Crabalone!

[Vinny]

Threemuch,
Nice catch. I was raised in N. Calif.
Do you still have to free dive for abalone (no tanks)?

Is that a Dodge/Plymouth mini van? how come your headlight lens is so clear? Mine is plastic and heading for translucent. Dealer item, $100 bucks each. Do you know if you can you convert to sealed beam easily?

Email me if you would.

Thanks,
Vinny

[Threemuch]

Freedive only for abs. Sorry, not my minivan, so no info on that.

[Threemuch]

Just got back from my annual pilgramage to the Sonoma Coast of California where we gather for crabs and abs (crab + abalone = crabalone). Conditions were challenging, with a 10'+ swell and 1-2 feet of vis, but we wound up with 13 abs and 38 crabs, plus bottomfish. A great haul of seafood.

http://www.ifish.net/uploads/112412325.jpg

A good time was had by all. Any other snail divers on ifish?

[Hamachi]

Back when I lived in So. Calif. I would dive for ab's every now and then on the backside of Catalina Island. I had a couple of secret spots that were loaded with green abs. Limits every time. It was rare to find a red. I got some nice reds back in '76 when I first started diving.
The taking of any abs in So.Cal. has been shut down for years due to withering foot disease and overfishing.
Most of my diving was night diving for lobster. If you knew where to go it was pretty easy to get a limit of seven!

[Pilar]

Nice bag Kurt. Were you diving in rocks right up in the surf? Is the Abalone considered a 'Snail'? My old man calls lobster 'Bugs' so that makes me a bug diver.

[Hamachi]

Hey, Pilar, where did you dive for your bugs?

[Threemuch]

Pilar-
The surf was big, so we had to stay in fairly deep water (for freediving anyway) because any shallower and you were in the washing machine. We were diving 35 feet or so. Abalone are snails.

I bug dive as well, usually once a year, a buddy of mine with a trawler makes a 10 day to 2 week trip there every year that I have a standing invite on. I freedive only, so most of my diving is less than 50' which is fine because there are lots of bugs in 5-15' of water if you can stand the surge. I have freedove for crabs here. Much easier than lobster.

My real love is freedive spearfishing, but the vis here usually is not good enough.

[Pilar]

Hamachi, there is a deep channel between Indian key fill and Tea table key on the overseas highway on the Florida bay side. This part of the highway is between Islamarada and Marathon in the Florida keys and has a lot of bridges. The channel has blind channels branching off of it out of the boat traffic. These channels provide the only cover for miles of grass flats. The bugs hide under 6 ft high barrel sponges in 15 ft of water.

It is always a short dive though because of the tidal currents. You get maybe 1/2 hour and then the current comes roaring through again. We did this last year with a floating air compressor (hooka) and had a blast.

The best way is to have the boat follow you. That way you don't have to buck the current coming back to the beach. If you try this, study the tide change from the bridge until you have the timing figured out. The spot is called Channel 5 and the sweet spot is near green marker #10. We didn't need a gage, the bugs were huge!

[Hamachi]

Oh, you were diving for warm-water spineys! In So.Cal. it was 6mm wetsuits all the way! The best diving was on the breakwalls in Santa Monica bay, pretty much right off LAX, where it was closed to commercial fishing. The breakwalls are like lobster condos. It was not uncommon to get 6-8 pounders and every year somebody would get a 12 lb. bug.

I've done some night diving in Grand Cayman and grabbed some of your kind of bugs... for photos only. Also grabbed some wierd bugs that I think were slipper lobsters.

[fishpatrol]

You should try stopping a little to the North. Mendocino is outstanding for abs and Humboldt harbors some 10" plus abs. Also if you get some SCUBA tanks scallops are another N. coast favorite. Just don't put your tanks in the boat while you have abs, the wardens get a little touchy. We have a really bad black market for abs. Most go down south, but some enterprising induviduals travel North as well. In fact a rig traveling North last year was stopped at an Ab checkpoint. Two folks in thier 60's, they had 78 abs(limit is four!).

[Predator Dawg]

Pilar,

I know of the area that you speak of roughly. Last time I chased bugs in the Keys was August of 99. What a blast. One of my favorite things to do. Takes a bit to understand the tickle stick but pure fun before, during and after. You aren't kidding about the tides. We let the outgoing sweep us over some flats and the next thing we new we had about a quarter mile swim back into running water. I look forward to the next time I can make it down there for the 'bug' opener.

[Pilar]

Yes, Saltine, its just like a Corona commercial. Fresh lobster, Yellow tail Snapper, sunset on the boat and mexican beer with a lime slice in it.

Sorry I missed it this year.