recognizing abalone

How easy is it to tell a red abalone from the other abalone?  I have looked at pictures on the web, and they seem pretty similar.

MolBasser

It's fairly easy north of the Golden Gate where ab diving is still legal.  There are only 4 species up here...
RED, BLACK, PINTO and FLAT



and here's a nice table from Cal DFG to help with identifications
http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mrd/ab_id.html

Of the four species only blacks and reds ever really get above 7" (legal size) and these are pretty easy to tell apart.

Blacks have a smooth dark shell (almost black) with 5-9 open vent holes.
Reds have a bumby brick red shell with only 3-4 open vent holes.

I suppose it's possible to come across a rather large pinto or flat which is pushing 7", but I really doubt that would happen.  These species are fairly rare.  Most flats are less than 3 inches and we really don't get many pintos in California.

By and fare the most abundant species of ablaone in Northern California is the red abalone.  Just make sure it's legal size, has less than 5 open vent holes, a fairly bumby red shell and black tenacles and you should be fine. If you find what that doesn't quite look right, pass it up and find one you're sure about.

Now if you're interested in abalone shells from a purely malacological point of view (i.e. you're collecting sea shells).  As far as I know there is no law preventing someone from collecting the shells of any of the species of abalone in California (assuming you're just finding the empty shells and not killiing the organism for them).  In that case, there are plenty of shell details you can use to determine each species from one another (see the link to the DFG site).

Brian

I was just curious, and you gave a great answer.  The fact that you would only need to determine between two (because of size) and that the two are easily discriminated answers me perfectly..

I sort of doubt that I will ab dive as I cannot (or have not be able to) clear my ears any time I have tried.  I was just wondering what you ab folks did in water with limited visibility and stiff fines for mucking it up.

My wife wishes that I knew how to ab dive though......

MolBasser

black abalone shells tend to be smaller and are a lot smoother and more appealing to find. i find them down in carmel diving monastery sometimes washed up on the beaches. they look almost naturally polished and have a bunch of small vent holes. about 3-4 " max as far as i have seen.

I have a 5" black abalone shell from big sur, and a couple more that I think are green abalone because they're forest green instead of black.  Could be that blacks can come in green though.  The otters keep the beach replenished with endangered abalone shells down there. 

Yes, we get green abs up as far as Monterey. The awesome chart that bsteves posted indicates their range is further south but I know they are up here.
Back in the day...not THAT long ago, the size limit for blacks was only 5 inches. They don't get as big as reds. There are some areas in Asilomar and Carmel and Garrapata that are completely covered in abs! I was out in Carmel during a negativee 1.7 this past March and found a crevice that was just FULL of big blacks. I usually see the greens in Asilomar.
Of course, you can NOT take any abs south of the Gate. But they are very cool critters to observe. And I hope that one day, we will be able to harvest abs down here again, on a limited basis.
Very cool critters indeed!

PK

Mol - in my experience I've felt relatively few juvenile or small abs compared to the adults I find, and I doubt that any or many of them were Pintos or Flats.  The red abalone, Haliotis Rufescens (gotta throw it out there since it's one of few latin species names I know  ) is so dominant in northern California that I think you'd be lucky to find another species - even blacks.  I once saw some guys marveling at a black they found near Point Reyes, but I've never seen or felt one north of the Gate.  When I lived in San Jose in the early 90's I did quite a bit of diving and some rockpicking at Franklin and Pigeon Points and a few nearby spots to them.  I found a significant number of blacks including a few over 7" - the blacks are generally farther up in the tidal zone than the reds / more likely to be out of the water at minus tide.

Brian - the number of ventilation holes in the shell that a species has is a generalization and not a rule, as I've found reds with up to 7 holes and as few as 1. 

Oh yeah, Mol, you can get abs relatively easy without clearing your ears.  Learn about rockpicking at minus tide - it's alot of fun and many large abs are taken that way.  The biggest ab I ever found was only a foot or so under the water at minus tide. 

I have friends that have done it this way, but I have no local knowledge about where to go and how to do it etc.

I'd be game if someone wanted to take me out....Maybe even do some poke poling at the same time.

MolBasser

Chris,

There are a lot of great easy spots to get abalone in Sonoma and Mendocino counties.  In the fall, however, the tides aren't great for rockpicking.  In fact all of the minus tides are at night (just after sunset).  Even the finding a low tide less than a +2 ft during the day is a rare treat.  However, there are plenty of places you can still get abs in water depths that don't require clearing of the ears.  I guess the question is are you happy getting a limit of 7-8 inch abs or are you more interested in what I refer to as "sport ab diving" which is the type of thing Abking does, passing over a few hundred legal abs every trip in search of the 10 inchers.

I'm sure Jim, Naoaki and I can help you find some abs up here if you're interested.

Brian

It's true that you'll mostly only find smaller abs rockpicking, if you find any at all, but there are also some old-growth lurking in the shallows and way up under rocks.  Another requirement of rockpicking that many folks don't like is reaching where they can't see - urchins, fish, eels, barnacles...etc. ARE waiting for you, but you get used to it.  I've not been bitten by anything.  Whenever I've felt a fish it squirms and I squirm out of there a hell of a lot faster than I thought I could!  But curiosity gets the best of me and I reach back in to touch it again if it's still holed up in there.  I once pulled a 3' long eel out of a hole with most of my body out of the water.  I've gotten quite a few 10's with my head out of the water, and my wife once got it 10 and she NEVER gets her head wet!  But alas, those days are rare now as even my best hike-in spots on the Lost Coast seem to be pretty picked over...  Brian is right about this year's fall minus tides, but that varies from year to year.

Maybe next year.

I don't mind just legal abs, I'm not after a trophy, just to make my wife happy.

MolBasser