MorganB
08-23-2007, 01:33 AM
Thanks everyone again for the tips on ab diving the north coast. Got back from my quick trip to the Sinkyone State Park recently. You guys were right about visibility-- 1.5’ max. However I have learned that ab’ing by braile can be quite rewarding. Saw 30 big abs in same amount of minutes. Got one just over 10” and two in the 9 range. I should have taken my time. I got too excited and popped the first large ones I can across. Given the vis, I wasn’t sure that I would find more of that size again. Turns out I found bigger on the way back in.
The abs in the subtidal cobble areas are really cool! They are all beat up and worn down to mother of peril on the outside. The undersides are littered with rounds bumps of mother of peril formed around some sort of shell boring polychaete worm? It makes the foot really hard to pop without damaging the shell.
Camping at usal was great. Had elk walking through camp and a private abalone shell cleaning station nearby serviced by a helpful staff of steelhead (resident trout ?) fry. Definitely a cool place. As for fish, didn’t see a thing. However I jumping in the water on the way home at Point Arena and had a great time. Damn there are a lot of abs up there! I saw ~25 on one breath hold. Definitely not as big as up north in the murk but you could easily get three legals in less than 5-10 minutes. I had no idea….
While swimming around tripping out on the massive amounts of abs, I stupidly swam right up on a 20ish lb ling that exploded out in front of my nose. I turned by gun as fast as I could and fired. Too slow and poorly aimed-- The only thing my shaft hit was a little piece of dorsal fin webbing. As least I didn’t hurt it too badly. SeaHunter warned me that my 50” gun was too long for spearing the low vis up there but I don’t have a small gun that turns on a dime like that. Lesson learned, before I head up again I will expand my arsenal into the smaller calibers. I ended up just grabbing two nice black RF and went home happy to have gotten a taste of the place. I will definitely be back…
On the trip I learned two important things: 1) DON’T FORGET THE MEAT TENDERIZER and 2) When diving to the bottom of a rocky reef in zero vis with an ab iron in hand—don’t just stick the thing out in front of you and assume you won’t do a face plant into a large rock. Wave it around a bit.
The abs in the subtidal cobble areas are really cool! They are all beat up and worn down to mother of peril on the outside. The undersides are littered with rounds bumps of mother of peril formed around some sort of shell boring polychaete worm? It makes the foot really hard to pop without damaging the shell.
Camping at usal was great. Had elk walking through camp and a private abalone shell cleaning station nearby serviced by a helpful staff of steelhead (resident trout ?) fry. Definitely a cool place. As for fish, didn’t see a thing. However I jumping in the water on the way home at Point Arena and had a great time. Damn there are a lot of abs up there! I saw ~25 on one breath hold. Definitely not as big as up north in the murk but you could easily get three legals in less than 5-10 minutes. I had no idea….
While swimming around tripping out on the massive amounts of abs, I stupidly swam right up on a 20ish lb ling that exploded out in front of my nose. I turned by gun as fast as I could and fired. Too slow and poorly aimed-- The only thing my shaft hit was a little piece of dorsal fin webbing. As least I didn’t hurt it too badly. SeaHunter warned me that my 50” gun was too long for spearing the low vis up there but I don’t have a small gun that turns on a dime like that. Lesson learned, before I head up again I will expand my arsenal into the smaller calibers. I ended up just grabbing two nice black RF and went home happy to have gotten a taste of the place. I will definitely be back…
On the trip I learned two important things: 1) DON’T FORGET THE MEAT TENDERIZER and 2) When diving to the bottom of a rocky reef in zero vis with an ab iron in hand—don’t just stick the thing out in front of you and assume you won’t do a face plant into a large rock. Wave it around a bit.