Trinidad was World Class today! Video Added

Nice whale photos and congrats on your +10".  it looked like good vis for trinidad.

 

 It's "buyer beware" when it comes to signing on to a Humboldt Hookup.  

 
You almost have to live in Trinidad to see a day with decent vis.

Diving without gloves is masochistic

   But...  if you get a wild hair and feel that you have to head over here be sure to give us a heads-up and maybe we can meet up.   

 I get many wild hairs and will let you guys know.  

This report was world class brother.

 

Sharin' the gold is what it's all about. The whales must have been awesome. The energy in the air must have been electric. Thats how it is at my fav spot. Not much around and then boom bang there it is.

Great Report.

Wow, what a wonderful experience.  You seem to live in one of the most blessed places on earth dude.  I love the reports you send out.  Thanks.

Come HB...Don't sell your locale short. Lost Isle has it's own kinda whales and blow holes! HAHAHA!

wow what a great mornig, thanks for sharing that it brightened my day. cameron

Reports like this only serve to remind me just how much I MISS living on the North Coast.......Even though I have vacationed there for the last 18 years.

I miss Trinidad and the State Beach, and Patricks Point was one of my favorite haunts as was the North Jetty.

Sigh...............Man........THE MEMORIES>

DEREK

Right on AbKing....

  Wonderful Place you live in up there....

 Can't wait to check it out soon....

  Great Report....... 

Another top notch report, pictures, and video Abking. The whale's present I bet
was a big treat for you guys.

Jedmo

I'm workin on my skills brotha, might try to get up there for your fiesta, those conditions up there today today were beautiful.  The sonoma coast was gnarly. 

Way to go on hooking your bro up with that team effort.    JTF

Thanks, Guys.    

Beautiful day!  Great teamwork! Awsome video!  Need I say more? 

Fantastic as always Abking!  Whales have to be one of my favorite animals, amazing.  I bet they were just as curious about the both of you.  The visibility was nice.  I need to take a scube trip up there some time to see what all is living there.  I bet there are some huge Ab's just out of reach of freediving.  Thanks for the report!  Matt

I bet there are some huge Ab's just out of reach of freediving.

It's actually the case that there aren't as many abs at all out deep up in Humboldt.  I've checked many spots north of Trinidad on calm days where I'd found nice abs inshore, and I found nada outside of 20' or so, and that was only in some very protected areas.  The extra silt from rivers, murky water and more extreme currents and surge prevent the prolific growth of kelp on deeper reef here and also present an inhospitable habitat for abs.  Most of the abs around here are quite shallow.  In Trinidad Bay though, the habitat is excellent and scuba classes and sportsmen in general have dove the protected area of the Bay for decades.  It's my theory that many of those big 10's (and there were MANY) are gone, and it must be related to some extent to those scuba divers coming back and going 15-40' for what they'd already found...  I don't have anything to substantiate that, and I hope that any of those "sportsmen" who saw big abs on scuba were men enough to leave those big vulnerable trophies in the calmer water.  Personally, I think Trinidad Bay should be at least partially closed - put an MPA in there so people can keep enjoying the beautiful life on the reef there, instead of it continuing on the all too common human-affected legacy of dwindling wonder and stories about how it used to be.

Here's more:  as Domenic and I were loading up our boats at the beach launch a fellow walked by with his dog and asked if we'd been looking for abs.  I quickly pointed to Dom's Hawaiian sling and said we'd been hoping to spear a fish and we'd watched the whales.  I share to a fault, but I won't just trust anyone with the info we had...  So we gab for a bit and he says he's a biologist who works at the Marine Lab right up the road and that he's seen people come out of there with some big abs.  Now that I know he's a bio-guy I divulge that we pulled a 10.  He gives more info:  DFG was here a few years ago he says, and they needed to "collect" 60 animals to study and to officially "clear" the area regarding whether the withering foot disease had affected the population of abs here.  He said that on scuba they collected 40 abs (big ones) and none of them had the disease, but because they couldn't find enough to reach the benchmark number of 60 animals they couldn't "clear" the area for their report.  They killed the abs...  What a crock.  Anyway, the population here is extremely small, and DFG taking out all those big spawners didn't help.

More:  the biologist confirmed something I heard many years ago - that abs were planted here to supplement the population at some point.  He suggested the ab we found may have been a plant.  I know 10 inch abs to be quite old in general, but this particular specimen is extremely healthy and robust looking.  Maybe it is a planter?...  er, was.   

I dove inside Trinidad Bay several times back in the summer of '94.  I found 1 ab and left it.  I ended up finding a bunch of huge abs north of there, so I abandoned all attempts at finding an ab in Trinidad Bay or even diving there at all until last year at this time when I made a video of pulling one in there and tagging it.  I just don't feel as excited about hunting in Trinidad Bay as I do about hunting in places where I have more of a feel that I'm the only one who's been there.  So I'll go back to diving where it's more of a challenge and save Trinidad Bay for sightseeing.