Super lucky day!

Had one of those great days that leave you feeling fortunate to be alive and grateful everything came together, including dropping swell, calming wind, and t-shirt weather. Started by meeting a good friend, Ross, from San Diego I hadn't seen in three years in Monterey. I was with my daughter, Kelly, up from Santa Barbara, so that alone was great. In the back of my mind, I was holding out hope we might also connect with my friend, T-Slaya (known mtitch on this board) but that seemed unlikely as he had actual work planned up in Palo Alto.

Scouted a couple spots and went for one that seemed to offer the nicer outing for my daughter, even if might be less fishy. Then the first sign that amazing was on schedule, just as we're unloading our gear, T-Slaya shows up; definitely a good omen. He had already been in and was heading up to Bay Area, but just seeing him and having my daughter meed him was great! We were pumped.

As forecast, by the time we leisurely suited up, the wind and swell dropped to like 2.6 ft I think, vis was a reasonable hazy 20. Kelp was pretty thin, must have been ripped up by the recent stretch of big swells.  Found some of the usual suspects, nothing spectacular. Then by good luck, chanced on a decent ling out cruising her territory. Happy to get a stoning head shot, so she was definitely coming home. 

Super afternoon ended even better with beers and food at sunset! Magic! Thankful for everything. Wishing all of you great experiences with your friends and family over the Christmas holidays plus some good safe dives!

Even got some cooking from that inspiration to us all, Big Jim! Stoke-aciousness!!

Hell yeah dude!!!!!!!!

What an awesome day and a PIG of a Ling!!

 

Congrats, enjoy the meals, and thanks for sharing!!

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Wow. What an awesome day all around for you all. GEEZ ! What are the stats on that ling ?

It must have been a great day, weather-wise, for your daughter to be wearing a swimsuit. Congrats on the ling. 

Amazing ling!!! More amazing is the weather! Only problem your going to have is all the single guys on the site trying to get invited over to your place .... Have a wonderfilled Christmas!

Those r huge! Good job!

😱👍💪👏

that ling lok biggg af!  u musta wayed it no??

Congrats on the Lingzilla    Thanks for the report and pictures Dirk.

Awesome!

thanks guys, I can honestly say all luck, zero skill.  also it was a decent sized ling but probably looks bigger because I'm on the tall side myself,about 6'5"

I sometimes feel guilty when I shoot a fish with a lot of roe, so borrowing inspiration from Big Jim, I tried ling roe with scrambled eggs. I'll admit I was expecting it to be fishy and thought my pup might get an early treat. But, DAMN! it was good! Not fishy at all, absolutely zero fish taste. Threw in some avo plus pepper jack and chowed down! None left for my hungry pup - but she gets plenty of other treats!

Scramble looks great dude!!!

 

That Ling is a monster man...congrats again!!

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Awesome ling! Congrats again! Glad I got to stop by and say hello before heading back up to the bay   

Thanks again guys and also the youtube tutorials on ling jaws. I tried the baking technique. Worked pretty well, but I realized later that in stripping off the excess skin and fat and flesh around jaws (all done under flickering light out in the garage) that I must have lost some of the teeth. All the scraps went to my dog, so that was the end of that. A few other small teeth came out in the bowl of bleach and I hot melt glued them back.

But overall the jaws came out pretty dope; looking at them might make you glad not to be an anchovy!

Damn bro, that came out sweet!