost entirely from continuing to descend when equalisation has failed — which makes stopping the whole of the technique that matters.

  6. Step 6 of 19

    Mask, snorkel and fins

    • Wetsuits, fins and masks for spearfishing — start here

      Freediving equipment is built for a single breath: low-volume masks that waste less air to equalise, long fins that move water efficiently, and suits that trade convenience for warmth and camouflage.

    • Long fins, and what blade stiffness does

      A long blade moves more water per kick at a lower cadence, which uses less oxygen for the same distance — making fins one of the few pieces of equipment that directly extends how safely a diver can operate.

    • Mask fogging, leaking and squeeze

      Three different problems with three different causes, routinely treated as one — and only the third has a safety consequence.

    • Suits, masks, fins and cutting tools

      The kit that keeps a diver warm, able to see, able to move — and able to cut themselves free.

  7. Step 7 of 19

    Wetsuits and thermal protection

  8. Step 8 of 19· Do not skip this one

    Weighting and buoyancy as principles

    • Weighting, and the margin that keeps you at the surface — start here

      A wetsuit compresses with depth, so a diver weighted to feel comfortable at ten metres is dangerously heavy at the surface — and being positively buoyant at the surface is what keeps an unconscious diver's face out of the water.

    • Weighting and buoyancy in spearfishing

      Weighting offsets the buoyancy of a wetsuit, and getting it wrong is the difference between an unconscious diver floating to the surface and one that does not.

    • Weighting and quick release

      Enough lead to descend comfortably and not one gram more — and a buckle that comes off with one hand, first time, in the dark.

    • Buoyancy that feels wrong

      Struggling to descend and sinking too readily are the same problem in opposite directions, and one of them is dangerous — which is why the fix is a buoyancy check in the water rather than a number from a table.

  9. Step 9 of 19

    Spearguns and pole spears

    • Speargun or pole spear to start with — start here

      A pole spear demands a better approach and forgives less; a gun is more capable and more to manage. The choice depends on the water and, in several places, on what is permitted there.

    • How a band speargun works

      Stretched rubber stores energy and releases it into a shaft, and every design decision — band length, band diameter, shaft mass, gun length — is a way of trading how much energy is stored against how fast it can be delivered.

    • Speargun length, and what it decides

      Length trades reach and accuracy against manoeuvrability, and the water decides which matters — a hole hunter and a blue-water diver need opposite answers, which is why there is no beginner's number.

    • Loaded speargun handling

      A loaded speargun is the only thing in fishing that behaves like a firearm, and the handling rules are the firearm rules for the same reason: the injuries are penetrating and they happen to companions.

    • Spearguns

      Elastic- or air-powered devices that propel a shaft over a short distance underwater — and a piece of equipment that must be treated as loaded at all times.

  10. Step 10 of 19· Do not skip this one

    Floats, flags, lines and breakaways

    • Surface markers and boat traffic — start here

      A diver at the surface is almost invisible from a boat, and a surface marker buoy is the difference between being seen and being run over.

    • Reels, float lines and breakaway systems

      Three ways of staying connected to a shot fish, and what actually separates them is what happens when something goes wrong — which is why the choice is a safety decision as much as a fishing one.

    • Dive floats and float lines

      The marked surface float and its line — the piece of spearfishing equipment most often thought of as a convenience, and actually the primary means of not being run over.

    • Line and float-line tangles

      A tangle around a diver is an entanglement hazard rather than an inconvenience, which changes both how it is prevented and what to do when it happens.

  11. Step 11 of 19

    Knots, rigging and maintenance

    • Corrosion, maintenance and pre-dive inspection — start here

      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.

    • An equipment maintenance checklist

      A schedule rather than a routine — what to do after every dive, every few sessions, and once a season, because the components that fail are the ones under load and they fail on age as much as on use.

    • Shooting line and breakaway rigging

      How the fish is connected to something that is not the diver — and the single most important decision in blue-water rigging.

  12. Step 12 of 19

    Identifying fish underwater

    • Identifying fish underwater — start here

      The one skill spearfishing genuinely requires that angling does not — because the decision to take a fish is made before it is caught, not after.

