Learn to Bounce Dive for spearfishing

[ScubaSteve]

I have perfected my dives......

Funny how those 5 little words tell people everything they need to know about you. Anybody that makes this claim has no clue what diving is about and is just trying to get attention. Nothing you have said about Bounce Diving has provided anything that resembles solid advice. You are just rambling like a 13 year old on his parent's computer trying to get a laugh in before bed.

 

[captain]

All I can add is that here in south Louisiana there are about a half dozen or more spearfishing clubs that constitute maybe 100 active divers who routinely do the type of dives every weekend that VDGM is talking about and this has been going on for the last 40 + years. To my knowledge both as a participant and a charter captain taking these clubs out I have not observed an above average incident of DCS.
Anecdotal evidence, yes, but none the less the science and the anecdotal evidence do not agree.

Aeronautical engineering once said a bumble bee couldn't fly but the bumble bee didn't know it couldn't.

 

[lowviz]

All I can add is that here in south Louisiana there are about a half dozen or more spearfishing clubs that constitute maybe 100 active divers who routinely do the type of dives every weekend that VDGM is talking about and this has been going on for the last 40 + years. To my knowledge both as a participant and a charter captain taking these clubs out I have not observed an above average incident of DCS.
Anecdotal evidence, yes, but none the less the science and the anecdotal evidence do not agree.

Aeronautical engineering once said a bumble bee couldn't fly but the bumble bee didn't know it couldn't.

captain,

You might agree that bounce diving is rampant across all forms of diving unless one defines it so narrowly that it magically ceases to exist. Along with outright intentional bounce diving, OW instructors teaching CESA's are some of the best bounce divers around. Ask any mate on a dive boat if he/she ever did a bounce dive. "Biggie-sizing" a dive with a short drop to depth is also done by some divers.

VooDooGasMan's statements to the effect that bounce diving prepares one for advanced diving is what the melt-down is all about. Such statements are easily misunderstood. I've asked the mods to give bounce diving and related practices a non-public place in ScubaBoard, very much like solo diving. Bounce diving is an important topic as it is being done daily. It is also extremely controversial and I fear that SB's response to continued loose discussion in public forums will not be favorable to those that are genuinely interested in this topic.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

This mornings dive was going to be a deep bounce to give a better thought, as I was cutin the water I decided to go up Island where crab pots get lost on the slope, and thought ok Ill do a series of bounce dives and have a reason for it. Stopped for fishing report and a few of them said they would give me a hand and if they could have one.

I flew down the slope the sun was just rising, ran my tether through two pots at 160' then it was pitch black at 177' so i came back and clipped line. As I descended I swam up current on ascent and located more traps in the 120' range and the 100' range. I called the fisher up that has a pot puller and told him there will be dive buoy's and just pull them up. Went down after 40 min's and hooked three more, took another swim up current on ascent, pulled dive buoy in water and tied off. Grabbed anchor rope and tethered 50' of line and did a 20' current dive for a look for shallow pots, I could see about 40' bottom going down slope, AH down rigger ball, hooked it and it gave vertical line to inflatable, 1000 psi came up a little over a mile from entry.

Fisherman came and I told him I just want the buoy lines, give him the DR ball, he say's you don't want any of this these are almost brand new probably worth $500, I replied NAH, I have plenty and made my way home.

As I was at the beach he called and said he would get a coho for me, I said yummy.

So the dive was not really planned till I was leaving the beach, I do have the dive site down very well. Did a little kicking on ascent, nothing real extreme, did some task of hookin pots, which I have been doing for many years.

As I showered in warm water in my wet suit gear, I grabbed weight belt and snorkling gear and joined in the morning swim in the pool, and made a few dives to the bottom of the pool. I feel fine, these were no real dangerous dives just routine everday dives that divers make all over the world for what ever reason.

I added the pool, cause I am sure that divers on vacation jump in the pool, I do. and the coffee and pastries are to die for afterwards.

 

[Hank49]

Bounce diving is a style that everyone should know about, not a kept secret, as the spero's from the oil rig posted they told it the way it is. .

Maybe I missed it in your posts, but can you define "bounce" dive as it relates to spearfishing?
Descent rate
Max or min depth
ascent rate
bottom time

I see many negative posts regarding your....bounciness...but you may gain some credibility if you let us know exactly what you mean here. Of course, you could go the other way on credibility based on your criteria but at least try and be more clear.

 

[boulderjohn]

Aeronautical engineering once said a bumble bee couldn't fly but the bumble bee didn't know it couldn't.

That is actually a myth.

Science and the study of diving have had a great impact on diving practices over the decades. The PADI Recreational Dive Planner was created after extensive research showed that people who dived within its limitations could ascend at any time after any emergency with a greater then 99% chance of having no ill effects. For most people, those limitations are considered the definition of recreational diving.

