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.
Catch handling and transport
Tackle · Last reviewed 2026-08-10
What happens to a fish after the shot — a welfare question, a food-quality question, and, if the fish is towed, a safety question.
Safety
Encounters with marine life — Can cause injury needing treatment
Bleeding fish towed on a stringer at the diver's waist are a strong attractant to sharks and other large predators, and they place that attractant on the diver's body rather than away from it.
What reduces it: Carry fish on the float rather than on your person, and keep the float at a distance. Get fish out of the water and onto a boat promptly. In water known to hold large predators, be prepared to release the catch entirely — a quick-release stringer exists for exactly this.
Worse when:
- In waters holding large predators
- On long swims back with a full stringer
- In poor visibility, where an approach is not seen
Fish welfare — Can cause injury needing treatment
A shot fish left on a stringer without being dispatched dies slowly. Spearfishing's claim to be a humane method rests on the fish being in hand within seconds — and that claim is only true if something is then done with those seconds.
What reduces it: Dispatch immediately with a spike to the brain, then bleed. Carry a sharp spike and know where the brain of the species you are taking actually is. Do not accumulate live fish on a stringer.
Knives and cutting tools — Can cause injury needing treatment
A sharp spike and a knife handled in the water, in swell, with cold hands and a moving fish, cause puncture and laceration injuries.
What reduces it: Sheathe tools when not in use. Control the fish before the spike goes anywhere near it. Do not dispatch a fish against your own body.
Precautions that always apply here
- Keep fingers out of the gills and clear of the teeth. Gill damage is usually fatal to the fish, and several species will remove skin from a finger.
- Handle spined and venomous species with the spines controlled. Know which local species have them before you fish, not afterwards.
- Never spearfish or freedive alone.
The moment after a fish is shot gets almost no attention in spearfishing writing, which is odd given that three separate things are decided in it.
The first is WELFARE. A speared fish should be dispatched promptly rather than left on a stringer to die slowly. A spike through the brain — the technique known as iki jime, from the Japanese — is immediate, and it is the humane option available to a spearfisher in a way that few other fishing methods can match, because the fish is in hand within seconds.
The second is FOOD QUALITY, and it points the same way. A fish that struggles depletes its muscle energy stores and floods the flesh with lactate and stress hormones; one dispatched immediately and bled does not. This is the reason iki jime and bleeding are standard practice in commercial fisheries that supply the top of the market, and the reason a spearfisher's fish can be better than anything on a slab.
The third is SAFETY, and it is why this record carries hazards. A stringer of bleeding fish towed behind a diver is a scent trail attached to a person. In waters holding large predators that is a genuine risk and not a theoretical one, and the answer — get fish out of the water and onto the boat or the float promptly — is straightforward and routinely ignored because it is inconvenient.
- Category
- Spearfishing equipment
What it does
Secures, dispatches and carries shot fish. A stringer or catch bag holds them; a spike dispatches them; and where a float is used, the whole assembly keeps them away from the diver's body — which is the function that turns a convenience into a safety measure.
How to choose one
- Dispatch immediately. Everything else about this record is downstream of that.
- Carry fish on the FLOAT, not on your belt. A stringer at your waist is a scent trail on your person.
- Get fish out of the water entirely — onto a boat, into a cooler — as soon as it is practical.
- A stringer that can be released with one hand, quickly, if it needs to be abandoned.
- Bleed the fish as well as spiking it if the fish is for eating; the two together make a real difference.
What the numbers mean
STRINGER TYPE: a simple through-the-gill cable, or a quick-release model that can be shed in a hurry — the second costs more and is what you want. SPIKE dimensions matter only in that the point must reach the brain of the fish you are actually taking; a spike sized for a mackerel will not do for a large grouper. CATCH BAG mesh determines drag in current, which is significant on a long swim. FLOAT ATTACHMENT should let the whole catch be released from the diver independently of the float itself.
Care, and how it fails
Rinse everything in fresh water, because blood and salt corrode cables, clips and spike points together. Check that quick-release mechanisms actually release under load and with cold hands, which is the only condition in which you will use them. Keep the spike sharp — a blunt spike does not achieve an immediate dispatch, which defeats the entire purpose. And check the stringer cable for corrosion, because it fails by dropping the day's fish rather than dangerously, which is why nobody checks it.
Where to go next
Where it is used
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.
Spearfishing
Catch handling is treated as part of the discipline's practice rather than as an afterthought.
