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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.

Spearguns and slings

Explainer · Last reviewed 2026-08-10

Band guns, pneumatic guns and pole spears differ in range, power, noise and simplicity, and the right choice follows from the water being dived rather than from the specification.

Safety

Knives and cutting tools — Can cause serious injury or death

A speargun discharges toward a person, or a band slips during loading and drives a spear or band end into the loader.

What reduces it: Load in the water, never point the gun at anything you are not shooting, keep the muzzle away from your buddy and yourself, and learn loading technique under instruction.

Entanglement — Can cause serious injury or death

A shot fish runs the shooting line around structure with the diver attached to it, or the line catches the diver during a shot.

What reduces it: Keep line and float systems clear of the body, carry an accessible cutting tool at all times, and be prepared to cut away rather than follow a fish into structure.

Three broad families cover most spearfishing. Band-powered guns use rubber bands to drive a spear along a track and dominate most of the world. Pneumatic guns store compressed air and are more common in parts of the Mediterranean. Pole spears and slings are simplest of all — a shaft, an elastic loop, and the diver's own reach.

The trade-offs are real and situational. Longer guns give range and accuracy in clear water and are unwieldy in caves, holes and kelp. Shorter guns manoeuvre in confined ground and lose range. More power drives a spear further and through larger fish, at the cost of recoil, noise and the difficulty of loading.

The honest summary is that a diver's ground determines the tool far more than any specification does, which is why divers who hunt several kinds of water own several guns.

Matching the gun to the water

In clear blue water where fish are approached at distance, a long band gun with multiple bands gives the reach and the flat trajectory that makes a shot possible at all.

In holes, caves, kelp and structure, that same gun cannot be aimed or loaded, and a short gun or a pole spear does the work. Hole hunting in particular is close-range work where a long gun is a liability.

For very large pelagic fish the considerations change again — spear mass, line and float systems matter more than the gun — and that is properly a blue-water subject rather than a general one.

Pole spears deserve more credit than they get: they are quiet, simple, cheap, and demand a closer approach, which many divers regard as the more skilful form of hunting rather than the more primitive one.

Practitioner consensus

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.

  • General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Widely restated practitioner accounts of gun length, power and ground selection in spearfishing.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
  • Sea Angler — Bauer Media (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Practitioner treatment of equipment selection for different underwater environments.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

Handling, which matters more than choice

A loaded speargun is a loaded weapon. The standing rules are consistent across every training body: load in the water rather than on the boat or shore, never point it at anything you are not shooting, keep the line and float system clear of your own body, and unload before exiting.

Band loading is where injuries happen. A band slipping during loading can drive a spear or a band end into the loader, and the technique for loading safely is a taught skill rather than an obvious one.

Line management is the entanglement risk, and it deserves the same attention as the gun. A shot fish running a line around structure with a diver attached to it is the situation that makes a cutting tool non-optional.

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 guidance on equipment handling, entanglement and carrying a cutting tool.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: Guidance on equipment-related hazards in breath-hold diving.States this directlyPassage read and verified

Where to go next

Where it matters

What these connections rest on (3)

Authoritative guidance — 3 connections

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 gun is the discipline's defining equipment.

    • DAN guidance on freediving safety, hypoxia and shallow-water blackout — Divers Alert Network (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Diver safety guidance underlying this connection. The gun is the discipline's defining equipment.States this directlyPassage read and verified

  • Blue-water spearfishing

    Long guns and heavy spears are the blue-water configuration.

    • DAN guidance on freediving safety, hypoxia and shallow-water blackout — Divers Alert Network (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Diver safety guidance underlying this connection. Long guns and heavy spears are the blue-water configuration.States this directlyPassage read and verified

  • Reef spearfishing

    Short guns and pole spears suit confined reef ground.

    • DAN guidance on freediving safety, hypoxia and shallow-water blackout — Divers Alert Network (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Diver safety guidance underlying this connection. Short guns and pole spears suit confined reef ground.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.

  • Bands and wishbones

    The power system is the defining difference between gun types.

    • BSAC diving safety guidance and annual incident report — British Sub-Aqua Club (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Diving body guidance on equipment configuration.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
    • Sea Angler — Bauer Media (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Equipment practice in spearfishing and sea angling.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

Related reading

What these connections rest on (4)

Authoritative guidance — 4 connections

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

  • An equipment maintenance checklist

    Storage is where most band life is lost.

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

  • Bands, wishbones and when to replace them

    The failure mode that injures people.

    • BSAC diving safety guidance and annual incident report — British Sub-Aqua Club (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Equipment inspection and replacement practice for load-bearing consumable components.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

  • Corrosion, maintenance and pre-dive inspection

    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

  • Shafts, threads and shaft diameter

    The two components cannot be selected independently.

    • FAO fishing gear types and fishing technology information — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Spear and harpoon construction and specification.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

How this compares

What these connections rest on (4)

Authoritative guidance — 4 connections

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

  • How a band speargun works

    The canonical record covers the family; this covers the mechanism.

    • FAO fishing gear types and fishing technology information — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Gear classification and construction for spears and powered spear devices.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

  • Pneumatic spearguns, and what they trade

    The second power system, treated as a trade rather than as an alternative.

    • FAO fishing gear types and fishing technology information — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Gear classification for powered spear devices and their propulsion systems.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

  • Speargun length, and what it decides

    The specification a reader meets first and the one most often answered with a wrong number.

    • FAO fishing gear types and fishing technology information — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Spear and powered spear gear specification and classification.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

  • Speargun or pole spear to start with

    The decision is an environment question more than a capability one.

    • FAO fishing gear types and fishing technology information — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Gear classification for spears, harpoons and hand-operated spear devices, and their fishing contexts.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

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 handling and entanglement guidance for divers.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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