Episode 74: Spitfire Spearguns

This episode we have in Ben and Mike from Spitfire spear guns. We talk about how they go into diving and spear fishing as well as what brought them together, we also dive into how they came up with making their own unique spear guns and what makes them so different from others. They say small guns aren’t just for small fish as long as they pack a punch. 

Check them out @Spitfirespearguns 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome back to another episode of the Blue Hen Outdoors Podcast. I'm pleased to be joined with the fellas spear guns. How are you fellas doing tonight? Doing great, Hunter?

unknown 0:14

Hello.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

We're doing good. Doing pretty well, can't complain. Oh yeah. For sure. I always start all my episodes off with how did you guys get started, particularly you guys, into spear fishing and uh being in the water.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

I'll let Mike go first on that one. My story kind of weaves into his here. Okay, sure.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

So my background is as a scuba diver, actually. Um my my roots in diving go back to being a teenager. Uh I was a badly behaved kid and I was forced to go to summer camp. I didn't want to, uh, but my dad at least gave me the choice of where I would go. So I went to a summer camp that taught scuba diving. Uh so in a small dive shop in Virginia Beach, and I was at maybe 14, 15, I was certified to scuba dive. Eventually, uh, it left a really positive impression uh of this store and this organization. So eventually, when I was old enough to hold a job, I went back there looking for my first part-time job. They brought me in. Uh, and over the course of a couple of years, I became a scuba diving instructor and traveled all over and taught people to dive and did tons of diving, and that sort of led me into different types of diving, like spear fishing. And I realized that um spear fishing on scuba was cool, but it wasn't uh maybe the most pure way to enjoy the sport. It wasn't as much of a challenge, especially in the distress of dumb. Um, so I wanted to redive, I wanted to get into breath hole diving and explore that opportunity. Um, so I was fortunate to be super young, trying something new, and that worked well and made a lot of friends and kind of never looked back. Fast forward uh 10 years or so, I noticed, well, I felt that there was sort of uh a lack of purpose-driven spear guns for people that dive specifically uh in the mid-Atlantic sector, but uh Virginia, uh Carolina for sure, uh, even up to New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, the diving's quite challenging. And um, oftentimes we're in like very limited visibility, lots of current, but we're dealing with relatively big and strong fish. So it really warrants a unique tool. And that concept was sort of the very spark of this company, really. This I had this idea. I think I was just making a joke or like being funny talking to Ben about it. And I said, What if we made a gun called the Bridge Blaster? And it was this tiny little gun, but it shot a spear and it hit super hard, but it was ultra compact and maneuverable. Wouldn't that be cool? And I that was just kind of going to be the end of it for me. And Ben was really the uh catalyst to say, no, that would be cool, and we should do it. Um and obviously that's expanded. Our our sort of vision of spear guns and product line has expanded, but we've maintained this idea of having something that's extremely thoughtfully designed and sort of carries this idea of of logic and practicality, like everything you need, but nothing that you don't need in terms of having an effective, streamlined, and uh comfortable to use spear gun.

