Posts by Sam

You might need a lot more light than you would prefer to carry around in order to make the video better with the original Hero. This is a screen grab from a video I took using the original Hero. The video was recorded during the day, but it was pitch black 20ft down and a Princeton-tec LED light only illuminated a sliver of what you would want to see.

I'm still waiting for similar conditions to develop again so I can dive the same spot and compare footage from my Hero3. So far, I think the 3's performance is much better overall.

Quote from LunkerBuster

Wow. Only take by hand. So you can't use a cast net?

Correct. It's really not necessary to use anything other than your hands. When they spawn, they run up the beach as far as the waves will carry them. They are pretty much out of the water when you are collecting them, and once they are in full spawning mode (usually the second hour of the run) they don't even care about people or other animals walking near them, on them, or through them. It is very easy to end up with several pounds of grunion since they are so vulnerable during the spawn.

I like to remove the head and guts and cook them like you would fish and chips. One of these days I'd like to try pickling and canning some, as well as make fish sauce out of them.

Results of the first run of the year:

I like to add 1-2 onions, 4 carrots, 6 or 7 ribs of celery, several cloves of garlic, fennel, bay leaves, and some white wine. Simmer for 3-4 hours and then strain it 2-3 times.

Quote from fishingdude

not to derail the thread, but how do you make lobster stock? What parts of the lobster do you throw out to keep it from getting too fishy?

I split the carapace down the middle, then remove all the guts and nasty bits (testes/ovaries, digestive tract). What you have left are the legs, the shell, and any body meat that didn't come out with the tail. You can remove the body meat and reserve for another use, or just leave it in.

After that, you can proceed as you would for any other stock.

Dear lord that's more lobster than I pull in a season! You could make a year's worth of lobster stock with all those carapaces!

If you don't want to spend the energy tenderizing them (like we do for abalone), they make really good crab bait. I bet they would work for lobster hooping too.

I believe these topics were discussed at the last commission meeting, and most likely will not be put into effect until the 2013-2014 regulations are released, if not later.

A little while ago I posted several photos from my adventures with Pacific halibut in Canada. One of those photos was this one below, wherein I was explaining some of the finer points behind the optimum angle to successfully "switch off" a lingcod.

Well, amongst all the mushroom gathering,

rum drinking,

and sushi partying that transpired during my Humboldt County vacation. . .

. . .I managed to hit the diving just right. Found 5-20ft vis (which is really epic visibility for Humboldt) at my favorite spot, and then found this thing sitting way back in hole at 30ft. I had to wiggle half my body into the hole in order to stick it, something I rarely do when diving solo.

So, where do the contents of photo number one and photo number six convene? Right here. See the shot placement?

While the lingcod on the boat was lucky to escape with its brains undamaged, the lingcod I found yesterday did not. I managed to successfully apply the principles of "Off Switch" theory. In through the brain and out between the pelvic fins. It worked so well in fact, that the ling never even twitched. She went 20.6 lbs and 37 inches with a 21 inch girth, just one pound under my PB lingcod.

Nice fish! Were you on your kayak or one of the charter boats? I miss the diving in that bay; it's one of my favorite places to dive.

While I haven't been spearing or even diving since sometime in early May, I have not been far from the water or fish. My work season tends to take up the best times for diving, but I still get to play with fish (and get paid for it!!) all summer long.

This summer (like always) I was working on a couple of halibut boats in Canada to collect data for the annual stock assessment of Pacific Halibut. There are so many inlets and islands on the BC coast that you could spend two lifetimes exploring and still not see everything. It is a beautiful place, but I'm still having trouble adjusting to plastic money and two-dollar coins that are affectionately called "Toonies".

Any-hoo, here's some photos!

Steaming out through Active Pass

One of many inlets that we anchored in for the evening

Quillback rockfish

Got to watch the sun rise and colors change on my birthday (this pic was taken at about 0445hrs)

Beginning of hauling a string of gear

160lb halibut

Sunest on the summer solstice (pic was taken at 2230hrs)

Me demonstrating the proper angle to hit the "off switch" on a lingcod with my finger. The lingcod was released unharmed.

And finally, this guy. This is a rare sighting, a juvenile short-tailed albatross. There are so few of these birds left that almost every individual in the population has been fitted with a leg band. They have a bubblegum-pink bill, and the adults change from the black plumage seen here to a mix of white and yellow with black edged wings. I keep looking at this bird and all I can think of is that this must be the bird that Gary Larson modeled all his birds after in his Far Side comic strips.

Quote from Tailsurfer

good job kirby... I know diving sucks up there, I'll prob be salmon, trout, and steelhead fishing for most of my water hunting.

Although I do plan on surfing a bit up there too.

There's usually some epic crabbing to be had out of Trinidad when the sport season opens in November. Bring your yak if you have one!

I don't see any lingcod up yet; 21lbs 8oz. Shot on 1 May 2011.

And a vermilion rockfish; 5lbs 8oz. Shot on 17 September 2011.

