Good friends, small fish

My good buddy Nathan Sharkbait texted me last week to let me know he was in town visiting his parents and that he wanted to go diving...at first I didn't think I was gonna be able to get out with him but after shuffling some family committments around I was able to get Saturday afternoon free. 

We decided to avoid the Carmel area since there was the big Art and Wine festival going on, and figured instead we would go play on the other side of the peninsula.

While watching Valentina's soccer game on Saturday morning I got a text at like 10am from fuzz asking if I wanted to dive...I told him the plan that Nathan and I had and he said he and Nate spinal tap would meet us down there. 

Nathan and I launched out into flat calm seas and headed to the area we wanted to check out. Cool looking structure and good viz, but not a lot of cracks and not very fishy unfortunately....Sharkbait got a decent Ling and I took a small Ling (legal but embarrasingly little lol), a blue, and a cool Treefish that I found in a crack before fuzz and spinal tap showed up and we moved spots.

Next spot was shallower with a ton of cracks and holes to explore and I had high hopes of finding some big cabs or Lings hiding...instead I found a little 16 inch cab, another blue and a small monkey. 

None of the other guys really found anything else exciting so we moved again.

Clipped off to the kelp at the next spot and dropped in to find the water had turned dark green...and then the wind turned on. 

Hunted for a little bit more before all deciding we needed to get the heck out of there and high tail it back to the launch before it got any nastier.

At shore we were protected from the wind and swell and spent some time chilling in the tide pools and floating around in our westuits and BSing. Best part of the day to be honest and should've filmed us floating on our backs like otters. 

Anyway, despite the lack of fish and the conditions that cut our session short it was great to see these guys and hope we all get to dive together again soon.

Here is a vid I threw together...Andrew Harmer aka albondiga helped ID the cool snaky fish at about 3:20 as a Kelp Gunnel (cool little guy!), and you can see fuzz in his natural habitat towards the end. 



 

Sincerely,

Jim
 

Damn, if that crew couldn't find anything but small fish, there must have ONLY been small fish there!!

They still look plenty tasty to me!    I've been dreaming of Andy's smoked MFE recently   

each trip out has its own rewards...
 

Damn, if that crew couldn't find anything but small fish, there must have ONLY been small fish there!!

Yeah it was pretty slow for sure...

Spinal tap got a nice cab (maybe 21/22?) and some assorted steaming/frying size rockies, Sharkbait got a 26/27 inch Ling, and fuzz didn't shoot anything, and instead tied my floatline to sharkbaits, tackled me underwater scaring the crap out of me, and tried to get a spider crab he found to bite me.

 

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Damn, if that crew couldn't find anything but small fish, there must have ONLY been small fish there!!

Yeah it was pretty slow for sure...

Spinal tap got a nice cab (maybe 21/22?) and some assorted steaming/frying size rockies, Sharkbait got a 26/27 inch Ling, and fuzz didn't shoot anything, and instead tied my floatline to sharkbaits, tackled me underwater scaring the crap out of me, and tried to get a spider crab he found to bite me.

 

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Ha! Sounds like this weekend's Albion story of Andy vs Andy in an underwater ab gauge battle for a tasty rock scallop. I heard Andy won.

Damn, if that crew couldn't find anything but small fish, there must have ONLY been small fish there!!

Yeah it was pretty slow for sure...

Spinal tap got a nice cab (maybe 21/22?) and some assorted steaming/frying size rockies, Sharkbait got a 26/27 inch Ling, and fuzz didn't shoot anything, and instead tied my floatline to sharkbaits, tackled me underwater scaring the crap out of me, and tried to get a spider crab he found to bite me.

 

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Ha! Sounds like this weekend's Albion story of Andy vs Andy in an underwater ab gauge battle for a tasty rock scallop. I heard Andy won.

 

 

That shot of Fuzz on the bottom just chilling is pretty bad ass.
Looks like he's missing a scuba tank 

As always thanks for posting bro..........I need to get out there again soon.

Has anyone checked to make sure Fuzz doesn't have gills?

Has anyone checked to make sure Fuzz doesn't have gills?

I did.

He does.

 

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Thought so   He looked SO AT HOME down there like that rock was a couch & he was just watching tv. 

Awesome. Love the videos as always.

Thanks for the diving report , picture, and video Jim.

Here's some info on the Kelp Gunnel:

http://www.coldwaterimages.com/kelp_gunnel.html

So cool!!!

 

 

Sincerely,

Jim