SPEAKER_03 3:59

Yeah. So I mean you can tell Mike's really the uh uh uh the whiz kid behind the the spear gun design and you know the purpose behind it. I got my start diving um about six years ago, and I actually grew up nowhere close to the ocean. I grew up about 2,000 miles away from the nearest ocean in Colorado. So I had been snorkeling in Mexico twice in my life, um, and I didn't even know what spearfishing was until I was about 22 years old. And um, you know, longer longer uh story would definitely be a tangent to give you this background, but long story short, I ended up in Hawaii, and that's where I discovered what spear fishing was. I had friends that were that were into it, and um, you know, I literally basically got thrown in the water on one of my first days living in Hawaii. My friend said, Hey, we're gonna go spear fishing. Here's a you know, $10 pair of shitty little fins and a mask that fogs up. We'll give you a gun and just come out and see what happens. And so, you know, I don't know if uh you've ever been diving in Hawaii or talked to guys who dive there, and you can shore dive really effectively. It's not like the East Coast where you've got to make 15, 30 mile runs out. You can literally just hop in the water and be spearing fish within five minutes. You know, I'm out there day one, no idea what I'm doing. I probably haven't even swam in about two years, no idea how to dive. My friends, no coaching, no instruction. Just hey, follow us around, we're gonna spend a few hours here, see what happens. Um Safe to say that very first dive was uh I wasn't very good. I literally had no idea what I was doing, but I felt like this is there's something to this, like this is something interesting and totally brand new for me. So um I just kept going. You know, I was borrowing equipment and slowly like sort of teaching myself to dive, diving five feet, ten feet, learning how to use a spear gun, um, trying to shoot my very first fish, like learning how to, you know, be a partner and a dive buddy in the water with somebody else. Um and you know, because of where I was and where I lived, we were really, really fortunate that we could just go, you know, after work or multiple times a week, just really hop in the water very, very frequently. So um it didn't take very long of doing that with consistency to learn a little bit, you know, things, especially with the caliber of diver that is in Hawaii. I mean, you got 50 feet depth, um, an eighth of a mile offshore, you know, three to three hundred feet offshore. So smart, and they've been hunted for a long time in that way. Um, so in order to actually land fish, you gotta you gotta be good. So I basically just learned through that, and you know, two, three years later, I was an adept spear fisherman, diving 50 feet, shooting fish, and I was actually very fortunate as well to um have some friends and connections out there who did have boat access and you know were you know the cream of the crop professional fishermen knew the spots, knew where to go, had the resources to go far offshore, hit other islands, hit little like tiny uninhabited islands that nobody could get to. And so um I got to do a lot of really, really cool diving through that. I was very fortunate. I wound up just you know keeping it going. I went, I got free dive certified in Thailand um through Ada, and then I wound up uh uh getting my Ada four in Dominica to my friend who owns a dive school down there, and so I just really turned it into a passion. It was kind of something I stumbled upon and um ended up you know being fortunate enough to do it pretty much all over the world at this point. When I moved to Carolina, which was not that long ago, a little less than a year and a half ago, um I got the itch to dive, but I didn't know anyone out here, and I'm you know I live in Raleigh, so I'm not necessarily on the coast, it's a big shift for me from Hawaii. Um and so I turned to Facebook and was like, hey, I know you guys are out here, who's out here? Um I and it was crickets. I was like, I know there's a dive scene here, but like I know it's gonna be a lot smaller and a lot more niche. Like everybody in Hawaii is a diver, you know what I mean? Out here, it's a little different. So um Mike hit me up and he was like, Hey man, we're from Virginia, but uh you know, we go down to the outer banks and dive all the time. We got a trip coming up. You should join us. So I was like, Fuck yeah. First, you know, pretty much the only guys who give me a shot out here. And um wound up diving with Mike and a couple other guys who you are now friends. And uh yeah, man, I mean, pretty much just like crushed it all summer with these guys. Like East Coast diving was brand was brand new to me at the time and learning you know the difference in techniques and the and the different fish, and it was I mean, I felt like I was rediscovering it in a lot of ways, like it was the same sport, but it was different at the same time, new environment, new people, new challenges. Um, and yeah, we just had a great summer. We wound up doing a trip to Puerto Rico in December for for Wahoo, and like that was really fun. So that's I think where the spear gun conversation started to happen. Um, where like Mike said, he was talking about this sort of stuff almost in a in a joking way, almost in in like a wouldn't it be cool, or like a pipe dream kind of way. And I was like, hey man, like and he had already you know, he had fixed my guns, and like I knew that he knew what he was doing when it came to spear guns himself. So I was like, we should do it, like let's let's get this going. So we got it off the ground, we got a couple prototypes, we started talking about it to people, just you know, through the network out here, and it really like people wanted it real bad. So we made the leap, we started the business, we invested in it, we made a production run of guns, they sold really, really well. So now we're doubling down in the process of round two right now, and um, yeah, I mean, people are out there at Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel killing big sheep's head with our guns, and like people are actually you know using them for their intended purpose, which is really, really cool to see. So that's kind of that's how I got my start, and that's how I you know got involved with Mike and how we sort of wound up here.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Awesome, man. That's awesome. And it's great how Ben you used like Facebook groups. I mean, that's how kind of I started and got into it. Like me being in Delaware, Jersey kind of will the beaches down here kind of it's like more niche of a community, but up in Jersey, people are kind of like, yeah, come on out with us, you know, it's not that far of a drive, or come on up, you know, we'll go hit like Cape May or go hit Long Beach Island or go hit uh Masquam River up uh a little more north. And it's like that's a great tool, I think, is for like guys like us that were trying to get into it or in a new area to be like, hey, where's the community at? How can I get into this? Especially you, Bet me from coming from Hawaii out here, it is definitely totally different. I'm a total outsider.

SPEAKER_03 11:08

Like I can dive, I'm an I'm an adept diver, but I mean, I was you know, especially when I first showed up here, I was a complete outsider. So I'm like feeling very blessed and like know people in the community at this point in time.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

What's your opinion on the uh Viz differences and like the fish differences being from Hawaii to coming out east Ben?

SPEAKER_03 11:32

Oh, that's a good question. Um they're both very different. So in Hawaii, you know, you have this really uh rocky coral, giant coral structure. I don't know if you know you dive out in the Atlantic, like you dive out in Wilmington, and yeah, there's reef, but it's mostly um you know flatter ledge type terrain with uh more like plant-based sort of reef. Out in Hawaii, it's all real rocky, really, really structure-based, um, and it's everywhere, surrounds the whole island. So, pretty much anywhere you shore dive, you're hunting reef fish specifically. Um, oftentimes they're smaller, and just do the topography and in depth, like you're diving a lot deeper for a lot smaller fish, and um you know the Viz is generally a lot clearer and cleaner. So you got these deep drops where you can see everything, it's really, really structure-oriented. Um, the fish are very, very smart, and you have to deploy all of the right hunting tactics in order to land a fish. You can't, you know, you maybe could get lucky and dive bomb on something, or you know, something swims by at the right time and it's hungry and a little too curious, but generally you're gonna have to dive to the bottom, you're gonna have to wait, you're gonna have to you know throw some sand or hide or deploy some of those more like hunt hunting style tactics. Um whereas I mean out here the Viz is generally like if you can see you know 40-50 feet, that's a really, really good thing. Um and personally, just you know, diving warming and stuff, yeah, you go you can go hunt the bottom and stuff like that. But um a lot of the you know, the diving I've done here tonight, I don't have you know nearly as much experience as Mike, but I find myself shooting fish mid-water column, a little bit more dirty water. They're like maybe on structure mid-water column. And so the Viz is worse out here, but I would say the fishing itself is more fun, at least for me personally, because the fish are bigger, it's a little bit easier. I mean, you don't have to be a Ryan Myers uh 150-foot diver, four-minute breath hold type to get a really, really awesome fish. Um, we can do we can do that, by the way. We we are, we are, but yeah, but you don't have to be. That's that's all so I I would just say like the conditions are a little bit less like beautiful here, quote unquote, but the fishing is more fun. Um and to me that almost adds to weaveness of the experience, too, where it's like, yeah, like maybe this we got swell and wind, but like the shit's exciting, you know. So I do really, really like diving out here a lot.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Dive in in Virginia uh is kind of like an ambush style of hunting. The limited visibility works both ways. The fish can't see either, they can hear and feel, but you can also, and it requires all of your senses to be an effective hunter and low visibility, but you usually have an opportunity to shoot uh the same moment that you see the fish, the fish kind of sees you. And if your body language is good, usually they don't just freak out and swim away. When you're diving in super clear water, you have to convince this fish to become curious and come to you because it can they see you from a long way off, and you see them from a long way off, and it's cat and mouse. You've got to be a super skilled hunter to manage that environment correctly and find a way to actually trigger their curiosity so much that they approach you, and then you can have an opportunity. You can't chase them. And Virginia, you can sort of chase the visibility, it's a limit is sort of uh you get comfortable and limited visibility, and then it becomes an advantage, really. Is what I'm trying to say. I think what what Ben's experience in Hawaii is way, way harder, way harder.