No worries about the song. I've kept Kirby from using it for quite a while, I knew it would end up in a dive video sooner or later. Besides, I've already made two vids with songs from that album :laughing:

I'll be around during the holiday; maybe we could get a clam dive in too?

Gahh! Guess I'll have to find another Little People song to use in my next vid

Excellent video, makes me miss the cold murky waters up north even more. I love the yellowtail scratching themselves on the turtle too. It's always amazing to see what behaviors fish display when we take a break from hunting and just watch.

Last year a few friends and I took all the weight belts we had found from a years' worth of diving and recast them. We found a sturdy old pot and placed it over a propane burner to melt them in, and used an old ladle to fill an aluminum mould. We ended up with about 110lbs of new dive weights. . .not a bat way to spend the 4th of July

Oh, one thing about the pot; it had a false bottom, so we shot it with a pole spear (why not? There was a pole spear sitting around) to relieve any pressure build up during the melting process.

As you already said, outdoors and a bit of wind is definitely the way to go. We didn't have proper thermal insulation either, and we were all wearing flip flops and shorts. I concur with the recommendation to wear proper clothing and thermal protection.

I wear a 7mm suit year round here. I could use my 5mm during the warmer parts of the year, but I love diving SoCal and not feeling the water at all.

In NorCal a 7mm is necessary, as the water temperatures are quite nipply (especially in the spring when upwelling occurs). Depending on where you are diving in California and what time of year, water temps range from the low 40's to somewhere above 65. I say somewhere above 65 because I have never dived in the southern part of the state when the water is warmer than 65.

I grew up in SoCal, but only started diving when I moved to Humboldt for school. Temperatures and visibility are considerably less desirable here than in the south. For me, the cold and poor vis are nothing to complain about. I actually love it. In the beginning, the exposed skin of my face would hurt, and my lips wouldn't work properly after a dive. After a year of diving here, I became acclimated and now I don't even notice the cold on my face. I can even talk normally after 4-6 hours in 50 degree water! The limiting factors to how long I can remain in the water now are my fingers and toes. If they stop working, I need to get out because they are a very important part of safely navigating through the dynamic shore exits and cliff hikes we frequently encounter.

As far as the weight issue, I wear about 18lbs of lead on my waist to offset the buoyancy of the suit (all of which is lead I have found while diving and remade into a bunch of 2-4lb weights :thumbsup2:). This amount of weight makes me neutral at about 23ft. If I know I'll be doing a significant amount of deeper dives, I take off 2-4lbs for safety and ease of ascent. This weight reduction makes me neutral at about 40ft. I have seen some people who wear harnesses while spearing, but I feel that harnesses provide that much more material to get snagged on kelp and potentially cause problems.

Diving in kelp is awesome. You can use it to conceal your approach, you can pick some to accompany your dinner, you can just plain marvel at it. When you are in kelp and the water is clear, the sunlight has a magnificent golden hue.

Back to visibility. In Humboldt and Del Norte counties, it's usually bad. A good day is 8ft vis. It's typically 3-5ft. This is due to many factors: the amount of fine sediment coating the reefs, the number of rivers and streams discharging into the ocean, and the exposed coast that gets a good amount of energy sent down from Alaska and Canada. When it's greater than 8ft, the diving is absolutely breathtaking here.

I didn't bother to take much video while I was out the other day due to the low light and poor visibility on the bottom, but one short clip of a lobster bull ring came out semi-decent. I haven't found the right angle for my Gopro yet, but you can still see there were about 10-12 bugs in this one spot. Grabbed two, kept one and scared the crap out of the rest of 'em

Spiny lobster in the open - YouTube

Went for a solo dive today in search of my dear friend the lobster. Scoped out a new place and ended up scoring.

On the first drop I smack into a nice one just behind the surf zone trying to bury himself in the sand. In the Banks board he went! Over the next two hours I found plenty of bugs, but let them be so they could grow up to play another day. Managed to find some great structure and proceeded to pluck the ones that persuaded me to take them home.

Best part of the dive was pouncing on a good 3lb'er from behind and realizing that there was a much bigger set of legs in the same hole. After calming a frantically beating heart, I scoured the rock for any exits big enough for the now lone occupant to utilize. Upon finding nothing bigger than the size of my fist, I checked to make sure he was still there.

He was there alright, and he had called in an honor guard of grass rockfish and sculpin. Pushing those out of the way, I found I could only get two fingers on the knuckle of this bug. Desperately low on air, I ignored the fire in my lungs and ever so slowly wiggled him out to where one hand could grab him, then another. At last! I had secured a death grip! By the time I got to the surface, I knew I could not have stayed down any longer, as faint stars were making themselves present in my vision. It was worth it though, I didn't break a single leg or antenna off of him.

I grabbed two more after this guy, making it a resoundingly successful dive, and my first limit of lobster. Biggest went 4.75lb, and the others were between that and 3lbs. Riding strong on a serious dive high this evening.

Hmm, I think I like my Banks boards much better. Dry storage in the bow for food/water, nicer shoulder straps, low profile and tracks through the water like a champ. Stretch webbing and a mesh bag on deck too. Holds me and 30+lbs of fish without sinking. :@