Posts by ddonnell

Thanks guys! Neptune blood for sure. I was a little sore Sunday night and Monday, but not nearly as bad as I had imagined I would be.

Around the spearfishing community, Beach Cities doesn't have too great of a reputation. Around the SCUBA guys, it has a better rep I am sure. Sport Chalet guys have always been super cool and helpful to me, so I'd recommend there, albeit I'm not SCUBA certified and don't know the extent of their knowledge in the SCUBA circle. I'm getting my SCUBA cert this summer, since my buddy will be a certified instructor, so I don't plan on spending any money at either store.

We in the Donnell clan like to use acrylic paint and cotton cloth. A little non-traditional, but I like it better.

I'll add more pictures in the A.M. time for some lobster and filet mignon!

Slept on can at the isthmus. It's a 32' Tiara and had a ton of room for all four of us to sleep inside comfortably.

Quote from Stephan

Nice bass. Way to go. Nice colors too. Post up pics of the spearo with his perch. I love a stoked spear fisher pick regardless of the trophy. Thanks for the report.

Thanks. I'll try and see if there is a pic of him with it, but I doubt it. I was cracking up when he was saying that he was going to feed his family with a little 5" perch. I remember the good ole days when I would shoot opaleye and get stoked, even if my dad just tossed them to the birds when I wasn't looking..

Quote from Dan

Excellent pic with the 5 prong, looks oldschool. And look at the prongs all bent to shit

I'm thinking of making me a fish stamp. It's a more respectful way of keeping a trophy than having a mount made. We should have a thread here on how to do it. I like the solid blue one better than the colored.

The 5 prong was one of my dad's old competition guns, and that tip only gets better with age. I took a shot on a rockfish and the shaft didn't even leave the muzzle. Shot the rockfish and subsequently the rock behind it. I love that gun and hopefully can retire it one of these days when I find something as durable.

Quote from sdeisen

sick brah! did you nhave the trident tip thinking youd see halibut or is that a reg thing

I like to use it whenever I can. I love it for caves since I can shoot a fish 2" away from a rock and not give a ....

I took all but two of my fish with it this weekend, which ironically were the smaller ones and I took them with my large white sea bass gun...

So we were farting around in the shallows looking for some day bugs. I had brought my little hole gun out in hopes for some more rockfish. I went in about 4' of water and saw a nice little shadow that looked to be a cave. I took a quick breath to take a peek in what I soon realized was a large cave. As soon as I had my head under that opening I saw a massive tail and then all hell broke loose. Sand went everywhere and I thought I had just seen the worlds biggest grass rockfish. I needed to get this thing.

I went back to where I had ditched my gun about 60yrds away, loaded it and got ready for a fun time. Got back to the cave where I saw it and breathed up heavy to go in after it if need be. Aimed my light, choked up on my gun, and went under. Nobody home except for a maybe legal bug chillin on the roof. "CRAP!" I thought. So once again I ditched my gun, breathed up, went down, and scoped out the bug and as I was going for my grab, about 4' back and 2' up in the cave I see this face staring at me. Completely stoked, I grabbed my gun, exhaled, inhaled and went down once again.

I crawled about 2' into the cave so I could aim my gun without it being pinned sideways from a rock just outside the entrance and pulled the trigger with the five prong pointed right at his face. Nothing. I started to pull my line back when I realized I had him right between the eyes. He was still kicking, which made for a fun time trying to wrap him up and pull him out of the cave simultaneously. Completely stoked on life I held him up out of the water and hooted and hollered. It was then that I realized it was a pb calico. Got him on the deck and it looked massive.

Weighed it went a hair over 6lbs.

Got home today and painted it up for some decoration on the walls of my room along with a grass rockfish.
(mine are the straight blue ones and my dad did the colorful one)

-Davis

Went out to Cat with Josh, Mike and little Evan Bouma.