Over the past few decades, several of the people known for pushing those boundaries to the limits learned how to do it safely, and they formed agencies to teach those skills. Diving safely beyond those limits has become known as technical diving.

The kind of bounce diving described in this thread is in a no man's land in between. It is the kind of diving that led to what we call technical diving, but no technical diving agency endorses it as described here because it includes none of the safety factors they endorse. It does not mitigate the effects of narcosis. It does not carry extra gas. It does not include redundancy in case of equipment failure. It does not include equipment to assist in a foreseeable emergency. In short, it assumes all will go well and carries no provision for the time that it will not go well. (Yes, there is a gray area within the navy and scientific communities that do practice relatively safe bounce dives, but that is not what we are talking about here.)

So why do it?

Perhaps it can best be summed up by a recent post in another thread in which a bounce diver explains why he does it. He sums it all up by saying, "At the end is the rush...the joy of feeling alive after the dive what makes the dive worth it... thats for me." VDGM has said in the past that he would like to die in a deep dive, and he repeated it in this thread. I am sure there are other reasons, but psychologists have a name for this one: it is called a death drive.

So can someone do dives like this and survive? Obviously so. Many people do it with great frequency without a problem. An apt comparison has been made to driving. There are many people who regularly have a few drinks and then drive at high speeds without any incidents as well. I imagine that they brag about it to friends and on internet social forums like this one.

But sometimes there are incidents. I was on the jury for a young lady who had a few drinks and drove head on into another car, killing the driver. A few weeks ago in Cozumel three experienced bounce divers planned a dive to 300 feet. One of them got narced and went to 400 feet before being stopped by one of the others. On their ascent those two ran of gas at 200 feet and had to buddy breathe with the third diver to the surface. One may not live. Another will never dive again. The third may have a satisfactory recovery. A few weeks ago one of the Louisiana bounce divers Captain raved about earlier in this thread went looking for a fish below 200 feet and never returned.

As divers we have choices. We can stay within recreational limits and almost certainly be safe. We can take technical diving training so that we can exceed those limits with relatively safety. Or we can bounce dive without those safety measures, fully understanding and perhaps enjoying the risks. It is all a matter of knowing what is right for you.

 

[danvolker]

This mornings dive was going to be a deep bounce to give a better thought, as I was cutin the water I decided to go up Island where crab pots get lost on the slope, and thought ok Ill do a series of bounce dives and have a reason for it. Stopped for fishing report and a few of them said they would give me a hand and if they could have one.

I flew down the slope the sun was just rising, ran my tether through two pots at 160' then it was pitch black at 177' so i came back and clipped line. As I descended I swam up current on ascent and located more traps in the 120' range and the 100' range. I called the fisher up that has a pot puller and told him there will be dive buoy's and just pull them up. Went down after 40 min's and hooked three more, took another swim up current on ascent, pulled dive buoy in water and tied off. Grabbed anchor rope and tethered 50' of line and did a 20' current dive for a look for shallow pots, I could see about 40' bottom going down slope, AH down rigger ball, hooked it and it gave vertical line to inflatable, 1000 psi came up a little over a mile from entry.

Fisherman came and I told him I just want the buoy lines, give him the DR ball, he say's you don't want any of this these are almost brand new probably worth $500, I replied NAH, I have plenty and made my way home.

As I was at the beach he called and said he would get a coho for me, I said yummy.

So the dive was not really planned till I was leaving the beach, I do have the dive site down very well. Did a little kicking on ascent, nothing real extreme, did some task of hookin pots, which I have been doing for many years.

As I showered in warm water in my wet suit gear, I grabbed weight belt and snorkling gear and joined in the morning swim in the pool, and made a few dives to the bottom of the pool. I feel fine, these were no real dangerous dives just routine everday dives that divers make all over the world for what ever reason.

I added the pool, cause I am sure that divers on vacation jump in the pool, I do. and the coffee and pastries are to die for afterwards.

Ever since Frank Hammett began Drift Diving in Palm Beach in the mid-50's, by towing a milk jug so a motor boat could follow him, spearfisherman like Frank have been doing short drops on spikes they saw on the fathometer. Many are just barges, some are patch reefs, there are hundreds of these off of Palm Beach. In the 80's and 90's, Frank would drop me and many other of his regulars, on small features where we might have good success finding one or two huge grouper or hogfish, and then you would come up and move on to the next site....

There is nothing "new" about bounce diving, and it is not worthy of having a name...it is a quick drop on a small feature, and then you are back up...You still need to be a trained diver, and you need to be wearing the right size tank for the depth....an 80 would be fine for a 90 foot deep quick drop, but would be a stupid choice for a drop to 160...aside from leaving little reserve for something unplanned, an 80 cu ft tank will not have enough gas in it for many quick drops....

