SettingSteel SpearGear

Monday, December 29, 2008

Spearfishing Question...Why am I here?

Its Monday Dec 29 and its still as still can be today winds under 5 seas flat...Synopsis
High pressure will be over South Florida today and then shift east into the Atlantic tonight. A weakening cold front will move across the South Florida waters early Tuesday with weak high pressure building behind the front through mid week....
and I'm here blogging, shhhht, oh well tomorrow we have planned to go out spearfishing"...Tuesday Northeast winds 5 to 10 knots. Bay waters a light chop..." so hopefully a post full of spearfishing porn and a great spearfishing story will follow! Stay tuned!!!

Guess I'll just go work on them low profile floatlines.

Till next spearfishing report, tight bands, straight shafts, and smooooooooth triggers!

Tone
http://www.settingsteelspeargear.com/

The Jack Kearns Spearfishing Classic

A bit of a late post, but better late than never. This is the first of what I hope will be others more to come of this really great tourney. The JKC originated after a meeting with Mike (the S. Florida Freedivers president http://southfloridafreedivers.com/) and Jack Kearns one of the oldest living Hawaiin Slingers around. Jack and Al Pinder put some serious hurt on fish throughout Florida & the Bahamas in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, and still today! As some of you know I've been pushing around a spearfishing contest http://forums.deeperblue.com/florida-east-coast/77248-miami-spearin-contest.html for some time now. The idea is to make this a yearly set spearfishing show and to make most of the prizes $$$$, thus the name "The Miami MoneyBag Shootout" Well after rolling it around I talked with a few others that had past experience and decided to start with a small show, the timing was right and the JK Classic came to be, originally it was thought out as a pole/sling spearfishing contest but later decided to throw in spearguns too. Well after a great show we hope next year to run the JK Classic as originally planned (sling/pole) and follow it up with the MMB Shootout. In fact, Jack suggested we make it a week long event with other water/spearfishing contests/events so who knows? Anyways heres a pictorial of the 2007 Jack Kearns Classic.....enjoy!!!

The start of a great day

The "earlybirds" getting it in gear for the shoot. The day called for some flat seas and less than 5mph winds...what we thought would be a 20-30 person show turned out to be an over 60 person spearfishing shoot and over 100 attended the weigh in party!

Here we have Carl getting ready to haul outta Scotty's in the "Prince of Tides" Carl is an ace Hawaiin Slinger and a hell of a nice guy!
Here we got the boys getting geared up for the "shotgun Start" of our spearfishing tournament
thats Jim with his new 25' Contender and me slightly hungover and having a bad hair day...all happied up to go spearfishing.
and they're off

Back at the weigh in thats the WidowMaker, Team Longfins, which took home a big chunk of the wood, nice platform
here weez got the boyz from Austins (which donated the Torres tips for the trophies) represent-ing....Wasuuup L&LThat'd be the man himself Mr. Jack Kearns, one hell of a great guy and a xpearfishing legend
Theres Jack and another great spearo Carl (note solar powered hat rigged to GPS)
Heres a deck full'o'fish taken by the first place H-slinger....quite a feat

A nice cooler
Thats Carl's slob Red taken on a slingHere's the prize fish a 50+ Cobia taken in 20' of water by the Longfins
here's a yellow jack and a 27"Mut I shot on the last drop and ironically the last shot in 30' spearfishing a nice plate
Here's a behind the seens hidden camera pic of a fellow (name witheld) assuring a place in the spearfishing shoot(all in good fun;)
Some of the sponsors and coordinatoors Julie (divewise on the right) and Amy (the go to girl that put alot of the show t/g)
A couple of the hostess that insisted on taking pic with yours truly
Good ol'fashioned fun at the spearfishing weigh in Some goodtimes thats Mike (Miami Freedivers presidente) in the middle right
Part of the prize table for the Jack Kearns Spearfishing Tournament...you know if a bottle of rum is on the prize list...its JUST gotta be good
First place slinger Leo Ramos...congrats again dude!
Harolf Dean first place professional and Longfins President Tito DiazTeam Longfins with the first place team trophy and first place amateur trophy WTG guys
A random pic of the the T's


And finally the Ooooolllllllll SeaDog at his finest
We want to give a special thanks to all the participants and the promoters that made the show happen...as well as all the guys/gals that donated time and $$$ for a good cause and in goodwill, just seeing a bunch of spearo's and speara's mingling, laughing, and have a downright good time is reward in and of itself...We hope next year to see you all again...Happy Holidays!



Till next spearfishing report, tight bands, straight shafts, and smooooooooth triggers!

Tone
http://www.settingsteel speargear.com/



Thursday, December 18, 2008

My very own Spearfishing Blog

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Well its official, I got my spearfishing blogspot up and running! Welcome to SettingSteel Spearfishing Blog where spearfishing is the passion and everything ocean and friends come together. The primary reasons I started this spearfishing blog is to have a log of the days I've gone freediving and spearfishing, hence a record of how the day was, how the spot(s) we speared fish produced, as well as a memory of the spearfishing trips. Cause at the end what you will take with you are those GREAT memories of friends and spearfishing our great ocean!!!

I hope to see some of my old spearfishing friends contribute as well as see some new friends come aboard. The spearfishing community is pretty small compared to other rec. sports, and here in Miami, Florida where I live its a pretty tight group of spearfisherman...In fact we usually will bump into one or two boaters carrying guns who'll wave at a distance, a kinda "hey wasup, I spearfish too" type of hello. Well I hope some of you guys recognize me and c'mon over and introduce yourselves, as one can never meet enough buds to spearfish with, or as I often say "Green some water".

Another reason I got this spearfishing blog going is to share experiences, stories and spearfishing tips. Some that might very well save you life (a little trivia for you). If you get all the high risk sports combined (eg base jumping, bungie jumping, race car driving motor cross, alpining etc.) freedive spearfishing kills more of us each year than all these sports combined! So yes safety is important and as I come across some gear that increases our spearfishing safety margin, or tips that can keep us safer I'll post'em up. Tips on getting more fish, dive deeper, shoot better etc. I'll also try and post- and I hope anyone else that comes across some stuff does it too.

Finally, as an Industrial Designer by trade, I'm a big time spearfishing tinkerer, always getting spearfishing gear and trying to "one up it" so to say, often times (more than I care to mention) meeting a dead end, but sometimes, just some itsy-bitsy times I come across some stuff that I {modestly} think every spearfisher person in the world should own...these few and far between pieces of gear I usually handmake in small runs for friends and friends of friends, and friends of friends of those friends, whose friend wanted a friend to have one of their friends friend so I made it for their friend...get it? This stuff you will soon find on my spearfishing web site http://www.settingsteel speargear.com/. Like I said its not alot of spearfishing stuff but its tried and true, simple and functional, and has pretty much a lifetime guarantee. You'll also find a few free things over there, yep free...so surf on, I mean submerge on over there and check it out...and like always opinions/ spearfishing reviews are always welcome. Anyone interested in trying out my spearfishing gear just gimme a holler and will go out (what better excuse) and trial it!

Till next spearfishing report, tight bands, straight shafts, and smooooooooth triggers!

Tone
http://www.settingsteel speargear.com/