    • Lookalike species, and why uncertainty means do not shoot

      Confusable species routinely differ in protection status, size rules, seasons and ecological role — so a misidentification underwater is not an embarrassment to correct later but a decision that cannot be taken back.

  13. Step 13 of 19

    Fish behaviour and approach

    • How fish behave towards a diver — start here

      A diver reads as a large predator, which is why stillness works, direct approach does not, and heavily dived ground behaves differently.

    • Schooling behaviour, seen from inside

      A school is an anti-predator system with documented functions, and a diver swimming into one is inside a structure that exists specifically to defeat what they are trying to do.

    • Reef fish territory, and where a species holds

      Fish occupy predictable positions relative to structure, flow and light, and the position is a consequence of how the species feeds and what eats it — which makes it one of the most transferable pieces of knowledge in fishing.

  14. Step 14 of 19· Do not skip this one

    Visibility, current, swell and boat traffic

    • Reading underwater conditions — start here

      Visibility, current, swell and thermoclines decide whether a dive happens and what it can achieve — far more reliably than skill does.

    • How visibility changes everything

      Visibility decides the range at which fish are seen, the confidence with which they are identified, and — the part that matters most — whether a buddy can watch you at all.

    • Tide and current for divers

      Tide decides where food is delivered and whether a diver can get back — and the second consideration outranks the first every time.

    • When conditions turn during a session

      Conditions deteriorate faster than divers notice, because the diver is absorbed, cold and progressively less capable of judging — which is why the decision is agreed on land before anybody has anything invested.

    • Boat traffic, and being seen from the surface

      A diver at the surface is almost invisible from a boat at any distance, and propeller strike is a recognised cause of death — which is why the float is safety equipment before it is fishing equipment.

  15. Step 15 of 19· Do not skip this one

    Entry, exit and the shore dive

    • Shore entry and exit for divers — start here

      The water at the edge is where energy concentrates and where a diver is least mobile, and exits are worse than entries because the diver is tired.

    • Shore diving

      Entering and leaving the water from land under your own power — the most accessible spearfishing and the one where the entry and exit are the dangerous part.

    • Shore diving and boat diving compared

      The same activity with a different escape plan. A shore dive is limited by what you can swim back from; a boat dive is limited by whether the boat is still there and whether anybody on it is watching.

  16. Step 16 of 19

    Quarry, including crustaceans and cephalopods

    • Freediving for lobster — start here

      Hunting lobster on breath-hold by reaching into holes — a mainstream summer activity in several parts of the world, and one of the more dangerous positions in the sport.

    • Octopus and cuttlefish on breath-hold

      Hunting an animal that can see you thinking. Cephalopods are found rather than chased, and the practice raises a welfare question the rest of FishingHQ does not have to answer.

    • Taking crustaceans on breath-hold

      Hand-gathering crustaceans on a breath-hold is a different activity from spearfishing that happens to share the equipment: the animal is in a hole, both hands are needed, and the diver's attention is entirely on the rock rather than on the water.

    • Handling squid, cuttlefish and octopus

      Cephalopods die fast, spoil fast, ink comprehensively and are cleaned rather than filleted. Almost everything that determines quality happens in the first minute after they come over the rail.

  17. Step 17 of 19· Do not skip this one

    Dispatch, stringers and keeping fish away from you

  18. Step 18 of 19

    Selectivity, protected species and taking less

    • Selectivity and what it is used for — start here

      Spearfishing is the most selective way of taking a fish that exists — which is an argument in its favour only if the selection is doing something defensible.

    • Marine protected areas and spearfishing

      Protected areas restrict what may be taken and how, and the restrictions differ so widely between designations that assuming is the main way divers get it wrong.

    • Protected species, and why some fish may not be taken

      Protection is applied for several different reasons — extinction risk, stock collapse, ecological role, spawning vulnerability, international obligation — and knowing which reason applies explains what the rule requires and why it is strict.

  19. Step 19 of 19· Do not skip this one

    The legal framework and what to verify

The other paths

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