More to the point, the people that may do this without hurting themselves, should have advanced training and/or huge experience diving with great divers that would have "mentored them". This would not be mentoring them in something retarded like "Bounce Diving", as their is nothing to learn for this. It would be mentoring in ascent shapes and ascent speeds, how to plan a stop when needed, and when not needed, and ......It would be "when" in the course of a full day of diving, your making a couple of quick drops will be unlikely to be bad for you, or, when they could cause significant bubbling and DCS...
I don't see any safe way of teaching this, as typically for spearfisherman, it will also be a solo drop, and if they are not already quite a good diver, this is just one more nail in the potential coffin.

Voodoo guy...why not just make this more useful and do a thread on the skills you have developed in projectile vomiting after a night on the town, and the science of how not to drown in your own puke. These are skills that you may even be able to sell/market to college fraternities, and while somewhat dangerous, are less likely to kill anyone than a thread on SB promoting the idea of "Bounce Diving" as a way for new divers to "progress forward with" !!!

 

[captain]

That is actually a myth.

Science and the study of diving have had a great impact on diving practices over the decades. The PADI Recreational Dive Planner was created after extensive research showed that people who dived within its limitations could ascend at any time after any emergency with a greater then 99% chance of having no ill effects. For most people, those limitations are considered the definition of recreational diving.

Over the past few decades, several of the people known for pushing those boundaries to the limits learned how to do it safely, and they formed agencies to teach those skills. Diving safely beyond those limits has become known as technical diving.

The kind of bounce diving described in this thread is in a no man's land in between. It is the kind of diving that led to what we call technical diving, but no technical diving agency endorses it as described here because it includes none of the safety factors they endorse. It does not mitigate the effects of narcosis. It does not carry extra gas. It does not include redundancy in case of equipment failure. It does not include equipment to assist in a foreseeable emergency. In short, it assumes all will go well and carries no provision for the time that it will not go well. (Yes, there is a gray area within the navy and scientific communities that do practice relatively safe bounce dives, but that is not what we are talking about here.)

So why do it?

Perhaps it can best be summed up by a recent post in another thread in which a bounce diver explains why he does it. He sums it all up by saying, "At the end is the rush...the joy of feeling alive after the dive what makes the dive worth it... thats for me." VDGM has said in the past that he would like to die in a deep dive, and he repeated it in this thread. I am sure there are other reasons, but psychologists have a name for this one: it is called a death drive.

So can someone do dives like this and survive? Obviously so. Many people do it with great frequency without a problem. An apt comparison has been made to driving. There are many people who regularly have a few drinks and then drive at high speeds without any incidents as well. I imagine that they brag about it to friends and on internet social forums like this one.

But sometimes there are incidents. I was on the jury for a young lady who had a few drinks and drove head on into another car, killing the driver. A few weeks ago in Cozumel three experienced bounce divers planned a dive to 300 feet. One of them got narced and went to 400 feet before being stopped by one of the others. On their ascent those two ran of gas at 200 feet and had to buddy breathe with the third diver to the surface. One may not live. Another will never dive again. The third may have a satisfactory recovery. A few weeks ago one of the Louisiana bounce divers Captain raved about earlier in this thread went looking for a fish below 200 feet and never returned.

As divers we have choices. We can stay within recreational limits and almost certainly be safe. We can take technical diving training so that we can exceed those limits with relatively safety. Or we can bounce dive without those safety measures, fully understanding and perhaps enjoying the risks. It is all a matter of knowing what is right for you.

I said "once", I know it was proven false. I used it as an example that what is thought to be gospel today may very well be proven wrong tomorrow.

On the Louisiana fatality, the first in a number of years that could have been attributed to the depth but neither you nor I will ever know what happened more so since there was no body or equipment to autopsy.

 

[boulderjohn]

I said "once", I know it was proven false. I used it as an example that what is thought to be gospel today may very well be proven wrong tomorrow.
.

Although ideas change, in this case it never did. No one can find any evidence that anyone every believed that bumblebees could not fly. There is a story that one guy made some drunken calculations in a bar that were widely reported but then realized his mistake the next day, but even that story is apocryphal.

Yes, it is true that things that were thought to be true in science sometimes change in time, but is that the way to live your life? Do you normally go around saying, "all of science says this is true, but I am going to believe the opposite because sometimes what science thinks turns out to be wrong"?

The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.

~Damon Runyon​

 

[Thalassamania]

As far as bumble bees are concerned, if that was true is was an engineer, most biologists will tell you that bumble bees store energy for their return wing-stroke in the deformation of their carapace. Hell hath no fury as an unwarranted assumption.