I wanted to take second and share the catch of an amazing
fish. Last Friday I was invited to dive off my
friend Jeff’s Boat the D.V. Lucas J.to look for some White Sea Bass, Our
original plan was to dive San Clemente island, unfortunately the Navy closed
the island so we had to call a last minute audible. We all decided to head up
the cost and dive North County and spend the next two days working our way back
down the cost hitting every kelp bed until we reached the boarder. Almost every
bed we dove we were hearing croaking , but we couldn’t find the sea bass in the dirty water . After
the first day of diving we anchored up in mission bay and had an amazing dinner
with fresh yt on the BBQ, after dinner we all got on our phones and called our
buddys for any WSB info. Most divers reported slow action for wsb at all the typical
WSB beds. So we checked the Chlorophyll charts we noticed that a Sandy Bed that
usually has very dirty water was BLUE. The next day we deiced run straight to
the blue water kelp bed. When we arrived we were happy to see that the boats
that were anchored on the bed were all Line fisherman except one parker Boat the "ocean-bound" it
was our friends and fellow PISTOLERO’s Scott
Darnel & Geraled McMurry. As soon as we got in the water fish started to
hit the deck. Right before we left, I Decided to swim up the front of the kelp
bed, to see if I could dive and ambush a fish from bellow , when I leveled off I
noticed how clear and bright the white sand was. I noticed a big brown rock
that stuck out like a sore thumb. I thought to myself “could it be “?? “no way”
..” OHH MY GOD IT IS !! And its HUGE”. I quickly changed plans and began
to kick down towards the monster fish. As I approached I started to get nervous about
blowing the shot , So I just went into an instinctual auto pilot mode and somehow
closed the distance and pulled the trigger on my Phil Herranen custom gun. The fish
didn’t even fight as I pulled it to the surface with me , as soon as I reached
the surface I started pulling the fish closer towards me. When I
pulled out my knife to dispatch the fish she went bannans and made a run back to the bottom. My
big potts real was screaming , So I pulled the cord on the CO2 float and applied light
drag pressure to my reel. As soon as the fish tired out I began cutting it free
from the kelp.Sam was close by and took some underwater photos , on are way in we stopped
at the James and Joseph Dock to weigh our fish. My halibut came in at 44.9lbs
on the certified scale. This is one capture I won’t soon forget.
Thanks for reading ,,,,Joe
