GOOD REPORT Monterey 6/2

Boyan (Trollin Dirty), DJ (DZboyovsky) and I met at SWS at 7a despite the 20-30 knot wind forecast and wind waves. We knew we were in for a mission. Boyan was going to fish from his kayak (hook and line) while DJ and I were intending on getting wet and shooting some fish. Paddling into the wind and current for a few miles was no joke but upon gearing up, hopping in the water and realizing it was the best visibility I've ever seen in Monterey made it very worth the struggle to get there. Being new to this spot, I could tell right away that it was going to be a good day. Huge schools of blacks and blues right off the bat always gives me the impression that the lings are below. It was pretty swelly and we decided to pay extra attention to the buddy system since we had decent waves breaking over us near the cliffs. We swam further out to the honey hole and boy, did it produce. 2-4 lings visible from the surface (30-50 fow) and fish galore. I love black RF fillets so I shot one in the face - right through both eyes - decent fish. DJ puts a couple on his belt too.

Fantastic moment #1: I see a crack way down there and wanted to check it out. Breathe up, relax, big breath and dive. I get down to it, shine my light in, and there is a nice brown in it, so I shoot it. Right when I do, i see an even bigger one behind it so I go back up, stringer my fish, and catch my breath. As I'm doing this, DJ finds a nice ling and proceeds to put the spear through the mouth, all the way down the fish and out the tail - haha, shishkabob. The fish did some fancy spins and tangled up his line so as he was trying to untangle it, I go back down to get the bigger brown. I get back down there, sstone the brown and all the sudden something much bigger moves. A big ling starts attacking my fish! Well, I could try to pull my fish up to the surface, or I could leave it and let DJ know there's a big fish down there. Being the gentleman that I am, I leave my fish down there, spear through it's gills, being mouthed by a ling. DJ is STILL tangled. Minutes go by, we're watching this ling trying to eat my fish and FINALLY he gets his spear out of the first ling, stringered it and for efficiency's sake, reloads without wrapping the line. He gets about 10ft away from the ling and it goes to run away. I thought DJ would miss (it was a hard shot) but he nailed him. Great shot.

Fantastic Moment (or not?) #2: I'm catching my breath in about 45fow and all the sudden DJ grabs my arm. We both have fish on our stringers (on our belts) and here come the tax collectors. Thankfully not THE landlord, or he could have had my fish and maybe a leg. THESE were just 3 humongous sea lions that kept circling and buzzing us. It's still pretty gnarly when a giant male sea lion gets within feet of you trying to get your fish. Thankfully we didn't lose anything and didn't have to poke any ocean doggos.

All in all, we got great fish (I finally got a ling too), several nice RF, and super radical sun burns from the miles we had to paddle (while typing this, my hands are still sore from all the paddling we did). Great day. I look forward to diving with DJ again. It's always fun diving with someone that is at/beyond your ability and is willing to take you to the honey holes. Thanks David!

Nice updates and it’s awesome you guys attacked it like a great team!

Great report! I’d like to see a picture of that fish-kabob...

Nice job!!

I dove both days this weekend and there was def some snottiness going on at times. 

Where's the fishy pics??

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Thanks for the great report TK.