Swell was down last night. Joined spearthebigones for an adventure. Calm seas and nearly full moon allowed for a fun shore dive scavenging some very shallow reef that normally gets pounded by surf. Entered water just before 10pm. Visibility was good, allowing me to spot lobster from the surface in over 8' of water. Saw lobster on my first drop, and continued seeing shorts and barely legal deep hiding bugs for an hour. kicked a hundred yards to some more interesting ledges, and started seeing bigger bugs that were out crawling!!! Yes! Saw a large size Abalone, a horn shark, typical reef fish, a couple cabazon, a brown rockfish, and a TREE FISH( I have never seen one). WOW. Got lucky and made a grab on a fat legal bug. Grabbed a few more that we're just short, and reaching very deep under some ledges produced nothing else.
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Now, we were on a stretch of reef that is hard to get to, no one was seen on the beach. But, during the second half of this 3 hr dive, I kept hearing some fin splash, and head sized object near me. I was thinking seal, but when I'd shine my light over all I would see was a commercial lob pot buoy. So I convinced myself I was hallucinating and headed in. While taking my fins off, a skindiver with no light on and swim fins is exciting the water just a few yards behind us. It was A CA DFG warden. He explained he was out looking for people poaching the commercial traps! Said they had been getting hit pretty hard, so he was out freediving with no flashlight on, being stealth watching us and checking the commercial traps. It was 1:00am now, he checked our bugs and had a nice chat and walked away. It was a strange feeling knowing he was diving on traps as I past them, just yards from me and I had no idea. And looking for poacher alone, what a tough job!
