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Messages - BigJim

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 703
1
Fishing Pics / Re: A collection of White Sea Bass pics from NCKA
« on: March 07, 2024, 01:39:21 PM »
This thread Mooch started in 2010 hasn't seen any action since 2019....

Here's a vid I made of some 2023 ghosts...lot of it is low light, under the kelp canopy, and not so great viz....but thought some of you might still enjoy it.

 :smt006

https://youtu.be/umKB-F-uSQg?si=M9xmAQhkzE717HHv

Sincerely,

Jim

ps...and a few random pics  :smt003

2
CA Regulations / Re: Upcoming meetings about new MPAs
« on: March 05, 2024, 12:52:47 PM »
Good stuff, Jim. One correction for the allwaters link is that the contents of the petitions won't actually be discussed at the March 19 Marine Resources Committee meeting in San Clemente, they will only be discussing the Department's process to review the petitions.
Quote
Marine protected area (MPA) regulation change petitions
Receive and discuss Department-proposed approach to the review and evaluation of
petitions for MPA regulation changes following the 2022 decadal management review of
the MPA network and management program.

The important discussion on the contents of the petitions will likely be on the agenda at the July 18 Marine Resources Committee meeting in Santa Rosa.

Thank you Rick!!

Hope you are doing well!

 :smt006

Sincerely,

Jim

3
Pay It Forward / Re: Fundraiser / Raffle for Kiet Pham aka Bluegill
« on: March 04, 2024, 10:30:55 AM »
Stoked that Kiet was able to get the transplant, and hoping he is back on his feet soon!!

I donated a little just now, and screenshot attached for raffle.

Get well soon Kiet!!!

Sincerely,

Jim

4
CA Regulations / Upcoming meetings about new MPAs
« on: March 04, 2024, 08:30:04 AM »
As Rick talks about in his post below, there are a lot of proposals to expand MPAs and decrease our fishing opportunities.

https://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php?topic=101669.0

I know there are several threads related to this already, but wanted to try and make one in the public section so the info would be available to as wide an audience as possible…

In Santa Cruz, the Kelp Stalkers will be hosting a meeting for all on March 13th at 7pm at 251 Washinton Street, Santa Cruz with Fish and Game Commissioner Erika Zavaleta as KeyNote Speaker.

https://www.allwaters.org/events

"Join us at 251 Washington Street, Santa Cruz, California to hear from Fish and Game Commissioner Erika Zavaleta. Our goal from this meeting is to unite and educate our community as to the best methods for pushing back against these proposed closures."

I encourage all who can to attend the 3/13 meeting…I believe it will be available via Zoom as well and I will post details here when I see them.

Here are some additional links and resources on the topic:

Link to the recent Fish & Game Commission recording pertaining to MPAs. I HIGHLY recommend listening to what Commissioner Zavaleta has to say starting at 5:12:35.

https://cal-span.org/meeting/cfg_20240214/

BHA has a petition going with a very articulate statement about the issue.

https://www.backcountryhunters.org/take_action#/396

Here’s the schedule of meetings, agendas and links to videos of past meetings.

https://fgc.ca.gov/Meetings/2024

I hope some of the above info helps…I’m not an expert about this stuff and the process, but would like to try and help out where and when I can to preserve our access to our fisheries…

Sincerely,

Jim

5
Kayak Diving and Spearfishing / Re: Spooky Season Ghost Story: PB WSB
« on: February 05, 2024, 04:36:43 PM »
Thanks for all the kind words guys. Hope you are all doing well.  :smt008

Great story!! What size and brand of gun are you using? Do Stripers have stones? Thanks.

I've been using a Pathos Laser Carbon 120 with a reel...I like it a lot.  :smt001

Yes, stripers have cool stones. Attached a few pics here.

 :smt006

Sincerely,

Jim


6
Love that article....even as a diver I've learned so much from studying it....

 :smt007

Sincerely,

Jim

7
Introductions / Re: Hello World
« on: November 03, 2023, 01:58:02 PM »
Welcome!!

 :smt006

Sincerely,

Jim

8
Kayak Diving and Spearfishing / Re: Spooky Season Ghost Story: PB WSB
« on: October 30, 2023, 09:12:38 AM »
Thanks for the kind words guys.

