Personal Best Copper=Personal Best DOTY score

Forecast was pretty cruddy but had the day off work so went out with my buddy Matt aka Damanij anyway.

After watching the ocean for a bit we realized quickly Plan A was not gonna happen...pulled out my iphone and showed Matt some spots I had been checking out and wanted to explore that should be more sheltered so we decided to hit them up.

Launching for me went fine...Matt took a little tumble when he ran into a submerged boulder before jumping on his yak, but made it out more or less unscathed. 

At the first spot we found good viz and nice structure and quite a few fishies out and about...blues, blacks, kelpies, various types of perch, greenlings, small lings etc.

Really didn't need food though so neither of us shot anything right off the bat...kept on working and found a small hole...poked my head in and sticking down from the top I could see the mouth of a rockfish and the lips/head looked orange...orange enough for me to think it was a Copper rockfish instead of a gopher...so I blasted him. 

Pulled the fishy out and YES, nice Copper!! Only my fourth Copper ever, and my PB at 13.75 inches!! 

http://doty.norcalkayakanglers.com/catches/1276

The Copper gave me enough DOTY upgrade points to raise my score to 2942.625 with an average of 183.91. My high score last year was 2927.375 with an average of 182.96.

http://doty.norcalkayakanglers.com/leaderboard/list

http://doty.norcalkayakanglers.com/leaderboard/list2013results

STOKED to pass my score from last year!!!

Definitely my best year of diving and spearing so far and I LOVE having the DOTY scoreboard and software to keep track of my personal bests across the years!!

After I took pics of the Copper out on the kayak (didn't want to risk it shrinking or having seals or birds get it!  ) we tried another highpoint on the same reef system. Really cool structure but super surgy and neither of us saw anything we really wanted to shoot.

Moved spots to another reef I know. Surge was real bad over here, and off the sides of the reef all the sand was churned up making hunting deeper holes off the sides all but impossible.

I came across a nice little cabby so invited him home for dinner.

Swell started to pick up over here so moved again...

Dropped down to 53 feet at the next spot and was too dark and churned up so moved one more time to a shallow section of reef I know and spent some time exploring.

I found one more tasty looking bright blue smurf cabby so decided to bring him home for dinner too. 

On way back in tide was high and swell was still up so had to land on the lovely staircase next to the beach. 

I timed it good and made it in and up the stairs no worries.

Matt took his time waiting for his window...and charged in right when a nice set was coming. 

He took a little spill and yak banged around a little but I managed to get a hold of the bow and drag it up to safety.

Back at home I fileted and chopped up the fish into nuggets for frying for my daughters...that is the way they are most stoked on eating them now. 

Huge thanks to Matt for coming down, loaning me his OK T13 and following me around to explore some new territory.

Let's do it again soon!

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Nice work Jim and great report.   

multicolored nuggets of goodness. Looks tasty

great pics too

X2

Nice work Jim and great report.   

As always ... ending with some food porn    Thanks for sharing!

I'm hungry...

Thansk guys!

Don't think I got much cool footage but will look through and see...I did see a cool little pipe fish in the kelp that I played with for a bit so maybe that will warrant a vid.

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Right on buddy!  Decent size for the area.

The fish nuggets pic is cool!

Awesome report!

Awesome report Jim. congrats on the score and PB Copper.

Congrats on another great fish hunting year Jim.

I think it's so cool to see how far you've progressed as a diver/spear fisherman.
Dropped down to 53 feet? I remember Harold telling you of a verm at 45 feet that you said you couldn't reach. Do you remember that??  I think you still got it though.
Always love reading your adventures, except it pisses me off I don't live closer. 

WTG Jim shooting a nice cooper, Congrats on your PB score  .  I decided to give some of you Legends  a lil head start this year, looks like time to start postn' some fish 

Forecast was pretty cruddy but had the day off work so went out with my buddy Matt aka Damanij anyway.

After watching the ocean for a bit we realized quickly Plan A was not gonna happen...pulled out my iphone and showed Matt some spots I had been checking out and wanted to explore that should be more sheltered so we decided to hit them up.

Launching for me went fine...Matt took a little tumble when he ran into a submerged boulder before jumping on his yak, but made it out more or less unscathed. 

