Wilderness medic:
Went for a paddle with Dan K and Duane out of Albion. Vis was an incredible 35' and immediately the fish were out and ready to play. Just about every drop there were 1-4 lings out, although I didn't see any big ones.
We all left the first spot with one ling.
We found a pinnacle out in the middle of the open water with the top at 30' and the bottom at 50-60'. On my way up I checked the side of the rock and saw a big wolf eel staring at me. I did another drop and shot him.
I couldn't get the flopped to deploy because of the rock behind him and he pulled out. After another drop I sunk it into him, but again it pulled out. Disappointed we took off to another spot and Duane said I should come back and try on the way in.
The third spot was incredible. Massive clouds of blues and blacks. Shot a 20ish in black and another ling.
Had this guy pop up in front of me and get the heart pounding.
Duane said he saw a huge ling but couldn't find it again. An hour or so later he manages to find it again. He says its nice but not huge.
Found a nice pocket of scallops. Could have pulled a limit there but I didn't feel like spending much more time there so I pulled the biggest one I saw (8 1/4").
On the way back we paddle towards the random pinnacle. Somehow I look down and recognize the rock I was at from the surface. I hop in and dive right down to the little hole the wolf eel was in and he's still there!! I can't believe we even found the pinnacle again, let alone dropped right down to a soccer ball hole. I shoot him a third time and pull him up glad I didn't kill him for nothing.
Duanes "not huge" ling ended up weighing over 30 pounds! I'm not sure if he ever got a more official weight on it besides the 33+ pounds, but if it was he was less than 4 pounds away from Dan Silveiras record.
We all went home with nice stringers and scallops. Not often does a day seem to have everything go right, but this one did.
DG:
It was an awesome day out there. I was happy with the first ling I shot. Then I started to see a bunch more. I saw a 30” ling in a hole and lined up my spear but wasn’t ready to limit out. I shined my light into another part of the hole and a huge ling blew out past me but I couldn’t get the gun turned around before it was gone. I told Gio it was in the area because based on its size I was sure it was over 40”. I did spend a lot of time looking for it and ended up finding an 8.5” scallop which is the biggest one I have found in NorCal so I was happy. I gave up on the ling and went back to the kayak and put my scallops on board. I decided to check some boulders under my kayak and saw some more lings. Then I looked into a little cave and saw a big lings Head. I stone shot it between the eyes but expected it to go crazy on me. It was surprisingly stunned and was easy to get back to the kayak. It may have been the same one from earlier but I really believe there was another beast out there that I just could not find.
I tried to get a better weight on it but my scale doesn’t have a top clip that I can hang on something so I had to struggle to hold it in one hand and take the picture with my other hand. It was to heavy to hold straight out. The scale reading was fluctuating between 31-34 lbs but the only visible scale screen shot was at 33.35 lbs. Either way it was the fattest ling I have seen even though it wasn’t the longest at 37.75”.
Rock Hopper:
Dayyyuuummmmm!
What was in that thing's gut?
matanaska:
--- Quote from: Rock Hopper on February 09, 2018, 10:27:14 AM ---Dayyyuuummmmm!
What was in that thing's gut?
--- End quote --- +2 did it eat a lead ball?
Cowman:
--- Quote from: Rock Hopper on February 09, 2018, 10:27:14 AM ---Dayyyuuummmmm!