Sunset Vermillion (food porn added)

Family is out of town still so had a window after work...wanted to go look in the surf for Stripers but with the South Swell being up figured that would be a waste of time...

Instead, Joe bloodbath and I headed to Monterey and jumped off some rocks and swam out through the crashing waves into surgy, churned up, green water...

Way too much water movement to hunt anything shallower than 40 feet so we worked the outside/deeper reefs between 45 and 58 feet in viz that ranged from 5 to 15 feet.

Took a decent 18 inch Cabezon, a small Black Rockfish that looked at me funny, and a 26 inch Ling...

Found a stretch of boulders down at 50/55 feet that looked very promising and saw a few really nice Olives that didn't let me get close enough to take them. 

Dropped down again to 52 feet and was stoked but not surprised to see a nice Verm cruising over the top of a boulder...took him with a nice shot right behind the head and out his cheek and rose to the top pumping my fist and fired up!!

 

Pretty tired by this point so Joe and I headed back in and got back up onto the rocks without getting hurt/losing gear, and then chilled back at the car and had a few beers and took some pics.

Verm was only 18 inches, but my biggest of the three I have taken so far this year so I'm stoked!!

http://doty.norcalkayakanglers.com/catches/1802

Great way to spend a Wednesday evening!!

Huge thanks to Joe for coming out and diving with me!!

Here's a quick vid and some pics....Had to edit the color a lot on the video footage...raw footage was so green that could hardly see fish, so made it more blue/grey so they stood out a little better...



 

Sincerely,

Jim

Nice red dude!

Great after work dive. 

Thanks for the report and vid, helps to keep me sane. Gotta love it.....You still appreciate spearn' in murky water and celebrate like a kid getting his first car.    Should be diving again in a couple weeks.   

Nice fish and awesome video Jim

........ a small Black Rockfish that looked at me funny....

deserved it.
 

Nice spearin Jim.
The verms are so cool looking when they are alive. Though they look good to me filleted and on a plate too

Hey, that's a pretty solid afternoon's work! And any fish at 52' is damn sweet! Great haul; hope I can do as well tomorrow!

Thanks guys!!

Had a great family dinner last night with wife and girls!!

Got the mandatory "magic red fish" pic with the girls...

Then out back to get the filets off, and to get the small stones out...my daughters like them. 

Then back inside to cook...wife wanted to fry the small black I shot whole, so I decided to fry the Verm head/collar at the same time, and to make nuggets out of the verm filets....

Turned out very yummy!!!

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Thanks for the report, video, and pictures Jim. The dish looks mighty delicious 

Awesome Jim...every time I read one of your posts...I want to learn how to dive ..thanks for posting

what he said!

Awesome video.....