Spearfishing looks straightforward from the boat. You take a breath, duck dive, and surface with dinner. In reality, every stage of that dive rests on specific freediving technique, and getting one stage wrong either spooks the fish or puts you at risk.
As a freediving instructor and National Geographic safety diving consultant, I’ve spent over 12 years teaching the spearfishing techniques that actually hold up underwater, not just on paper. This guide walks you through the whole dive, from your first breath to your last recovery breath on the surface. If you want the bigger picture on how freediving and spearfishing connect, we’ve covered that in our earlier guide.
What are the core spearfishing techniques beginners need to know?
The core spearfishing techniques for beginners are pre-dive breathing, a quiet duck dive, a controlled descent, stable positioning on the seafloor, an ethical shot, and full recovery breathing on the surface. Each stage protects your air, keeps fish calm, and keeps you safe.
Getting your breathing right before the dive
Your breathing sets up everything that follows. Before every dive, spend two to three minutes on tidal breathing. Breathe normally and just pay attention to it, without trying to change anything. This settles your heart rate and gets your mind off the boat and onto the water.
Once you feel like you could fall asleep, take your final breath:
- Exhale gently
- Inhale slowly, starting from your belly and moving up through your chest, until you’re full
- Relax your shoulders and neck; holding tension here wastes air for nothing
- Take your snorkel out and pre-equalise before you duck dive
Never hyperventilate before a dive. Rapid, deep breathing doesn’t load extra oxygen into your body; it strips out carbon dioxide, which is what triggers your urge to breathe. Take no more than three or four full breaths before you go under. A relaxed, well-equalised diver leans on the same mammalian dive reflex that slows a whale’s heart rate underwater, and that reflex does more for your bottom time than any extra gulp of air ever will.
The duck dive: getting under without spooking the fish
How you enter the water matters as much as what you do once you’re down. Fish pick up on sound and vibration long before they see you, so a loud, splashy duck dive undoes your work before it even starts.
- Lie flat on the surface, then give two or three gentle kicks without breaking it
- Bend at the waist and let your upper body lead the dive
- Point your gun down and let your legs follow last, fins staying underwater and silent
Start equalising the moment you begin your descent, not once you feel pressure. We teach Frenzel technique over Valsalva for this exact reason. It’s faster, and it doesn’t need you to let go of your gun to pinch your nose.
Descending without scaring everything off
Fish read your descent as much as your position. A steady, moderate speed with your body stretched out reads as natural. Sudden changes in speed or direction read as a threat.
Keep your gun close to your body rather than extended, avoid direct eye contact with anything you’re targeting, and let small bubbles trickle out gradually instead of blowing out in one burst. Approach at a slight angle rather than straight at a fish you’ve spotted. Do this well and curious fish often come to you instead of the other way round.
Setting up on the seafloor
Once you reach the bottom, your job is to disappear. Rest your body flat where the terrain allows, keep your fins down rather than pointed up, and use your weight belt to help you stay in contact with the seafloor rather than hovering half a metre above it.
Move your head slowly if you’re scanning, no more than a degree or two a second, and use your peripheral vision before you turn to look directly at something. Patience does more work here than positioning ever will. Thirty seconds of stillness often outperforms constant repositioning.
Drawing fish in without alarming them
A few small techniques can bring curious fish closer once you’re settled. A short, sharp grunt made low in your throat mimics feeding activity for some species, and gently stirring sand with your free hand does something similar. Keep both subtle. One or two grunts every thirty seconds is plenty, and stop moving the moment a fish responds.
Cover helps too. Position yourself beside a rock formation rather than behind it, and let only your head and gun extend past it. This gives you a shooting lane without exposing your whole silhouette.
Want someone watching your technique in the water, not just reading about it? Our Spearfishing Course Sydney runs beginners through every stage covered here, with proper safety supervision from the first duck dive.
Taking a clean, ethical shot
Line up your speargun, arm, shoulder, and eye before you commit. Keep your elbow slightly bent rather than locked, brace your free hand against the bottom, and hold completely still the moment you take the shot.
Aim for the lateral line just behind the gill plate on most species, or the brain case on larger fish. Avoid gut shots, they cause unnecessary suffering and ruin the meat. If the fish isn’t presenting a clean target, wait. A slightly delayed accurate shot beats a rushed, poorly placed one every time.
Surfacing: the part beginners rush
The last few metres of any dive are the most dangerous, and beginners consistently rush them. Look up, extend one arm overhead to protect against boat traffic, and ascend at a controlled pace. Exhale gradually over the final few metres instead of holding everything in until you break the surface.
Once you’re up, take at least five recovery breaths even if you feel completely fine. Start with a normal-sized breath rather than a gasp, then gradually deepen each one. This isn’t optional. Shallow water blackout most often happens in the final metres of ascent or the first moments on the surface. It gives little warning, and it’s one of the leading causes of death in our sport, according to the Divers Alert Network.
This is exactly why you never dive without a buddy watching you the whole time you’re under, not just when you surface. Rest before your next dive too. Aim for at least twice the surface interval of your last dive, and check the current NSW spearfishing rules for size and bag limits before you’re anywhere near the water.
Why I teach spearfishing this way
I’ve spent over 12 years teaching freediving and spearfishing, including years working as National Geographic’s head safety diving consultant on Secrets of the Whales with Brian Skerry. Watching how marine animals move calmly under pressure taught me more about non-threatening descent and stillness than any course ever did.
I’ve also spent plenty of time in the water with beginner spearos who learned technique from YouTube instead of a coach, and I’ve seen exactly where that goes wrong: rushed duck dives, skipped recovery breaths, and buddies who weren’t really watching. Most of what’s in this guide exists because I’ve had to fix those habits in real people, in real water.
If you’re serious about spearfishing, our Spearfishing Course Sydney covers all of this properly, in the water, with someone qualified watching your technique and your safety the entire time.
Ready to put these spearfishing techniques into practice? Book a spot in our Spearfishing Course Sydney or get in touch if you’ve got questions about which course suits where you’re starting from.