MONSTER HALIBUT

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