SPEAKER_03 15:44

That's not to say that you won't have to be a skilled hunter here, too, though. Like the first couple times I dove Virginia Beach, and you know, a sheep's head zoomed like two feet from my face and went by real quick, and I was like, wait a second, what what the fuck just happened? Didn't even get a shot off. Um, I you know, I kind of felt I felt like foolish, I'll not foolish, but like I was like, I'm new, I'm brand new to this style. So it's just a different style of hunting that requires different techniques. Um, but yeah, that's not to say that it's you know, you you can just be a bad hunter and land good fish out here by any stretch.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yeah, oh for sure. So, how did you guys take the pipe dream that you guys mentioned of oh, this would be a cool way to have a gun for our con area to actually doing it?

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Um I just kind of couldn't stop thinking about it. And I I guess Ben heard it enough times that he was like, all right, let's do it. And um one of the things that kind of had me chomp into it to do this was um just the availability of parts and materials. You know, I kind of looked into this on my own one time and I was like, you know, what do it take to actually be a wholesaler for some of these things and and be able to get products at a price where it makes sense to resell them? And I realized that the door was open. You know, there's a ton of supportive uh vendors and suppliers that want to start business relationships and are willing to help you move forward, and it's it's really not that complicated. And the more I learned about that, the more I felt empowered, but I also felt like you know, and I don't want to be disparaging, but I when I started to see what things actually cost and see how simple some of these supply chains are, I sort of became frustrated looking around at what things cost. Um so I just felt like you know, there's even more of an opportunity here to sort of come on the scene and create a unique product, but also be the good guys, you know, and people ahead and like make sure they're getting it at a price that makes sense. Like my one of the things that I kept saying to myself was like nice guns should be for everybody, like nice quality spear guns should be for everybody. It sucks to see somebody that's excited and takes time off and you know travels a long way and they wake up early and they pay their charter fare and they get somewhere, and you know, the gun that they've brought underperforms or something breaks, or you know, it just leaves the worst taste in your mouth. It's the biggest bummer on earth. And I'm like, you know, with just an extra layer of like thoughtfulness and practical design, like this can all be prevented. And I think that that's what really stuck with me is like more people should have access to this, and there's like an 80% thought thought completion in terms of like getting something that's really, really good, like actually makes sense. Like, have you ever really thought through some of these things? You know, you see guys swimming around with guns loaded the wrong way, and I'm like, well, why are they loaded like that? Well, because it's impossible to load that gun a different way. So, how do we fix that? How do we make that gun so that it can be loaded the right way? How do we get everything perfect and streamlined and fit, you know? And that's where I really start to become obsessed. Uh and Ben Ben validated it all, you know. Ben me and Ben are like super compatible, we dive a lot together, we spend a ton of time together, we're on the phone pretty much all day, every day. Um, because we're in a baby phase, right? Like everything we do is very sensitive and very like time intensive because these decisions that we make now will shape the future of what Spitfire looks like. So we're hyper-analytical, and uh, I have to say, like, I really uh am glad that we're here in this together because Ben thinks very differently than I do. And like when we can sort of lock arms and get both of our brains going, I think that we can really create special products and like make people happy, and that feels really good.

SPEAKER_03 20:18

Mike is, you know, he's the he's the wizard wizard of oz here, basically. Like he's the man behind the gun, like you know, the the the name and like all of like you know the soul of the brand. But I was the missing piece in terms of like taking this from an idea in his brain to you know being the guiding factor in like the fact that you see him in a Spitfire t-shirt with a banner behind him right now in like real life, you know what I mean? So I am Mike, like I was basically just the catalyst of like, let's just materialize this and turn it from an actual idea into something that's real, and let's just take it one step at a time here. Let's just draw. And that's how you know it's it's just it's like doing anything else. It's like hiking, swimming. You put one foot in front of the other, and you just keep putting one foot in front of the other until all of a sudden you're you know 10 miles down the road or whatever. So we started with our first foot was like, let's get some prototypes. Mike knows, you know, he's done, like you said, he's did his research on where to go to the suppliers to get different parts, and he knew what he wanted, and he know, you know, he knows what trigger mech goes with what muzzle and what length the bands need to be. And all of a sudden, just like, cool, pick it out, go put it together, we'll order it, we'll, you know, just make a gun, we'll and we'll start there. Um, and then so that first product led into like, cool, the gun works, it's great. We've you know dove with it, we've shot it in the pool, we've showed it to people, a little bit of excitement around this. Um let's pour some more money into this and go make 15 more and try to sell them and see what happens. And then that worked out, and so. And then like we've doubled down on like the branding and like you know starting a social media account and um you know we're we're just gonna keep going, I guess. Like just the next foot in front of the cook before it.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

