Southern Sur Slugs RPT

DOLPHINS, WHALES & SEA DRAGONS! Emmanuel, Giray and I went on a full scale mission carrying kayaks and gear up and down huge cliffs in Southern Sur on Saturday. Emmaunel slept in his van Fri night and was in the water 2.5 hours before Giray and I got out to him. My muscles are still barking at me today, but it was well worth it! We all got toads! We all debated if we should participate in the Bring the Ling contest but decided to just have a blast down in Sur and not focus on competing. (Even though my two lings that got me first place last year probably didn’t weigh as much combined as the one I got). I’m really stoked we had such a great and exhausting trip! We dove for over 7 hours and have some great memories and fish to show for it. Emmanuel got the biggest ling, I got a big one (see pic) with a fatty scallop and Giray pulled a 22" cab. We saw whales breaching, dolphins, and lots of various schoolies.

The ocean was glassy, visibility was a milky 25'-30' and temp was around 54. It was a ton of fun doing some deeper drops at the first few spots and then moving into the shallows to hole hunt which is where the big fish were hanging out at. After I got my ling, I took a drop to about 25' and looked way back in a thin deep cave and saw what I thought was a nice ling face. I left my gun and had Giray go down to shoot it. He took the awkward shot and I watched him struggle for a moment. He came back up with the spear still in the cave. The "ling" had swam sideways and lodged itself behind another rock in the back of the cave. I dove down to assist and literally had to stuff my whole upper body in the cave with my arm fully extended just to grab the shaft. It was pretty stuck. It took us 5 drops each before I finally just hulk giggled it out. Turned out to be a monster grassy. Giray was hooping and hollering - fully stoked. While he was putting the fish on his stringer, I made a drop and bam, I found that grassy's older brother. Stoned him.

We had an absolute blast on the water. The only miserable part, outside of skipping lunch to keep diving, was getting the gear and yaks back up the mountain. It took us several trips and I was fully exhausted by the time I got the yak on the racks. There was a cool hippie gal that was selling homemade ciabatta bread with toppings. I offered to share one of my blues with her and after putting it in her cooler, she was kind enough to give my buddies and I some tasty bread. She was really stoked on the fish and the bread was great!

The last funny part of the story was driving home at sunset. I passed a big vista point with a lot of people taking selfies. I thought it would be funny to get a sunset pic with my fish so a 1/4mi later flipped a uturn and pulled over. I said to one cute couple that I'd take their picture if they took one of me with my significant other. I got a lot of laughs from onlookers when I pulled out the fish. Good times, great people, quality fish!

Sounds like a blast!
Thanks for the write up and congrats on the successful outing!

Great pics!!!

One of the best places on earth right there.
Nice Job!

Good stuff brother!!

Thanks guys!

Here is a cool video my buddy put together of this dive! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1FyDlVKiss&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3H7kFuYW607GQ7sKesQwKy2ymzC_b1Ie7WjQkJasaagLWvfaXoPycJJzo

Fun trip - thanks for sharing your report.