How to Pay Respect to a Lobster catch of a life time
I thought I would share this write up with you all,
Let me start back at the beginning, Early last year I headed south with a buddy and his boat in tow. We met up with good friends of mine Hobi Ladd and Danny Jones for some lobster diving somewhere in SoCal.
Little did I know what this night would have in store for me. Short recap, we were just about done for the night and I was looking for my last 2 bugs. I had been working in the shallows, 3 to 8 ft. of water, all night. For some reason, as I am swimming on the surface panning my light back and forth, I decided to shine it out into some deeper water, which was about 15ft feet. That's when I saw it !!! In the middle of a big bowl of giant boulders right out in the open, just perched on a small to medium sized rock in the middle of the bowl. I instantly took a breath and dove down with as much intent as I could. I quickly put my hands around it and bear-hugged it against my chest, it put up no fight at all as I ascended to the surface. Once I hit the surface I let out the whoop whoop in celebration of my find. Once back at the boat dock we all admired the find and that's when Hobi and Danny said, "Dude you need to mount that thing." Not just because of it's size, but that I got the whole thing intact, no missing legs or broken antenna's.
3 weeks later I got home and was thinking about it. After hearing from friends about the possible age, anywhere from 50 to 70 years old, and the rarity of the find that it was only right to give this awesome creature and find the respect it deserved and have it mounted. Once I made this decision I knew there was no better person to contact then the best in the business and that was Ed Moore at the Wildlife Workshop in Fort Bragg. If you have time check out some of his awesome work on trophy abalone and fish at Wildlife Workshop Ed Moore
So, I took it up to Ed and let him run with the design and use his creativity. Last week I received a call that he was finished and ready for me to pick it up. With great excitement the wife and I made the 2hr drive up to Fort Bragg to pick it up. Once there, as I had expected, Ed did not let me down but totally blew my mind !!!!! Thank you Ed, you made a true piece of art and the ability for me to treasure and enjoy my life time find forever. Once I had got it home the fun part became deciding where to hang this awesome mount. Well the first thought was the dive room, but that's not right for it to sit down there and hardly get enjoyed. So, I decided to hang it in the dining room. Not to my wife's liking or favorable approval LOL, well after some intense discussions and lots of stink eye I got her to agree. So here is a picture of it on the wall alongside my 3 biggest abalone shells which are 11.25,11.125 and 10.90. I am really happy with the way the wall came out.