What's funny is that when when when we got started, our first run of guns was basically there's so many options of what you could do, right? Like you could just go crazy and get a bank loan for 10 million dollars and build 20 billion spear guns, but you know, we're like, is this gonna work? You know, we need to feel this out, like almost like uh I knew the design would work, I knew it worked. Um but uh it's different once you're ten thousand dollars in debt. Like no, I'm not confident in anything really at that point, you know what I mean. Um so we basically place an order and just order the bare minimum that we could to get the wholesale prices from our suppliers, and that's kind of how we figured out what guns to make was like to just get as little as possible and do the safest uh trial run that we could, and it was way harder than I thought. Like I transformed an extra room in my apartment into spear gun factory, and there were so many challenges, headaches, and like problems that we ran into. And at the same time, as I was like frustrated and tired, I started to realize like this is gonna work because every other problem I ran into, I would tell Banner said, Hey, we got another setback, hey, we've got this problem, hey, we've got that problem. And he's just so easy and refreshing to deal with through all of these challenges and headaches that you know for most people would have been a deal breaker. And he's just like, All right, let's fix it, let's fix it. What do we need? What do we need? What do we need? So he actually ended up supplementing a whole bunch of parts for our first order at full retail. Like we couldn't. I just made some mistakes and ran into unforeseen issues, and we actually ended up having to resupply ourselves with more parts, but didn't want to spend the amount to get the retail the wholesale price from our wholesalers, so we had to buy them at full retail. Um, but it worked, you know, and we sold all the guns, and at the end of the day, it was a success story. So it was it was really fun, it was really uh made me feel lucky looking back on it to like work with somebody that, like I said, thinks so differently because when you have these different minds applied, you really are unstoppable, you know. You can really see things from a bunch of different perspectives. Um, yeah, so the the beginning was uh a little crazy, but we got through it.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Yeah, oh yeah, for sure. I also love how you guys have, I mean, you even mentioned it here, you guys have kind of more compact guns with power versus having to make like the big fancy quote unquote cannons that people use for like offshore, like just to dive uh kind of inshore in general. And it's like, no, you can do all that in a smaller package if you need it, and which in my opinion is perfect for around here because you know it's maneuverability easier around like some structures or like around the jetties or like around inlets and stuff like that. Because that's kind of most of the spear fishing, at least to my knowledge, is around our our area and even more up north.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

But it's you're 100% right. And you know, just because you need a short gun doesn't mean that you shouldn't have a strong gun. And I I I you what you just said reminded me of watching this guy uh from a different spear gun company, and he's on Instagram with thousands of followers, and he's lamenting about how small guns are for small fish. And I'm like, dude, you are a fucking idiot, man. Like I don't know what that mentality is, but like you you're like maybe in your mind they are, but I mean that's really what you should say is in your opinion, small guns are for small fish. Because I mean, we'll prove you wrong pretty much any day of the week. The this the problem is that a lot of small guns are built like small guns, they have a thin, weak shaft, a wimpy band, uh cheap barrel, and it's like, what am I supposed to do with that? So uh we were all using pneumatic guns in the bay. We're using these air-powered spear guns that are like it's like the cheapest thing ever, they're so crappily made. Uh, but they shoot a big, thick eight millimeter shaft, they shoot hard as hell. Um, they're in and and insanely effective. The problem is it's a piece of shit. And if if something breaks, there's no fixing it. You know, you can't get that thing apart and figure out where your problem is and and fix it. And it's kind of like shooting a really cheap high-caliber handgun. It's it's not very enjoyable for the user. So I'm like, well, what if we replicate that, but we just max the thing out with high quality parts. So our little guns are shooting an eight millimeter shaft that's made specifically for this gun. Um, there's no very little overhang. I don't know if this will show up on video, but you see how little shaft overhang there is from the tip of the spear gun. That's another thing that always kind of confused the shit out of me. Is like, if I need a small gun, why is the shaft overhanging 10 inches? Like that counts as length. You know what I'm saying? Like, you can't really wave that shaft in a fish's face and limited visibility and expect to have an opportunity to shoot it. You need a compact, stout package. So it all kind of just started coming together for this little gun that we call the bridge blaster. It's and uh it's a carbon fiber barrel, so it's super stiff, it can accommodate a really thick, high-energy band. And that's another part we have made specifically for us. We got I asked this guy, he said, Hey, can you source this type of band? He goes, Doesn't exist, no such thing. I said, Okay, watch this. So I called this guy, uh, from the best the best latex spear gun uh producer called Primeline. I said, Can you make this?

