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.
Reel jams, clips and the rigging that fails quietly
Explainer · Last reviewed 2026-08-17
The small hardware between a diver, a gun and a float — clips, swivels, reels, crimps and line stops — fails more often than anything expensive on the rig, and its failures are the ones that put loose line around a person.
Safety
Entanglement — Can cause serious injury or death
A jammed reel, a failed clip or a breakaway that has not released leaves line in the water around a diver — frequently with a fish pulling on the other end. Entanglement on a breath-hold is a time-limited emergency in which there is no option to stop, breathe and untangle.
What reduces it: Inspect reel, clips, crimps and line stops before every session and replace the cheap hardware on age. Carry a cutting tool reachable with either hand without looking. If line has you, signal, drop the gun and cut rather than work the tangle.
Worse when:
- With a fish attached and running
- In current, surge or kelp, where slack line finds structure immediately
- On a breakaway rig where a large fish is generating the load the system was meant to absorb
Line under tension — Can cause injury needing treatment
Thin high-strength line under load cuts. A clip that lets go or a crimp that parts releases stored tension suddenly, and the line and hardware travel — towards a diver, a buddy or a person in a boat.
What reduces it: Keep hands and body out of the line's path when a fish is on. Do not grab a loaded line to control a fish. Replace clips and crimps rather than adjusting them, and keep everybody clear when a rig is under tension at the boat.
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.
A speargun rig is a chain, and every link in it is a component. The chain is usually described from the interesting end — the gun, the shaft, the tip — and the failures happen at the other end, in the hardware that costs least and is inspected least.
THE REEL. A speargun reel holds line that is meant to pay out under load and be wound back in afterwards. It jams when line has been wound on loosely and a later turn beds down into it, when sand or grit gets into the drag or spool, when the drag has been set harder than the line, and when the diver winds under tension against a fish rather than letting the reel do its job. A jammed reel with line out is a fixed connection between a diver and a fish that was supposed to be a variable one.
CLIPS AND SNAP HOOKS. The joins between float line, float, gun and breakaway are usually made with clips, and clips open. A gate that has corroded, a spring that has weakened, a clip loaded across the gate rather than along it, and a cheap snap hook that was never load-rated all fail the same way: without a sound, at the moment of highest load, and usually with a fish attached.
SWIVELS AND CRIMPS. A swivel that has stiffened stops doing the one job it exists for, which is stopping line twist from becoming line failure. A crimp is a small piece of metal squeezed onto a cable, and the cable frays INSIDE it where nobody can see. Both fail silently and both are single points of failure.
AND THE BREAKAWAY THAT DOES NOT BREAK AWAY. A breakaway system exists so a running fish is transferred to floats rather than to a diver. When it hangs up — a line stop that has jammed, a wrap that has bedded down, a clip that has fouled — the system has quietly become a fixed rig, and the diver finds out at the moment a large fish accelerates.
WHAT UNITES ALL OF THESE: they are cheap, they are small, they are the parts most likely to be replaced with whatever was in the box, and their failure mode is loose line around a person rather than a lost fish.
Where to look, and what a failing link looks like before it fails
Every item on this list gives warning, and the warning is visible on land and invisible in the water. That is the whole argument for an inspection that happens before the session rather than after a failure.
THE REEL. Strip and re-lay the line rather than trusting what is on the spool — line wound on under tension after a fight is line that will bed down and jam next time. Turn the spool and feel for grit. Check the drag by pulling line off by hand and feeling whether it is smooth or steps. A reel that has been in salt water and not rinsed through is a reel with salt crystals between the surfaces that are meant to slide.
CLIPS. Work every gate. It should snap shut positively rather than sluggishly, and it should not be possible to push it open with a fingertip against the spring. Look at the gate hinge for corrosion, which is where they fail. And look at HOW the clip is loaded: a clip taking load across the gate rather than along the spine is being used in the direction it is weakest in, and re-rigging that join is a two-minute job.
CRIMPS AND CABLE. This is the inspection people skip because there is nothing to see, which is exactly the point — the cable frays inside the crimp. What is visible is a single broken strand emerging at the crimp mouth, a crimp that has moved, discolouration, or a cable that has developed a permanent kink. Any one of those means replace the assembly rather than watch it.
SWIVELS. Hold each end and turn. If it does not turn freely and easily under no load, it will not turn at all under load, and line twist will do the rest.
LINE STOPS AND WRAPS ON A BREAKAWAY. Set the rig up the way it will be dived and pull it apart by hand. A breakaway that needs a hard pull on the surface needs a harder one in the water, and a system that has to be tested by a fish has not been tested.
THE PATTERN IS THE SAME ONE THE CORROSION RECORD DESCRIBES. Salt water attacks the loaded interfaces preferentially, dissimilar metals in contact corrode faster than either alone, and everything on this list is a joint between two metals under load. Rinse fresh water THROUGH these components rather than over them, and replace the cheap ones on age rather than on appearance.
AND THE FAILURE THAT MATTERS IS NOT THE LOST FISH. Every item here can fail in a way that leaves loose line in the water around a diver with a fish on the end of it. That is the reason this is a safety inspection rather than a maintenance routine, and the reason the cutting tool is checked in the same pass.
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 conduct, equipment practice and the safety expectations set 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: Established practitioner description of spearfishing technique, rigging configuration and the handling of a shot fish, recorded as practitioner literature rather than as scholarship.FishingHQ's interpretation of what it saysCitation 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 practice and equipment convention, recorded as practitioner consensus rather than as scholarship.Background and mechanism onlyCitation 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
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.
Speargun reels
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
Related reading
- Corrosion, maintenance and pre-dive inspectionEvery item on the rigging failure list is a joint between two metals under load, which is where salt water works first.
- Reels, float lines and breakaway systemsA breakaway that has not released has quietly become a fixed rig, which is the failure the system exists to prevent.
- Which equipment failures end a dive, and which end a sessionWhether a rigging failure ends the dive, the session or neither is decided by the severity ladder rather than by the component.
What these connections rest on (3)
Practitioner consensus — 3 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.
Corrosion, maintenance and pre-dive inspection
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
Reels, float lines and breakaway systems
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
Which equipment failures end a dive, and which end a session
One record resolves a question the other raises and cannot answer alone.
- DAN guidance on freediving safety, hypoxia and shallow-water blackout — Divers Alert Network (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Freediving and breath-hold spearfishing safety practice, including the supervision requirement that applies across the discipline rather than to particular equipment.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- CMAS technical and sporting standards for underwater activities — Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (Standards body)Relied on for: Breath-hold diving safety practice and discipline definition set out by the international underwater federation.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Safety reading
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.
Entanglement while breath-hold diving
A safety topic that applies to this record specifically rather than to the discipline generally.
- DAN guidance on freediving safety, hypoxia and shallow-water blackout — Divers Alert Network (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Freediving and breath-hold spearfishing safety practice, including the supervision requirement that applies across the discipline rather than to particular equipment.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- CMAS technical and sporting standards for underwater activities — Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (Standards body)Relied on for: Breath-hold diving safety practice and discipline definition set out by the international underwater federation.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Sources for this page
- 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 conduct, equipment practice and the safety expectations set 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: Established practitioner description of spearfishing technique, rigging configuration and the handling of a shot fish, recorded as practitioner literature rather than as scholarship.FishingHQ's interpretation of what it saysCitation 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 practice and equipment convention, recorded as practitioner consensus rather than as scholarship.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.