At the first spot we found good viz and nice structure and quite a few fishies out and about...blues, blacks, kelpies, various types of perch, greenlings, small lings etc.

Really didn't need food though so neither of us shot anything right off the bat...kept on working and found a small hole...poked my head in and sticking down from the top I could see the mouth of a rockfish and the lips/head looked orange...orange enough for me to think it was a Copper rockfish instead of a gopher...so I blasted him. 

Pulled the fishy out and YES, nice Copper!! Only my fourth Copper ever, and my PB at 13.75 inches!! 

http://doty.norcalkayakanglers.com/catches/1276

The Copper gave me enough DOTY upgrade points to raise my score to 2942.625 with an average of 183.91. My high score last year was 2927.375 with an average of 182.96.

http://doty.norcalkayakanglers.com/leaderboard/list

http://doty.norcalkayakanglers.com/leaderboard/list2013results

STOKED to pass my score from last year!!!

Definitely my best year of diving and spearing so far and I LOVE having the DOTY scoreboard and software to keep track of my personal bests across the years!!

After I took pics of the Copper out on the kayak (didn't want to risk it shrinking or having seals or birds get it!  ) we tried another highpoint on the same reef system. Really cool structure but super surgy and neither of us saw anything we really wanted to shoot.

Moved spots to another reef I know. Surge was real bad over here, and off the sides of the reef all the sand was churned up making hunting deeper holes off the sides all but impossible.

I came across a nice little cabby so invited him home for dinner.

Swell started to pick up over here so moved again...

Dropped down to 53 feet at the next spot and was too dark and churned up so moved one more time to a shallow section of reef I know and spent some time exploring.

I found one more tasty looking bright blue smurf cabby so decided to bring him home for dinner too. 

On way back in tide was high and swell was still up so had to land on the lovely staircase next to the beach. 

I timed it good and made it in and up the stairs no worries.

Matt took his time waiting for his window...and charged in right when a nice set was coming. 

He took a little spill and yak banged around a little but I managed to get a hold of the bow and drag it up to safety.

Back at home I fileted and chopped up the fish into nuggets for frying for my daughters...that is the way they are most stoked on eating them now. 

Huge thanks to Matt for coming down, loaning me his OK T13 and following me around to explore some new territory.

Let's do it again soon!

 

Sincerely,

Jim

So as Jim said.....my entry went as planned    I was going for a rough entry to make sure I could handle anything and everything on my new/used Tarpon 160 

I know when people talk about anything big.......waves, fish, er um .... it is usually grossly misstated.  I will say this, I grew up in Socal and spent plenty of time in the    ocean, swimming out to the large third row sets at Huntington Beach as a youngster and other big Socal wave places.  Once in the water I am never really uncomfortable but in a kayak when I see Ghost Trees breaking is a whole different story.  I want to say it was bigger than forecasted which was like 8-10 @ 12 seconds.  There are some swells I saw for sure that were bigger than 10 seconds and were half as big as the cliffs near arrowhead.

Had a great day diving with BigJim....like he said we were being super selective, he was going for a big ling and copper and I was looking for big ling, copper and big cab.  New areas were awesome to dive with a ton of promise.  Just as LiveAlohaKris shot my halibut  BigJim shot my copper 

The only downside to always diving with guys like BigJim, Adam415, LiveAlohaKris and IceColdChuck is you have to bring your A game every dive or go home empty because they will score.  It is truly awesome to always have great diving partners and have learned a ton this year.  I didn't get my copper or verm yet but have been diving pretty hard and sure they will come sooner than later for me and will have truly earned it when they come 

This is my first year of DOTY and even though I am in 11th right now, I feel great about it because I only shot my first ling a year ago at Randy Fry and BigJim put me on my first cab in December of last year.

The landing was perfect as well.....not sure what BigJim is talk about  I wanted to test how rugged my boat was and I can say the Wilderness Tarpon 160 can smash head on into a concrete step in 8-10 ft Swell and not crack  Ya wish I could take that back!!

Little vid to show how the surge really was.....I kicked down only, rest of the time I'm just riding the surge covering ground.  At one point you can see a small pin when the waves are breaking and that is BigJim looking like he is going to get swept away!!

Till the next Dive,

Matt