SPEAKER_02 28:56

And he goes, Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

So, great. We're well, we're your new customers, thank you. So we have this ultra small inside diameter band. Um, so it's just super high energy, and we the bands are nice and tight, they're stretched extremely long. Uh, every inch of the gun we've utilized for band for band stretch, um, that's another huge deal to us. It's like, you know, people think about making a spear gun powerful when they think, well, let me put these crazy tight, thick rubber bands on here and juice this thing up as much as possible. It's the wrong mentality. But what makes your spear gun powerful is the length of drive, it's the distance that the band is pushing the shaft. So that's why we've gone with sort of uh it's not like new technology anymore, but it's uh new to a lot of people. It's called a roller style muzzle where our spear gun bands actually are stretched along the top and bottom of the muzzle, and they feed through a set of rollers with ceramic bearings at the tip of the gun. And what it does is allows you more band drive length for your size, and that's basically how we have gotten this thing to perform the way it does. A few very niche but deeply thought out design features. Oh, yeah, and I until I had one in my hands, I always wanted you know, I always thought I found myself saying this a ton. I was I kept saying in my head, this would be great if or this is almost perfect, but or I really don't like this thing, but I guess I'll live with it because what choice do I have? And then I realized, you know, I just do it myself. Well, with me and Ben will do it, but you know, if you want something that doesn't exist, you gotta create it. Oh, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

And it's cool if you guys have the roller style too, because at least to my knowledge, most people that I've seen or talked to around here use the regular pool bands instead of using a roller style. They kind of save the roller stuff for more deeper water or bigger, bigger fish. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 31:20

Exactly. That's that's what Mike's talking about when you know he's referencing that small guns are for small fish, um, type conversation. It's like nobody's making a 55 centimeter roller gun because people you know have that mentality that like small guns are you know shitty, they're supposed to be shitty, they're not supposed to be a good fish. Um, so we don't, you know, Mike really just took that notion, just completely flipped it on its head. Oh, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

Rollers are one of those things that comes down to preference. You know, it's you can't say one design is better than the other. There's plenty of room for preference, right? But at the end of the day, performance is performance, like there is hard data points that you sort of can't ignore, whether you like roller guns or conventional guns. There's there's a reason that we did it this way.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

Oh no, you're good. I mean, that's a good point though, too. It's like you can't beat the data, like like stats and numbers don't lie as far as like performance. It's like it's like a high performance athlete, you know, you can't not uh say, okay, these are the intangibles, and uh X, Y, and Z is what you're looking for, and okay, this is how we made it, you know, or the performance is there, you just can't not see it. So to speak 100%. But I was gonna say, how have you guys seen uh the sport of spear fishing grow within the past uh I I would say at least five or six years, in my opinion, and it's still continuing to grow from what I've seen.

SPEAKER_03 33:09

I mean, it's it's hard for me, you know, it's hard for me to say specifically because I don't have access to like data or anything like that, but just anecdotally, through my own experience, like um, you know, just noticing more and more people starting to dive, having friends who previously you know weren't into it, want to get into it or start to get into it. I'm watching them progress. Um, and I mean Mike could probably give you a better answer on that because like I consider myself a pretty new diver as well. I've been diving for less than 10 years, you know, I've been dying for like seven years. So um, yeah, I I mean I've just seen it, like like you said, it was kind of notice it, but it would be cool if there was like stats on how big the or much the sport is actually growing. I'd be interested in that because I know it is.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

Yeah, it's a hard question to answer with you know any like sort of absolute terms, but one of the things that I've noticed that is wildly different from when I started diving is the availability of instruction. When I first started diving, a free diving course was an ultra specialty thing, and it was uh hard to find one. I was certified through performance free diving in 2009. Um, and that company has since been absorbed by a major diving instruction group called TDI, I think that I'm pretty sure that's right. But now every scuba agency offers a free diving course, and you can travel all over the place and go do a spearfishing class. So people are enabled to try things that they wouldn't necessarily have access to, just trying, right? Like that's a huge deal, is like the opportunity for someone to show up and not not without risk because you're in the ocean and there's ocean things happening, but without having to buy a spear gun, buy a mask and snorkel, buy fence. You don't have to make this massive investment to go try something new. You can go try it first and then decide if that's something you want to pursue or not. And um, I think that that has certainly helped grow grow the industry. I mean, I remember when I was started diving at the Bay Bridge Tunnel, uh we'd go out a lot of times and we wouldn't see another dive flag. And now we go out and see four or five groups diving at a time, and it it's really cool, you know. Like um it's cool to see more and more people get into it and see the sport expand and grow. And um, you know, I I hope that everyone does it and enjoys it as much as we do because it's there's nothing like it, you know, it's it's it's really addicting and very, very satisfying. We went to Puerto Rico, it Ben mentioned it went to Puerto Rico in December, and the guy that uh we hired for our charter, uh, we can plug him actually, he's a good dude. His name is Anthony Dooley. Um, his charter is called uh Life Below the Surface. The guy is an OG, like he's he's the real deal. And you could literally show up with your family with no diving gear, nothing, and go on Anthony's boat and like experience spear fishing. And and when you'd be successful too, like he has such a great working knowledge of that area and can take pretty much anybody from an absolute beginner to a pro and make sure they have a good time. But it's it's people like that that have resources and this sort of nurturing mentality that are responsible for growing the business for sure.

