Humboldt abalone, Razor Clams and wild mushrooms.....no Tsunami debres found

[Todd stagnaro]

So this post is from last week, video comming soon

Monday June 4th, pick up my friend Mike and with my 4 year old son Levio we start our annual Pilgrimage to the lands of southern and northern Humboldt!

Biggest low tides in ten years means not only -2.00 feet negative tides but a chance to take my son on his first real abalone hunt. I figured my wife would kill me if I took him in the water so I jumped at the chance to hit up some low tide "dont get your hair wet" bonding action with my son.

We stop at the City of 10,000 Buddhas in Ukhai for a nice veggie lunch meal, paying a visit to the Buddha hall knowing full well we would be taking the lives of some animals, got to limit the bad karma by planting good seeds for next life and for the poor helpless abs that were on the next days menu.

Meet up with my HSU Professor in Garbervill at Rays, man the characters that come out of the woods and show up in town is a trip.
Another hour and we are at our BLM campground near the Lost Coast, just as the rain stopped and the sun began to shine

My son is playing around in the creek as we bust out the cedar planks and start to smoke Half Moon Bay sardines for dinner.

My friend Mike helped me out iwth my GPS study for next years California Geography Conference. I outfitted him with two GPS to mark down abalone he could see and most importantly, not see. Its my cryptic pickers creel servey. His job to act like a picker and work the edge of the reef and every time he felt an ab, he would mark the waypoint on GPS. Simple concept, data on cryptic abalone in picking areas is a hot topic of mine. I think all picking hot spots should be DFG surveyed cyptic style to determine the near shore stock.



Tuesday comes and we get up at 4:30am. Levio slips into his wet suit, hood, booties and gloves and the 4 of us shuttle over to Shelter Cove proper. We pull up to the Light house and we are the only car there. Day light is breaking and the Full moon is blazing above the west horizon and around 5:45am we walk out to the bluff to take a look and low and behold the most reef exposed Ive ever seen at this spot, and its not going to get any lower for the next 12 years! Yes!!!!!!!!
swell is 3 feet from wsw and no clean out waves, a true turn your back to the ocean day up here, we have good karma for sure!

I send the Professor and my Geographer HSU school mate on the pilgrimage lap around the reef while I spot a nice area right in front with some big surge channels containing vast and countless nooks and crannies for things to live in.

There are no mussles or gooseneck barnecles here. Every rock is covered with sea grass or coraline algae, kelp is digitata dominant with feather boa strangling everything shallow, hardly room for a chitons home scar, every exposed inch of rock is covered with life. The cool thing about this area is it gets deep fast, the reef doesnt go out that far but it does drop off fast which means there are not too many small rocks and boulders to move around and harm abs, so I knew there would be plenty out there today. Levio and I walk down to the waters edge and I set him on a boulder to play around in a pool area. Right away he sees an ab stranded by the low tide and proceeds to get excited and stoaked, he says "bring me the gauge!" We sneek up on it and its pretty big, gauge it and it clicks, immedietly clamps down. But its fate was determined and I popped it off and we both give a bump and high 5.

one for one and now I look around some more. Within 5 feet of the first, I part some Feather boa kelp and reveal another stranded clicker, it never had a chance. Another 5 minutes and Ive got a big fatty 8 inch nearby in a crack.
Its the fastest Ive ever got my limit here or anywhere, didnt even have to pop a undersize ab....less than 15 minutes I limit out and we turn our attention to urchin.

Levio plays around with a nudibranch and sun star while I molest Gumboot Chitons in search for a red urchin. Find two giant urchin that I worked on, I like the medium size urchins because sometimes the big ones do not have high grade roe, but Levio is more than impressed that the urchin are bigger than the abs.

well we fool around in the shallows and wait a few hours till Mike and the Professor get back. Each has scored some big abs on the reef edge.
Mike out did himself, GPS'ed and gauged 159 abalone, most 4-8 inches, if he couldnt gauge it he would estimate....if it was smaller than is hand width he noted it, if it was bigger than his hand it was 7"plus inches. Most were smaller than 7 inches....The area of the reef is vast and his circumambulation proves to be a great read out our computer generated map, you can clearly see where he zig zaged around the outer edge, tracing the reef and surge channel outlines. Viz 5 feet in deep water, dropping to 2 feet in the shallows. The data is going to be presented at the CGS meeting next spring in San Luis Obispo. Every one of those abs would not have been counted in a typical DFG creel survey. I think Cryptic nook and cranny surveys help better evaluate the nearshore abs that pickers get there hands on. Need to suppliment DFG creel surveys with cryptic data to get better picture of ab populations avaibale to low tide hunters.

Levio keeps seeing a bunch of divers entering the water, all look the same, white retired old mustached men heading to their honey holes.
Up at the Light House we notice that the parking lot is full, people still suiting up as we were packing it in.

