Jay Riffe, spearfishing king, is dead at 82

Jay Riffe recalled his first spearfishing outing as a fearsome affair — not for the fish but for him. Riffe, a celebrated California speargun designer, entrepreneur and pioneer of tankless hunting and diving, was about 10 years old, stalking lobster and sea bass in 70-degree Pacific waters while wearing a sweatshirt, gardening gloves and boxer trunks.

“When you came out,” he recalled of his early forays as a sport fisherman in a 2015 interview with the podcast “The Spear,” his body would be bruised and battered “from being rolled in the surf and the rocks and the sea urchins.”

He added, “But no one ever complained because this was the sport — this was the thrill.”

When he died May 11 at 82, at his home in Dana Point — a death not widely reported beyond spearfishing circles — Riffe left behind a trail of accomplishments in his undersea world, including breaking three world records for deepwater sport fishing; founding Riffe International, a premier American spearfishing and freediving equipment maker; and advancing a campaign for sustainable-fishing regulations. His family said the cause was heart failure.

A powerfully built freediver who could hold his breath for five minutes or more while chasing tuna, grouper and dorado at depths of up to 100 feet, Riffe (pronounced rife) first took up spearfishing with his older brother John for a simple reason — “to get food for the table,” as he put it.

By age 22, he was the Pacific Coast spearfishing champion

“Back then the water was so clear, you could see down forever,” he once recalled, adding that the abundance of fish off Palos Verdes and Laguna Beach was far greater than it is today. “So spearfishing started to spread by word of mouth,” he said, and hunters were looking for guns that were easier to hoist and did not “go off like a spring-loaded bazooka.”

For nearly 50 years, beginning in the late 1960s, Riffe built and developed spearguns and other devices that revolutionized the sport in the United States. His company used supple woods, like teak, which could be grooved to fit a spear shaft snugly; corrosion-resistant magnets, which kept spear tips from wobbling; and textured nylon grips, which kept guns from slipping from the spearfisher’s hand.

“He was a gentle giant, and he had a passion for engineering the perfect speargun for the world,” said his wife, Jackie Riffe, who cofounded Riffe International.