SPEAKER_03 36:53

Yep. It's people who have dedicated their their life, like their professional lives to making this happen for other people that have really enabled that. And I I mean I've also seen that too through uh just competitive free diving. I think it's like a tangential thing that's really growing and also feeds the spearfishing community. Um, like you know, I I even have friends who like I have friends who opened a dive school in you know a tiny little random country in the Caribbean and are plugged in, you know, like you got and then started hosting free dive competitions, and now all of a sudden the dive competition that they host is part of this whole like professional circuit of free diving competitions, and that's happening all over the world. Um, so you have this, you know, legitimate, uh I almost akin it to like cycling or you know, some sport where it's like competitive against other people, but it also requires like you know, it's it's not a team sport, it's you and your body in your own training competing against groups of other people, like that style of sport. Um you know, and I feel like that's just been growing a lot in general, too, and a bunch of different types of sports, but that is you know blowing up too. And I feel like that's got a lot of bleed over in your spear fishing in general. I think people are just um just being discovered, you know, because once you try it, once you're into it, I don't know a lot of people who have really tried it and gone into it that were like, I hate this, you know. This this isn't for me. Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

I mean, I know me personally, I I use the term diving loosely. I've been diving for like a year and a half now. I haven't really gothing too much. I mean, like I have spears or my spear on with me, but it's like I'm more just diving and trying to like get a feel for everything, see like how I am in the water and how to move and that kind of stuff. And like test the condition, not test the conditions, but like gauge what conditions are good and what's bad for me to be going out in. Like I was just down at Myrtle Beach this past weekend, and um I went out like the first or second day we got down there at uh one of the jetties down there. And it was rough to say the least, but I was like, okay, I'm just gonna go out and see if I can make something happen. But it was definitely an ordeal, but I'm like, okay, now I know what not to go out and or what to look forward to not be in, or have it be a little calmer.

SPEAKER_03 39:21

Part of the alert, too, is it's such a multidimensional thing, you know. You're not, it's not like the only thing you're doing is pulling the trigger on fish. There you're also it's very much just like a sensory experience. Um, you know, you're experiencing the environment around you, you have to make judgment calls. It requires a ton of like critical thinking, and you know, so there's just so many different skills that go into being able to even be in the position to pull the trigger on a big fish. Um, and so like that is also part of the sport itself and the like addiction for lack of a better word, um, is you know, just knowing how many different factors had to go in to even give you that opportunity to be in that spot to do this part of spearfishing. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

If anybody listens to this, if anybody listens to this and decides for the first time that they're gonna go and try spear fishing, give it give it a fair try. Like give it like an hour and a half, an hour at least, because last weekend we were diving in uh Wilmington together, and it was like the the very beginning of the second day, and I swam up to Ben and I just said, you know, every time I get back in the water for the first time, I wonder like what the fuck I'm doing here because it feels so bad and so hard when you get started, like even when you're good at it, like the first 45 minutes of of this activity is just pain. It's like getting loose and getting being able to relax and stretching your diaphragm and like getting to the point where like diving actually feels good again. But when you first start, nothing about it feels good. You're just like, what the hell am I doing? Like, you gotta just kind of get past that point, yeah, and then once you're through there and you learn to relax and you start having fun. Well, no, I'll start.

SPEAKER_00 41:21

Yeah, I was gonna even say the sports beer fishing itself, in my opinion, has grown because when I first started and looking into it, it's like, oh man, I can never do this around here. Like, why am I even looking into doing it? Because like people think of like Florida or going down to the like Caribbean islands or Hawaii or like clear blue water, so to speak. And it's like, no, you can do it here where the water's not as clear or as like much visibility. You can do it with the fish around here. I mean, shoot, you even see people in landlocked and lakes doing it freshwater, big time, yeah. Huge deal.

SPEAKER_01 42:01

You know, you don't have to be uh like a freshwater tournament or freshwater, like it might have been like a World Cup freshwater, it was some kind of prestigious tournament, and the purpose of the event was to uh remove carp to remove invasive species, and that's a big deal in Hawaii, too. You know, that they've figured out to sort of cross-utilize this sport between something that's enjoyable and something that's good for the environment. The first guns we ever we ever sold outside of uh like our friends, right? Like our friends have been crazy supportive. Like everybody that we dive with that we know, like they're all they've all been rooting for us and they've been crazy supportive. And I'm like, you know, like if you guys want guns, like we're we're happy to sell them to you, and they're like, but you don't have to do this, and they're like, no, shut, shut up, man. Sell us a gun, like as soon as you can get one ready. But the first guns that we sold to people we didn't know went to Hawaii, and I'm like, what the hell? Like, we got like 40 followers on Instagram, our websites like halfway up, and here's these two dudes in Hawaii, and they're like, Yo, we want two guns, 75 and a 90. I'm like, wow, okay, like we got it, man. I'll I'll send it to you tomorrow. And come to find out, you know, they uh wanted the guns to go into this tournament to it uh clean up their reefs of invasive species, this invasive grouper. And they're like they've like had to go terminator mode. I'm like, okay, we got you. Here comes it's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

Oh yeah. What is your guy's favorite species to go die for?

SPEAKER_03 43:57

It's a very, very tough question. Depends where I am in the world, you know.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:06

Yeah. Uh in Hawaii, I think the most fun fish to kill is a fish called Uku. It's a type of job fish. And delicious. It's it's one of the best fish I've ever had anywhere in the world, sashimi or cooked. But uku are they're like predatory reef fish. So they live on the reef, but they they're almost apex on the reef. So they're really attracted to your classic like spearfishing hunting signals. Hand motions, you know, sand flicks, grunts, etc. Um, and you know, they can get pretty big and they fight, but they're not, you know, generally they won't ruin your gear. There's a fish out in Hawaii called in the Lua, which is just a jeep, it's a giant trivali. Those things are the apex of the reef and they can be 80, 100 pounds plus. But if when you're face to face with one of those things, I I personally I mean you don't even want to pull the trigger because they're so terrifying. And you just hear stories of guys getting their gear just wrecked on you know, bed shafts, things will go hole up in a in a shelf, and just you'll never see it again unless you hit perfect stone shot. So um uku is involved. Almost like an amberjack. Almost like an amberjack. Worse than an amberjack. Um Mike's making it. Mike's making it because I shot an air jack last week and they gave us a hard time.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

But um no, no, we yeah, it gave us a hard time in the form of about 20 sharks.

