Panama City Dive Charters
SCUBA gear, dive classes and diving vacations too!
5512 Thomas Drive
Panama City Beach, Florida 32408
850-588-8077
Open Daily from 9am to 6pm

Spearfishing

Spearfishing is essentially bow hunting underwater. It is neither easy to master or cheap to get into..... and its more addictive than crack. It also has its share of controversy as it is illegal to do on scuba in many European and Caribbean nations but not in the USA. So there are essentially two schools of spearfishing; freediving (breathhold) and scuba diving. There are different guns, styles and techniques used in each.

Philosophically we are a pro-spearing dive shop as an ethical spearfisherman has near zero by-catch, whereas a traditional angler will accidentally catch some undersize or undesirable species that have to be thrown back. A signifigant percentage of which die as a result of the stress or from waiting dolphins, barracudas, goliath groupers and sharks. In fisheries management this is known as "discard mortality."

We practice and teach ethical spearing practices in our shop and on our boats, and we are intolerant of anything less on the water, as we see ourselves as stewards of the marine environment. Our primary dive boat, the Steel Slinger, has a federal reef fish permit making it the only USCG inspected dive boat in the area legally able to take divers to the offshore wrecks, bridge spans and reefs. Our shop stocks more spearing gear than any other local dive shops. We are also the only shop to carry to two most accurate guns lines (Spearfishing Specialties for SCUBA and HammerHead for freediving) as tested by Spearing Magazine. We also host spearing tournaments and Calcuttas constantly. So, you could say that we are kinda into spearfishing here at Panama City Dive Charters.

Here is a pretty decent sample of pictures from our spearing charters and fun trips from the past few years. If it looks like we are having fun, its because we are! Look at the smiles. If you'd like to get into any aspect of underwater hunting we would like to teach you the tricks and ethics of spearfishing "the right way."

One thing diving hunters do have to deal with that traditional fishermen will seldom appreciate in its entirety, is that once you shoot a fish... you still have to keep it away from the other predators! Spearing is exactly a sport, its hunting in its most basic form, but it is extreme when you are head to head with a bull shark over who owns the fish on your stringer!

Winter 2011-12 Calcutta Dec-Feb
Shooter	AJ	Flounder	Grouper	Snapper	Hogfish	Sheepshead	Shovelnose	Spiny	Total
Pat Green (pd)			10.89				8.00		18.89
Tony DeJohn (pd)							14.00		14.00
Kyle Brown							7.00		7.00
Matt Watson (pd)							6.00		6.00
Reid Coley									0.00
Matt Walz									0.00
Pat Raley									0.00
James Green									0.00
Dave Kipp									0.00


Random number winner
Defending Champion
Spiny lobster and Flounder weight will be doubled for points!

It costs $20 to enter the Calcutta. All entrants weighing a fish have a chance to win a speargun. The speargun will be given away by a random number generator programmed with a low limit of the lowest score and a high limit of the highest score. Whichever diver has the closest score to the random number wins the gun. The shooter with the highest point total will win the cash pot. Come by the shop for more info, to sign up or weigh your dinner anytime during our business hours. Species change every quarter to reflect seasonal prevalence and changing regulations.

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Spearfishing