So, on to today’s big adventure. We were diving the edge of a drop off at Santa Barbara. I’d seen one large school of nice yellowtail, but couldn’t get close enough for a shot, then the school moved on. I was hearing the sound of high powered spearguns firing, but couldn’t tell from where. It was killing me, knowing there were fish all around but not seeing them, and I swam over to the nearest group of floats to try to find the fish. No luck. I tried deeper water, shallower water, all over, still no fish (and could still hear guns going off-I guess that sound carries pretty far). After a bit of this I found myself totally overheated, out of breath, frustrated and basically in no shape to dive, so I decided to just chill out a bit and get myself back together. After a few minutes of slow breathing and pumping water into my suit I felt better, and decided to see what was on the bottom. Well relaxed, and with no thought of fish, I dropped to the bottom at 55’ and was lost in looking at the urchins, etc, when I glanced up and saw three big (30 lb? More?) yellowtail cruising fast across the bottom to check me out! (I think they sensed my indifference and lack of evil intent). I trained my new gun (Rob Allen 130) on the middle one, perhaps 20’ away. He continued a couple of feet closer and then started to veer away again (sensing evil intent?), so I let fly, hitting a solid mid-body shot, the shaft extending a couple of feet out the other side of the fish. I started up while the fish made for a nearby ledge. He was only 3 or 4 feet off the rocks as I kicked as hard as I could for perhaps 10 or 15 seconds, keeping the fish off the bottom, but not getting any nearer the surface. Still 40 feet down and needing air, I had to pay out floatline in order to surface, and though I tried to keep some tension in it, the ‘tail immediately gained the rocky bottom, tangling my shooting line in the rocks and putting a 30 degree bend in the spring steel shaft before ripping loose and disappearing. Totally winded, legs burning, I rested for two or three minutes before heading back down to free and retrieve my mangled gear, now woven into the seafloor topography.
I have been thinking what I could have done differently to have landed the fish, and about the only thing I can think of was to lead the fish more to get a head shot. This might have allowed me to muscle it up with me, though I’m not sure that would even have worked—the fish was really strong and showed absolutely no sign of letting up. Dropping my weightbelt would have provided a little help, but I doubt it would have been enough to make a real difference (only wearing 14 lbs). One lesson is that lying on the bottom is not the best way to hunt yellowtail--gives them too much initial advantage ( I think I could have fought the fish ok from the surface).
Anyway, it was pretty exciting, and the high point of a fun (if otherwise fishless-for-me) trip. Chip graciously gave me some filets from one of his fish, so I didn’t return home empty handed.
Next time….
Joe