SPEAKER_03 45:42

Yeah, yeah, it did.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

Sharks ate us ate as fish.

SPEAKER_03 45:46

Um the uku is delicious, and so yeah, it's awesome. Out here, though, I don't know. I haven't decided yet. I've been liking every everything I shoot, yeah, except maybe that amberjack, even though I did kind of like that in a fucked up twisted way, especially because Mike had my back, and we um yeah, we we fended off the sharks. He did take a nice bite of bite of my AJ, though, got taxed pretty hard, but you know.

SPEAKER_01 46:16

For me, I have to say sheep's head, and it's such a it's not nearly as mystical of a catch as an as an uku or a job fish. Like those are really like it really is a prize to get one of those fish. Like you get one of those things, and someone someone knows like that guy's a badass, you know, like that takes a ton of skill. You can get super lucky and and get one, maybe, but sheep's head is much more pedestrian at a glance. When you dig deeper onto sheep's head diving, I I love it because it's uh like my home basically is like the bay the bay, you know. So to me, that feels like uh my home field is is diving for sheep's head at the bridge tunnel. Um but they're really cool fish, it's it's a remarkable fishery, and I know that three times, three separate times, the world record sheep's head has come from the Bay Bridge Tunnel. The first guy that did it was our boy Mark from Reefrunner, Ben's best friend. I didn't know that at all. Yeah, he had the he had the world record way back in the day. Um, and then some other local guy, uh believe broke it. And last year, I don't think this guy weighed his fish, but technically someone uh shot, I don't think he weighed on the certified scale, but someone would have broke that record again last year. And they're all coming from the Bay Ridge tunnel. And it's like if you swim down there and you shoot the first sheep's head you see, you can fill the cooler up in less than an hour, maybe two hours. But if you really learn their behavior and learn to hunt in this really terrifying environment, you have an opportunity to get a fish that very, very, very, very, very few people will ever see. Um, you've got to be able to dive in strong current. A lot of guys will go out there and dive in the slack, and you can just swim everywhere like a like a swimming pool, but you learn to exist in that super gnarly current. These fish are crazy active uh when the water is moving, and you start to see things that you wouldn't otherwise. Um, and really the only way to do it is to drift dive. Uh, so you need a very skilled boat driver or jet ski driver, preferably, because it's even small, you know, you can get right under the bridge, and you really just have to drift through and uh dive way before you think you need to, and get down to a depth where you can hunt and then just let the current kind of pull you through the bridge, and you start to see some really seriously big fish, and you know, just so cool that they can exist and live in those conditions. If you if you look at one up close, they're built like tanks. I mean, they're so strong, their scales are so big, their gills are so thick, their skulls are crazy thick, they're just these muscular, dense, like cool fish. Uh, and you know, we went to Carolina and did well. We get groupers and hogfish and cobia in this last trip, but cheap set is right there with the cream of the crop, man, in terms of like eating and what you can do with it. That is a seriously spectacular fish, way underrated, in my opinion. And when you get more to that sort of niche molecular level, they become really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 49:54

Oh, yeah. I'm surprised you didn't say cobia being down by the Bay Bridge in the lower bay there, Mike. But Sheep's head is a good pick. I like I like Cobia.

SPEAKER_01 50:04

Um, it's really taxing. Uh they're really hard to dive on. Like the the way that I've learned to hunt Cobia, I I've got it, I've got to plug another one of my buddies, Nathan Cole. Nathan basically turned me from a bridge hunting enthusiast to like a bridge maestro, like that guy and you know his group of buddies, they really have it figured out. So when he showed me the sort of cobia uh algorithm, I was like, hell no, like no, I don't want to do that at all, man. Like, and it and it's just punishing, like it's just so taxing. Um, and you know, when you're hunting cobia on the bridge, especially, you can't be in this mentality of like, I'm gonna look for a cobia, and if something else, you know, swims by, I'll be happy with that too. You've really just got to turn your brain off and ignore everything else and like wait for cobia, wait for that cobia opportunity. And we've done it plenty, but it it's not that thrilling to me. I don't know. I just the sheep, something about the sheep sets so cool to me.

SPEAKER_00 51:20

Oh, yeah, for sure. For sure. Well, I got one final question for you guys before we get ready to head off and let you guys throw some plugs and shameless shout-outs before we head off. But my favorite question that I ask all my guests when we end the show is what is your why that keeps bringing you back for more?

SPEAKER_01 51:45

You want to go first, Ben? Oh, you're muted.

SPEAKER_00 51:52

You're muted, yeah. Oh no. No, you do now.

