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Spears Who would have thought that what essentially is a straight piece of steel with a barb could have a talking point. It’s not even worth going down the road of "which is better" as there is no such thing. But there is a spear well suited for different occasions. In a sport where the target species can range from fish that are just 500grms to 300kg Marlin and Tuna. We can soon see the need for different spears. A Spear's Job Lets start with the fundamentals of the spear. A mass that must be driven through water accurately to then penetrate through a fish that might be some distance away. Stop the fish from getting away by means of a flopper and a connection to the gun, retain it's shape after being battered about by a fish. Water is a hard medium to transport anything through quickly. What makes the speargun such a success is the projectile is very heavy for the amount of water it disturbs. A Good Spear Positive aspects of a spear: Resistance to bending, maintains a point well, notches are nicely grooved( to give bridle better life), flopper and pin are strong enough to take the strain of a fighting fish, flopper engages well to avoid fish sliding off the spear. Pros and Cons of Different Spears Thickness, length. how they affect travel and behavior. A long spear will travel further than a short spear if both were accelerated to the same speed. A thicker spear will be harder to bend, but will require more energy to bring it to the same speed as a thinner spear of the same length. A short spear would be harder to bend but would not maintain a speed as well as a longer spear of the same thickness accelerated to the same speed. A large flopper would have less chance of loosing a fish but will have more influence on the flight path and speed of the spear. The Mod Spiral Lets imagine we have an ordinary 110cm aluminium speargun that has a 6.5mm spear and 16mm rubber slings. We have missed a few fish due to them being out of range. The first modification, is replace the 16mm rubbers with 20mm slings. Then we find the 6.5mm spear tends to whip on exit affecting the accuracy. To make the shot more stable we replace the 6.5mm spear with a 7mm spear. The whip has gone but now we have flex in the barrel which again is affecting the accuracy in a different manner. Next step, replace the barrel with one moreheavy duty. Which then makes the gun heavier. Controlling The Power A gun can be successfully modified, but one must be aware that with every change to achieve a goal there are often other characteristics that change that are less desirable. After all, we are driving a projectile that is quite a large percentage of the total weight of the gun. E.g. An Omer Excalibur Carbonium 110cm, which is a light gun. The spear weighs 380grms and the rest of the gun is 800grms. Making the spear almost a third of the total weight.This consequently produces recoil. Again a heavy speargun with the same spear would produce less recoil but making it less maneuverable. To Be continued