 :smt008

Here’s a little collage of some of the meals we made with the meat, and the stones…I got a new shadowbox from Amadeo to better display all my stones and other ocean treasures.  :smt001

 :smt006

Sincerely,

Jim

9
Holy crap!!

That was super scary....glad you are ok!!!

Sincerely,

Jim

10
General Fishing Tips / Re: Kayak Crabbing with a 3 y/o
« on: October 27, 2023, 10:14:32 AM »
Sounds like a great adventure to me!

I had Valentina on my little BigYak at that age, and once I won the T15 up at GS4 we went out a fair amount together...she was 4 at that time.

This was probably our most memorable trip at that age, and of course the big one got away  :smt005 :smt009 :smt044

http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php?topic=26842.0

Hope you all have a safe, fun time and look forward to seeing pics and the report!

 :smt006

Sincerely,

Jim

11
Kayak Diving and Spearfishing / Re: NorCal Spearing Setup
« on: October 24, 2023, 06:55:03 AM »
Jesus. I didn’t even know stripers got that big on our coast. I’ve seen them like that back east but… and you shot those?

I guess you’ve made your case for that rail gun.

My daughter did a good job making them look big for the pic  :smt005

http://doty.norcalkayakanglers.com/leader_board/2316/show

I had some luck with them back in 2016 but haven't since then...tbh though I switched focus to other species more recently....still fun to jump in the surf and look for them though....we are lucky to have such a cool fishery right off our shore.

 :smt001

Sincerely,

Jim

12
Hookups and Fishing Reports (Viewable by Public) / Re: Bluefin Anyone?
« on: October 24, 2023, 06:49:45 AM »
One of the members of Coastside reported that he jumped in and speared one over the weekend.

That was Ryan G.

He's a member on here too, and played DOTY with us back in 2016/2017 as well.

First speared NorCal BFT...stoked for him!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CyxYcj3OY51/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

 :smt007

Sincerely,

Jim

13
Kayak Diving and Spearfishing / Re: NorCal Spearing Setup
« on: October 23, 2023, 04:45:18 PM »
I'd say invest in a 70-90cm open muzzle Railgun like a Rob Allen or a Pathos, Meandros etc, set it up with a stock single flopper shaft, put a reel on it and never look back...

I resisted for awhile and tried the double flopper rock points on Billers and Riffes etc...but once I went over to the rail gun I've had a lot more success...

Few pics attached of Cen/NorCal fish taken with the setup described above...it will take down most anything you come across in our waters.

Red Triangle isn't selling gear anymore, but you should be able to get what you need from The Freedive Shop.

https://www.freediveshop.com/shop/spearguns/spearguns-speargun/rob-allen-tuna-aluminum-railgun/

Good luck!

 :smt006

Sincerely,

Jim

Ps…here’s an old vid I made of taking some fish with Pathos guns. RA works just as good. All pretty similar. Most of this was with a floatline instead of a reel, but I’ve been using a reel 99% of the time last few years…but floatline works fine also for up here.

https://youtu.be/CiabzKgCdT4?si=LK16WxhcxJ980JEc

Here’s some more recent footage of fish taken with similar set up and reel:

https://youtu.be/WSQPfMadvfM?si=yLZBRSmE_qeYBZYM

14
Kayak Diving and Spearfishing / Re: Spooky Season Ghost Story: PB WSB
« on: October 21, 2023, 08:19:33 AM »

15
Kayak Diving and Spearfishing / Spooky Season Ghost Story: PB WSB
« on: October 21, 2023, 08:14:35 AM »
TLDR: I shot a 74.3 pound fish and here are a bunch of pics.

Full Story:

After about 3 hours into a session much earlier this year I almost swam right into a fish on the surface…I took a quick shot because I was so close and was afraid she would spook. It was a horrible gut shot, but somehow it held and I was able to land her.

After I got her on my belt I realized I was waaaay far from my kayak. The fish wasn’t huge, so figured might as well reload and hunt back to the kayak.

Didn’t see any other fish on way back…once I was there I looked around and there was a patch of kelp about 50 yards away that looked promising….decided I would swim over and check it before calling it quits.

Started swimming over there and before I got there was already thinking it was a waste of time because there was a pretty nasty red tide going on, and it had been challenging to see anything for the last few hours.

Got close to the kelp and slowed down and moved as smoothly as I could right up to the edge…it was too dark and murky to see anything, so I pushed in a little closer until my head was up under the edge and in the shadows…looking down through the hazy murk, my eyes adjusted, and I saw something moving…I made out a portion of a silhouette of what looked like a very big fish, extended my gun and pulled the trigger.

