Dam Nguyen and I went out yesterday. We arrived at a spot and marveled at the blue color of the water. Dam wanted a yellowtail and said that he was going outside the kelp bed on the up-current side to find one. I went into the bed to try to find a wsb. On his second drop, he saw a pair of yellowtail that he estimated to be in the 30s, but couldn't get a good shot.
So then we each did our thing for maybe 45 minutes to an hour, and neither of us saw a thing besides big schools of barracuda that kept giving us hope when we saw those yellow tails in the haze.
I was heading back to the boat when I saw Dam holding the head of a wsb out of the water. It turned out that on one of his dives out in open water, a huge wall of wsb came by in front of him. He was hunting yellowtail and wanted to get through that wall, so he did the only sensible thing and shot one. That scattered the wall pretty well, but left him with the annoying task of getting that fish off of his slip tip and shaft. Luckily, it had no kelp to tie up in, so he fought it from the surface and watched it wear itself out until he could pull it up. I'm so glad that it didn't put him out too much.
When he went by on the way to the boat with the fish and told me the story, I headed out to back him up in case the school attacked him. On my first drop, I saw a big single, but it was heading away and not very close, so I passed. After all, I thought I was going to be treated to "the wall."
In retrospect, maybe it wasn't all that hard a shot. After all, I was carrying my 60" Super Magnum hybrid, but I thought better opportunities would present themselves. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Neither of us saw another fish.
Meanwhile, two other boats with divers arrived, as well as a crowd of rod and reel boats. A head boat actually had the balls to come up and anchor near Dam, and then let the customers throw iron at him. This reminds me why I don't have firearms on my boat.
We knew some divers on one boat, and a couple of them swam over and climbed aboard to shoot the breeze. I'm reminded how nice it is to be part of such a great community of guys. And one of them pleaded that in-laws were visiting and that he had promised them fish, so Dam carved off a big filet for him to swim back to his boat in a plastic jumbo zip-lock. I really felt like a full-service charter.
This had already gone on long enough, so I'll just say that we tried two more places and didn't see a thing. Still, it was a nice day.
The photos below are about my title. After the fish was scaled, very thoroughly gutted and gilled, it weighed 39 pounds. Only recently have I compared before and after weight, but I think that means that it probably weighed around 50 pounds. The first one makes the fish look a lot bigger.
So then we each did our thing for maybe 45 minutes to an hour, and neither of us saw a thing besides big schools of barracuda that kept giving us hope when we saw those yellow tails in the haze.
I was heading back to the boat when I saw Dam holding the head of a wsb out of the water. It turned out that on one of his dives out in open water, a huge wall of wsb came by in front of him. He was hunting yellowtail and wanted to get through that wall, so he did the only sensible thing and shot one. That scattered the wall pretty well, but left him with the annoying task of getting that fish off of his slip tip and shaft. Luckily, it had no kelp to tie up in, so he fought it from the surface and watched it wear itself out until he could pull it up. I'm so glad that it didn't put him out too much.
When he went by on the way to the boat with the fish and told me the story, I headed out to back him up in case the school attacked him. On my first drop, I saw a big single, but it was heading away and not very close, so I passed. After all, I thought I was going to be treated to "the wall."
In retrospect, maybe it wasn't all that hard a shot. After all, I was carrying my 60" Super Magnum hybrid, but I thought better opportunities would present themselves. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Neither of us saw another fish.
Meanwhile, two other boats with divers arrived, as well as a crowd of rod and reel boats. A head boat actually had the balls to come up and anchor near Dam, and then let the customers throw iron at him. This reminds me why I don't have firearms on my boat.
We knew some divers on one boat, and a couple of them swam over and climbed aboard to shoot the breeze. I'm reminded how nice it is to be part of such a great community of guys. And one of them pleaded that in-laws were visiting and that he had promised them fish, so Dam carved off a big filet for him to swim back to his boat in a plastic jumbo zip-lock. I really felt like a full-service charter.
This had already gone on long enough, so I'll just say that we tried two more places and didn't see a thing. Still, it was a nice day.
The photos below are about my title. After the fish was scaled, very thoroughly gutted and gilled, it weighed 39 pounds. Only recently have I compared before and after weight, but I think that means that it probably weighed around 50 pounds. The first one makes the fish look a lot bigger.