We were greeted with stellar conditions for it being February! No wind on the ride out at all, very minimal swell with long periods made the ride smooth as can be. Dove 3 spots on the West end Saturday and put in a total of 10 hours water time. The three of us managed a day bug a piece, and little Evan tagged some perch. That kid was so stoked! Made a total of 4 dives since we went back for seconds that night in hopes of a decent crawl. Wind picked up around sundown and got unpleasant, but we still dove and I managed to find a legal bug out and about, but saw many many more still back in their holes. They didn't get that big by crawling around, that's for damn sure.

Dropped some hoops that night, but only produced one legal and one short.

All said and done I ended up with 2 maybe 3 pb's, 2 bugs, 10 fish. (3 Calicos, 3 misc rockfish, 3 sheep, 1 sculpin)

Had vis range from 15-25' up to 35-40', getting better the further West we went.
Water temp on the boat said 65, which was nice to see, but in reality it was 59 as measured by Mike's F10..

Story time in next post..

:nono:

The guy's rig in the video is extremely crude and unsafe. He only has 1.5 wraps including the rope he is holding on to, and with that much rubber, that shaft can travel much further. Just do the tried and true way, don't try and re-invent the wheel here. I'd put a trigger guard on that gun btw...

Quote from spearstuff

And you're required by law to have a life jacket on your kayak at all times if you're paddling in the ocean. But you don't have to wear a life jacket unless you're a minor. As to the reason Alex wore his, I'm guessing he just thinks he looks cool in the life jacket <img src= " height="23" srcset="https://spearfishing.world/forum/images/smilies/emojione/1f606@2x.png 2x">

That grass was so choppy!

And diving at night is a trip for those who haven't done it before. Seals playing chicken with you underwater. :@

Fun dive, thats for sure. Some great structure there! Good job on nabbing Houdini!

Quote from metelin

let me sum up the abalone experience for you warm water divers:

1. wake up early, maybe 6am

2. drive for 2 hours north.

3. find a nice spot and hike down about 1/2 mile and about 300-400 foot cliff in full dive costume.

4. get in 48-52 degree water while avoiding getting pounded by surge.

5. find abs as quick as possible, maybe 1/2 hour or you'll freeze your nuts off (unless you are the trolphy hunter type).

6. fill out ab card while your fingers are numb.

7. hike back up the cliff (~`~`~`~` i'm tired just thinking about it).

8. get dressed on a cold, windy, foggy bluff. ~`~`~`~` it's cold.

9. drive back.

10. clean abs.

11. cook abs.

12. eat abs, mmmmmmmmmm.

13. clean the ~`~`~`~`ing mess in the kitchen.

14. asleap by 9pm.

that was fun, i'll do it again soon.

Display More

If its a multi day trip, don't forget about putting on that freezing cold, wet wetsuit! Its the thing I dread the most..

Good call. My buddy William and I cruised out to the breakwater in a small craft advisory and seriously regretted it. By the time you get out thinking the wind is getting bad, it gets worse.. wayy worse. We had 3' white caps exploding in our face for an hour and a half, a trip that took less than 15 minutes on the way out.

Thats pretty good for a gallon and a half each way, are you in a RIB?

Welcome! Great group of guys here.

Looks great Rich! How negative are you going to ballast the gun?
Interesting pic of the ab. I bet some of the FL guys are disgusted with them now.. hahaha

I can't wait until I get up there for my abs this year..probably one mid June, two trips in July, and a family trip in August. My mouth is watering already.

Thanks for clarifying. I see the advantage of that design now. That lever design would be great for a kid or girl's gun where the upper body strength needed to load a gun is absent. Gotta love fulcrum points and levers!! Very neat.

I've had my eye on some of that marine ply for a while
You can make quite a few guns out of a 4'x8' sheet!

How does the lever work? Do you attach the bands to that so you'll have more slack to load on the topside, then turn the gun upside down and pull the lever and latch to get the remaining band strength?

Looks amazing. I always enjoy seeing hi-tech gear.

Looks great! Can't wait to get my hands on one!