Poppin another Cherry

Met this guy Andrew at my recent FII class. He is an experienced diver from Australia who is here for awhile living in SF with his wife and son...he has dove all over the world but has never shot any fish here in NorCal.

I told him we could fix that. 

Met Andrew and Steve (lorikay2) at first light and paddled out to the hunting grounds. Put Andrew in the Kraken 15.5 and I paddled the Kraken 13.5.

The more I paddle the 13.5 the more I like it...paddles really well, lighter, more nimble in water, all same features...has a smaller tankwell than the 15.5 but still plenty of room for fish and gear.

Anyway, got to first spot and checked a crack I know hoping to find a nice Ling for Andrew.

There were a few small Lings in and around the crack but nothing too sexy or exciting. 

Andrew shot a nice Olive from the schooling fish above the crack and I spent some time slowly checking the whole length of it....towards the far right I saw the obvious unmistakable red head and white chin of a nice sized female Sheephead. 

Went up and told Andrew and he dropped down to look...he came up and said he didn't see it.

I wet back down and confirmed she was still there and I went back up and tried to give him advice on where to look...he went back down and came up and said he saw a black and yellow but no Sheephead. 

I went back down again, and yep she was still there.

Told him to try one more time...he drops down, I hear his gun fire and he comes up with the sheep!!!

 

Beautiful 24 inch female and he shot it right through the upper lip and out the bottom jaw.

Super stoked for him on getting a sheep!! Lings are very common up here, but sheep much less so!!

Before we moved spots I told him we should hunt around a little bit cuz there is some really nice structure in the area...

After a bit I find some nice horizontal ledges down at 51 feet and one has a solid Ling in the back...shoot her right in the face and she takes off, but I can see that I have strung her and the shaft is all the way through her head...I know she's not going anywhere so I rise to the surface and just hold onto the floatline and bring her up.

Beautiful meaty 34 inch fish. 

Jumped back in kayaks and moved to another area I know...nobody home in the crack I have marked over there, and we hunt around for awhile and Andrew shoots a 23 inch Ling to get the LingMonkey off his back but we really don't see anything too exciting so move in shallower to an area that I really like.

30/40 feet is average depth here and with the good viz we could see the bottom most times while laying on the surface. 

Ton of blues, kelpies, and olives of all sizes. Really fun just diving around in the moderate depths and exploring. 

I find and take a small 18 inch cab, a 28 inch Monkey, a chunky kelpy, and then help Andrew locate a bright red 17 inch cab that he spooked...it is hiding in a crack I know that has produced nice fish for me in the past. 

Almost time to go (I told wife I would be home early) so I start heading back to kayak and drop a few more times on the way and take two more 26/27 inch Lings. 

Back at kayaks we gut the fish real quick (cab was full of abalone and one of the Lings had a whole 12 inch rockfish in his gut), and I see that Andrew has also taken a nice kelpy and a fat blue. 

Paddle back in, have a beer, take some pics, gift all my fish to Andrew except for my big Ling, and head out and am back home by 2pm.

Great morning in the water, and it was really fun showing somebody how nice NorCal kayak diving can be.

Quick little vid and some pics attached.



 

Sincerely,

Jim

ps..the 34 inch Ling fit fine in my Orion 85 cooler. 
 

they are arranged so nicely in there.
i bet that tale, will be told and heard around the world, by Andrew, and he'll be wearing a big smile.

Looks like beautiful conditions out there! You got an eye for them big lings way back, nice work!

You are the man, Jim!

40' vis... beautiful! Glad you guys had such a successful outing! As always, thanks for the vid. 

Sweet looking structure and awesome vis 

I need a cubeta de cervezas frias after that vid 

No NOLA swamp jazz......what is this madness!

that is so awesome. I want to shoot a Sheep.

Geez ! Do we need to start another topic, " Am I the only one that hates Jim's video's ".

He is getting to be worse than Pablo. 

Just kidding Jim. Just wishin I was fishin.

Thanks for the video and report. 
video is awesome as usual!

Props to the Red triangle group for the help ! 

Thanks for the diving report and video Jim.

Some meat pics.

Head, collars, belly meat and carcass will get made into a killer soup.

#zerowaste

 

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Waiting to see the soup pics.   

Nice video Jim. I like the way you ripped the gills out of lingzilla and let the blood be replaced with the seawater . Now i see why the meat look sooo good!