Back at the campground we relax and get abs and urchin ready for lunch. I split the fatty red urchin and was surprised to see number 1 grade california gold nuggets ripe and briny.
The Professor pounds some ab and I get working on the alfredo urchin sauce for our entre. Just pre cook pasta, carmalize some onion and add the whipped urchin roe to the white cream sauce, blend in the pasta and serve when thickened, the briny flavor of the urchin flavors the whole dish as the essence of the sea cuts through the fatty sauce. The subltil orange color of the alfredo reminds us of our days adventures in Neptunes sea........

After a hike in some of my hallowed mushroom hunting spots we again prep for dinner and the usual gluttany, then off to bed.

Wednesday- wake up 5:30am, get everyone suited up and again we hit the reef. This time we go right to where I saw nobody going to yesturday. Again we have easy pickings and Levio is pumped up to score our limit so effortlessly. Now he could tell all his friend he was a real abalone hunter....


We head back to camp and take down our tent, time to extend the pilgrimage.....next stop is Patricks point 2 hours north to camping spot 57 in the abalone campground, next to the rim trail near abalone point, my old stomping grounds where I first got my one and only ten incher.
Again we prep for dinner and go on a group hike near Trinidad College cove. since it rained I had the days before there were a few spots for fungi I needed to check out, and I was rewarded with Hedghogs and a few Aragicus Agustus under spruce and a alder log with oysters enought to make mushroom quesadilla appitizers with. I let levio do the picking and we head back up to patricks point.
Thursday morning wake up 6:30am and head down to Clam Beach for my favorite Bi-Valve- Razor clams!

fellow Norcal Hunter Bryan "lives in humboldt" was right about where the action was, tuns of mckvill locals wading out to the sand bars searching for limits. Most people had been here the two days before so I had to search really hard for my beach limit. Levio really liked playing in the sand and the easy access to the clams, but he did tire out after a mile of walking and looking for clams. By the time low tide had come 100 people were on the beach, most had 1/4 limits or 5 clams each. They said it was good the past few days but getting picked over if you werent willing to get wet and thigh deep in the water for your limit. I think next time Im going to dive for them like Kirby does....

we end up with 15 meaty filling clams, a single clam is longer than one our our clicker abs, destined for clam chowder later that evening. And I always save a few clams for future November Crab pot bait! shhhh its my secret and the Pacifica Crabbers all wonder how I catch crabs without a snare

By now we are all satisfied with our hunting and gluttany. Friday comes and my son sleeps in with the professor and Mike and I take off on foot to my secret Patricks point spot for some trophy diving solo. Swell is 4 feet from the NW, my cove was completley protected from swell...I see a few people going to the usual known productive spots, but I return to my area where I scored my 10" many moons ago. Im floating around going from wash rock to wash rock, poking my head and flashlight into holes and surprised to see a few small abs, very rare to see anything less than 8 inchers here. Infact its my first time here ever seeing a less than 8 inch ab. They both were 6 inches or less Im guessing, they dissapeared when I guaged them with my 9"....... I spend 3 hours in the water before I start to feel funny, kinda sharky feeling like somethings wacthing me, then I see something flashing off my light, one look and I got goosebumps, a fatty red giant ab, its was inverted leaward on a uplifted slab of shale, and it was well over my 9 inch gauge. I get out my trusty #1 iron and gently pop off the snail being carefull not to chip a potential trophy. I was stoaked and let out a victory yelp and call it a morning. Turned out to be 9.954 inches on the Bucksport calipers, shell perfect red with little to no boring clam action. The top shell was ground smooth in areas....

Now its time to return 5 hours home with 6 live abs, many empty shells and a few hours of cleaning to do for the giant Razors we gunned down at the beach. Levio had a great time seeing what dad does to get the abs and I enjoyed the best camping experience of my life. The momories will last a long time and our pilgrimage to Humboldt will have to wait till this comming October or november when we can get abs, razors, and edible mushrooms once again...

[Namor]

Great adventure and writeup. Thanks

Jeremy

[Seeco]

Lucky little dude.

[JonChoy]

awesome write up. thanks for sharing.

[SpearoTastic]

I thoroughly enjoyed your trip report!

I have never dove north of Ventura County and you took me there.

Thank you.

[Scubaduba]

Thanx for the detailed adventure! I really enjoyed it.

[hardway]

Great write up, sounds like the little man had a great time making memories with his pops.

[LunkerBuster]

Originally Posted by SpearoTastic

I thoroughly enjoyed your trip report!

I have never dove north of Ventura County and you took me there.

Thank you.

very well said..thank you immensly for that report..sounds like you have some damn fine eats in your future

[AndyzFshn]

Sweet report! Great bounty and great memories!.... I love Shelter Cove the place is magical!

[ezcompany]

thanks for the good read

[jaymz94]

If there's anyone that would like to get rid of their wetsuit I'm looking for a large regular I would really appreciated !