The fish took off, but stopped very quickly right next to where the kelp headed down into the dark…did I stone her? She had to be only about 10/15 feet down and was just sitting there wrapped around once or twice…

Decided my shot must’ve killed her so took a quick breath and dropped down…bad mistake.

When I got to her she wasn’t moving and I could see shaft sticking out of her side and grabbed it….and then all hell broke loose. She woke up and tried to take off, and I went to let go of the shaft but somehow my glove was stuck?! After thinking about it, I think part of the glove got pinned between slide ring and shaft somehow, and I couldn’t get my hand free…to make things worse the dead fish on my belt was wrapped up in the kelp and was pulling me backwards while the big live fish was pulling me forwards.  :smt009

After what seemed like forever with the fish going nuts and thrashing around with me holding the shaft trying to get my glove free, I was able to rip my hand totally out of the glove and let the fish go. Then I was able to free the fish on my belt from the kelp and get back to the surface.

I had a Neptonics popper float on my belt so after calming down and following the reel line until I was above the fish, I inflated it and clipped off the first fish and the gun and reel line to the float and prepared to try again.

For the last couple years I’ve been hunting bigger fish with a belt reel just in case the reel on my gun jammed…I was scared of getting close to that fish again so I decided I would use the belt reel to clip off to the fish and bring her up from a distance.

When I dove down she was on the bottom at 45 feet laying there looking dead…and my glove was right there on the shaft still lol.

I approached slowly and clipped the belt reel to the slip tip spectra and slowly headed back to the surface pulling her up as I went…she wasn’t wrapped in the kelp so she came up pretty easily.

Right when I got back to the surface I saw the Neptonics float had started deflating and I could see release valve had broken off bladder and was filling with water. Lucky it didn’t do it while I was on bottom or might have lost everything!!  :smt013

I quickly grabbed the whole tangled mess of float/fish/gun in one hand, and got my other hand in the throat of the big fish. Luckily she was totally dead now. After clearing away from the kelp I was able to get my arm through bands of gun and stringer of smaller fish, bled bigger fish and swim back  to kayak.

I knew the fish was big in the water…and when I got onto kayak and pulled it in I could tell it was heavier than any fish I had taken before (at this time my biggest one had been 59 pounds), so I was stoked thinking I had finally gotten a fish over 60 pounds or so.   :smt001

I took my time relaxing on the kayak and admiring both fish and having a celebratory lucky NA beer. Could see shot had gone in shoulder and out under opposite pec fin, but slip tip pulled back inside body at same point during fight. Could also see the slip tip spectra had made an actual frikkin knot around the slide ring, and shaft was super bent. I guess somehow slip tip cord got tangled around slide ring and so shaft got pulled into body, my glove got pinned between shaft and slide ring mess, and when was holding onto shaft trying to get free the shaft bent?

After finishing the beer and talking a few pics I was able to shove both fish inside kayak and then paddle in.

Once I drove away from beach I stopped at a pullout on the highway to take my time and measure fish.

Taped out to 60.75 inches, and I was shocked when I saw the scale at 74.3 pounds!!  :smt007 :smt007 :smt007

I gutted her there at pullout and was expecting to see a bunch of eggs because belly looked full…zero eggs, but her stomach was absolutely stuffed with baitfish. She had obviously been gorging herself on all the baitfish I had seen earlier in the day.

The smaller fish was 50.75 inches and 37 pounds, even after my gutshot took out most of her guts  :smt005

Back at home I tried to get my youngest daughter to take pics of me holding the big fish but we struggled because it was heavy and I’m weak these days, and there were a bunch of those wasps that came in once the fish was out the kill bag and she was scared to get close to me to take pics lol!! None of the pics really do the fish justice…she was an absolute pig.  :smt007

Took my time scaling and cutting up both fish and the delicious meat was shared amongst many, many family members and friends and all eaten fresh.

I definitely think this is the fish of a lifetime, and doubt I will ever find a WSB this big ever again, but am so grateful that I found her this year…my recent health struggles have reinforced the fact that tomorrow’s adventures are never guaranteed and you have to enjoy every experience as much as possible. Even if I never see another WSB again, I will always have this experience burned into my memory banks to remember.

The end.

 :smt006

Sincerely,

Jim

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