Freediving Safety while Spearfishing

Christian Daehler, Training Director and PFI Freediving Instructor- Here at Florida Freedivers, we spend a lot of time focusing on the aspects of freedive safety. However all of this knowledge can easily go out the window as soon as we transition from linediving to a spearfishing environment. Between the added distractions of the fish, as well as the additional equipment such as spearguns, it becomes very easy to accidentally lose track of the basics of freedive safety and put yourself, or your dive buddies in a dangerous situation. In this discussion I will be breaking down the aspects of spearfishing that are most likely to distract you from safety, and provide some tips to help maintain an effective safety system with your dive buddies. 

We all know the basics of speargun safety- muzzle control, trigger control, and knowing what is beyond your target. And most of us follow these rules well. That said the times I have seen these rules get broken most (even by experienced spearos) is when divers are actively descending or ascending. For whatever reason, a lot of divers have the habit of pointing their gun towards the surface, either on the descent or ascent portion of their dive. The issue with this is that you are now pointing your gun directly at the person who is above you, actively safetying you. This becomes a particularly large problem on the ascent because in an ideal world, your safety is directly above you, but not that portion of the wate is down range. And even with an unloaded spear, getting swam into with a speargun is not a pleasant experience. 

Poor visibility is the next biggest killer of free dive safety that I have seen. If we don't know where our dive buddy is, we are no longer able to safety them. And with camouflage suits and slow, stealthy dives, it can be easy to lose sight of your diver even in good visibility. One of my favorite tricks to combat this is to wear small pieces of high visibility equipment. My weights, snorkel and fin rails are all white. This helps my dive buddy stay oriented to where I am in the water, regardless of how well my camoflauge blends into the reef, how far the current tries to sweep me away, or how many times they briefly look away to see what the other fish are up to. If the water visibility or currents are bad enough that my high visibility colors alone aren't getting the job done, clipping a float line to my gun is the next step. Float lines do a phenomenal job pointing directly to your diver so you can stay oriented to their location from the surface, even if they disappear out of sight. Just understand that in deep enough water and poor enough conditions, there is a point where even a float line will not help and you might have to switch spots or call off the trip. 

Another common breakdown of basic free dive safety I see while spearing is when spearos adopt the mindset that diving at the same time increases their chances of shooting fish. Not only does this break the one, up one down dive rule, but it also is less effective for getting fish in the boat. Think about it this way: At best, every diver in the water might spend 25% of their time actively diving. And even this is a generous number. If collectively as a group, we all dive at the same time,  75% of the opportunities we have to shoot fish are lost. But as we begin to stagger our dives, and increase the number of divers in our group, we can drastically increase the percentage of time we actively spend hunting. This means more shot opportunities and more fish in the boat. 

Amongst the largest breakdowns of our safety rules that I see is when a fish finally gets shot. Whether you're angling to shoot a fish of your own and double up, or simply helping your buddy land their fish, the excitement and chaos following that trigger pull makes it easy to forget about safety entirely. And this is particularly true in places like south Florida where predator species like to steal our fish if we don't act fast. Many of the fish that I have shot here in Florida would have never made it to the boat if I didn't have a buddy to help get a second shot or fend off the sharks. In these situations, we are able to continue diving with a good safety system by simply bringing out a larger group. For us, 4 is the perfect number because you have 1 diver actively hunting, 1 diver to help land fish, and 2 safeties at the surface.

If you made it this far into my post, I appreciate your passion for freedive safety, and I encourage you to have discussions with your dive buddies so you can figure out how your group can dive even safer. If you are interested in learning more about freedive safety, you might consider checking out or a freediver course. We host these courses every weekend and will teach you everything you need to become a proficient and safe diver. If you are interested in learning more about spearfishing, you might consider one of our Florida Freedivers spearfishing courses, where we cover everything from this post and more!