SPEAKER_03 51:58

I've always loved being out in nature in remote places. It started in Colorado when we go backpacking, climbing the highest mountains in the country, no self-service overnight, you know, 50 pounds a year on your back, hiking for 14 miles over three days, kind of thing. Um it's it's type two fun. I don't know if you ever heard like type one, type two fun. Where a lot of times in the moment it can suck. It's very hard, you're tired, you're uncomfortable, but the memories it creates and the confidence it instills within you that you can do hard things, um, it's just an unforgettable feeling. So for me, the thing that keeps bringing me back is honestly just how I it's it's part, you know, a it's how I feel afterwards. It's how I feel about like the thing that I just did. And then um, secondly, it just gives me another way to experience the world that's beyond you know what most people, especially if you live in the US, your experience of the world is like what's going on in your town and you know what's happening at your job and at your church and at your school. Um, and that's kind of like your you know one-dimensional view of this earth that we all live on. And going out in places, spear fishing, it gives you, you know, another perspective. It takes that one dimension and gives you, you know, another dimension to look at it in. So um it's a way for me to experience gratitude, basically, for life.

SPEAKER_00 53:34

Oh yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 53:38

I I definitely relate to that, and maybe my answer will sound similar, but for me, it uh being out in the ocean, you know, it it helps um like accurately frame the rest of the things uh and your life and like what really matters. Uh I'm a pretty passionate guy, like I live in the highs and lows, like not very often in the middle. Uh so I feel things like if I'm bummed out, like I'm bummed. And if I'm pumped, I'm pumped. But like that's kind of just the way I am. And when you're out in the ocean, uh you start to realize like this is what really matters, like getting to yourself, getting yourself to a point where you feel that feeling of like freedom, but also humility, you know, you give up a lot of control and you embrace these things that are uncomfortable, find a way to become at peace with it, and then you're able to enjoy how beautiful it all is. And you know, when you clock back in on Monday, and you know, you've got three emails of screw-ups to respond to, you remember that these things don't matter that much. You know, this isn't life or death, like it's just a job. It's my career, and I take it seriously, and I care about what I'm doing. But when you're able to have these greater than like ethereal moments in the ocean where it's like, you know, thank God that shark didn't decide to bite my head off. Because if it did, there's nothing I could do, you know. It really starts to like frame the perspective of what really matters in life, in my opinion. So being out in the water kind of helps level me out and reminds you what counts, I think.

SPEAKER_00 55:28

Oh, yeah, for sure, most definitely. Especially being in the water and diving in the ocean. I mean, there's so many things that could go right or go wrong, whether whether it be the current, riptide come through, like you just said, a shark could come by and bite you. So many different things that could happen.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

Yeah, just a reminder, like it's just so so much, even if it's bad, it's still beautiful. And it just helps me remember, like, you know, not everything's life or death, like in the real and and the in the nine to five world, you know, like some things can just go off your shoulder.

SPEAKER_00 56:05

For sure. Well, thank you guys for coming on. Do you have any last thoughts, shout-outs you want to give before we head out of here?

SPEAKER_03 56:15

Mike already shout out Nathan Cole, who I think is the most important shout-out. Man, we're so blessed before anybody even knew who we were, got us. You know, he really helped out in the beginning. So, shout out Nathan Cole. Low-key way l-o-h k i on Instagram for you. If you guys want to go check him out, he makes knives. He's super sick at making knives. Um I want to shout out our captain Will Meyer, who takes us out, Hatteras, and chartered uh trader his boat down at Wilmington for six hours to go diving with us last weekend. Um, best boat captain there is. And then I mean, I just want to plug ourselves, follow us. Instagram, spitfire spear guns, YouTube spitfire spear guns. Check out our content, see if you want to go kill big sheep set with a tiny gun. That's super powerful.

SPEAKER_01 57:07

Oh, yeah. Yeah, we we really wouldn't be where we're at. I mean, and we're we're so brand new, and we've got so much more to accomplish, but you know, we're really blessed to have a group of guys, dive buddies and friends, Ryan and Brendan and Adrian and Nate and Will, like people that just say yes to stuff, you know. Daniel Bateman, you you float a crazy idea, and you know, we're just super lucky to have this group of guys that will say yes, you know. Um, and you know, if if if we didn't have that, if we didn't have this crew of dudes that were down to send it and you know, put in the hours and long drives and like take that time off work or you know, beg their wives to let them run away for a weekend, like we wouldn't have any of the knowledge or any of the experience to have started any of this stuff, you know. Like you're as much responsible, or I would say your dive buddy is as much responsible for you getting on the water as you are yourself. Like, if you don't have that group of guys around you that are gonna like be there with you when you want to make charter reservations and you know, like look for opportunities to get out, like it's not gonna work. So, you know, endless gratitude to those guys, Billy Handel. I think the water is finally warm enough for that knucklehead to get back out there. It's like without these guys, man, none of this works. So um, yeah, it's nice to be able to say one big thank you to all those dudes. But great point, great point, Mike. Yeah, without them, none of it works. Oh, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 58:44

Well, thank you guys again for coming on. I appreciate the time and appreciate all the fun that we've had tonight. I always like to extend the invite forever up this way or water up this way. Hit me up, would love to get in the water with you guys and do some diving.

SPEAKER_01 58:57

Same to you, man. Same to you if you come to Virginia. Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 59:01

Oh, yeah, I'll definitely have to hit you guys up and get on the Bay Bridge tunnel action. That I've seen some of your videos and stuff. That looks like a lot of fun. So I'll definitely have to hit you up for that. Sweet, awesome. Thanks, Hunter. Thanks for having us on. Oh, yeah. Thank you guys, and thanks for another episode of the Blue Hen Outdoors Podcast. That's cool.