- 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 managing equipment and catch in the water.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Sea Angler — Bauer Media (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Practitioner accounts of catch handling in spearfishing.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Authoritative guidance — 1 connection
Stated by a fisheries authority, scientific institute or recognised angling body. Authoritative, but summarising rather than demonstrating.
Spearfishing
Welfare and safety claims together, both above practitioner level — the first because dispatch practice is measurable, the second because towing bleeding fish is a documented attractant.
- Understanding the Complexity of Catch-and-Release in Recreational Fishing — Reviews in Fisheries Science 15:75–167, 2007 (Scientific literature)Relied on for: That handling and dispatch practice materially affect welfare outcomes, and that these are measurable rather than matters of opinion.FishingHQ's interpretation of what it saysCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- BSAC diving safety guidance and annual incident report — British Sub-Aqua Club (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: In-water handling of sharp equipment and general conduct around marine life.FishingHQ's interpretation of what it saysCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
What it works with
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.
Dive floats and float lines
A dependency between equipment, recorded because choosing one of these constrains the other. Convention, recorded as convention.
- 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
Understanding it
- Catch handling and dispatch in spearfishingDispatch and transport are one sequence: how a fish is killed decides how it must then be kept, and both affect welfare and eating quality.
- Scombroid poisoning, and why some fish must be chilled immediatelyThe general catch-care record assumes a temperate ambient temperature. This is the case where the time-and-temperature discipline stops being about quality and becomes about safety.
What these connections rest on (2)
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.
Catch handling and dispatch in spearfishing
Dispatch and cooling are described together in spearfishing practice because the second follows immediately from the first.
- 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 handling catch in the water.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Sea Angler — Bauer Media (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Practitioner accounts of dispatch and cooling.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Authoritative guidance — 1 connection
Stated by a fisheries authority, scientific institute or recognised angling body. Authoritative, but summarising rather than demonstrating.
Scombroid poisoning, and why some fish must be chilled immediately
The mechanism edge. A place that describes a physical process in prose and cannot link to it is restating a fact the catalogue should hold once, and this is the edge that turns the restatement into a reference.
- Fish and Fishery Products Hazards and Controls Guidance — US Food and Drug Administration, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, 2022 (Standards body)Relied on for: Hazards and controls for fish and fishery products, including scombrotoxin formation, the species associated with it and the time-and-temperature controls that prevent it.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Family placement, biology and flesh characteristics recorded for the species.Background and mechanism onlyPassage read and verified
Instead of this
- Stringers, catch bags, and keeping fish away from youWhy the catch goes on a float rather than on a belt, which is an argument about blood and vibration rather than about convenience.
- Icing and chilling a catch: the only variable that matters muchThe principle and the kit. What the catch needs, and what actually carries it home.
What these connections rest on (2)
Authoritative guidance — 1 connection
Stated by a fisheries authority, scientific institute or recognised angling body. Authoritative, but summarising rather than demonstrating.
Stringers, catch bags, and keeping fish away from you
Where the catch is carried is a safety decision.
- BSAC diving safety guidance and annual incident report — British Sub-Aqua Club (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Diving safety and equipment guidance on managing catch in the water.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Practitioner consensus — 2 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.
Stringers, catch bags, and keeping fish away from you
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
Icing and chilling a catch: the only variable that matters much
A navigational claim that a reader on one of these pages is likely to want the other. It asserts adjacency of subject matter rather than a fact about the world.
- Sea Angler — Bauer Media (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Contemporary UK and European sea angling practice as reported by practitioners, including catch handling convention.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 angling practice, recorded as consensus rather than as scholarship.Background and mechanism onlyCitation 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.
Sharks and spearfishing
Diving body guidance on shark encounters and catch management.
- BSAC diving safety guidance and annual incident report — British Sub-Aqua Club (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Guidance on managing catch in the water in the presence of sharks.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Sources for this page
- Understanding the Complexity of Catch-and-Release in Recreational Fishing — Reviews in Fisheries Science 15:75–167, 2007 (Scientific literature)Relied on for: That handling and dispatch practice materially affects fish welfare outcomes, and that welfare consequences of angling practice are measurable rather than a matter of opinion.FishingHQ's interpretation of what it saysCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- BSAC diving safety guidance and annual incident report — British Sub-Aqua Club (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Handling of sharp equipment in the water and general in-water conduct.FishingHQ's interpretation of what it saysCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.