Just off the Pebble Beach golf course is a great spot for lingcod. There's one particular area that is so full of good ambush spots that lings have to wait in line to move in. I have no doubt that there are one or three sitting there right now. This is the story of the second time I went there. The first time I tried this spot was at CENCALs First Annual Lingcod Derby. I managed a ling of something like 9 pounds that day. Not so great, but not that many were taken. I found that lingcod in such a nice spot I had to locate it again "just to see".
Me, Matt Almeda, Janie Newcomb, and Seth Hopkins met at Stillwater Cove in the early morning. From standing on the shore it looked like a pretty miserable day. It was cold, misty, the sun wasn't going to come out, the waves were breaking heavily, and the visibility looked lousy from the dock. After looking at the sea for a few seconds Matt pronounced that conditions were certainly improving. Unconvinced, I had half a mind to take a raincheck and spend the day with my family. I don't get out often so when I do I like to make it count. Finally, I figured that since I drove all the way down there I may as well enjoy it - ah cognitive dissonance.
Matt and Janie paddled out in their kayaks, while Seth and I took the easy route. We parked our car as close to the cove as possible, walked across the fairway in our full gear, and plopped right into the ocean. I have no idea how often golfers see divers walk across the fairway and jump into the ocean, but it must be a funny sight.
The entry went without drama and once out into the cove the visibility steadily improved to around 10 feet. Also, the waves really did seem to be dying down as Matt predicted. Perhaps we'd salvage a good day of diving afterall. After poking around for a while trying to find my secret spot I started to finally see some things I recognized. I kept on searching for underwater landmarks and when I poked my head up I realized that Matt and Janie had parked their kayaks directly on my spot!
They were swimming away from their kayaks so I decided to keep the secret to myself. After two or three dives I found the exact spot where I got my previous lingcod. The cave was now occupied by a medium sized rockfish which I left alone. But there was a certain magic to that area, something indescribably different except to say that it felt more "alive". So I stayed in the general vicinity and kept looking for cracks and holes.
A couple of dives later I found a basketball sized hole that led downward to a sizeable cave. I turned on my flashlight and peered inside. Wow. Up against the far wall of the cave was a monster lingcod! Well, it certainly looked like a monster, fish inside of caves always look a lot bigger. I poked my polespear in there a little way, but realized that the 6-8 foot shot required would not happen with my homemade 4 foot ski pole polespear.
I surfaced and called to Matt, "Matt, bring your speargun!" Sure, I had found the fish, but I was well ready to let Matt take the shot. Heck, there was no way I was going to get it. Alas, he and Janie were swimming away from me and were out of earshot. And I couldn't see Seth anywhere. So I went down for another look. This time the ling was in a different location in the cave, and by the time I had found him again I had to go up for air. He was still out of range and this was not the way to get him, that much I concluded.
After breathing up again I shot back down, this time to find a back door. It was kind of like playing tag around a van. I could see the fish through the windshield laying down on the floor in the way back, but I couldn't find the back door. The cave was part of a small reef and it took several dives before I could locate the back door. When I found it, I couldn't see the fish anymore. What made things more difficult is that I couldn't see the reef from the surface. By the time I was done breathing up I would have drifted off the spot and would have to relocate myself on the bottom.
The "back door" as I keep calling it was really a series of holes into the cave from the opposite side of where I first saw him. None of the holes were big enough to put my head into, and none of them gave a very big picture of what was going on inside. I shifted from hole to hole to try and locate the fish and then did something fortunately sloppy: I let my aluminum polespear bang on the rock by mistake. "Clonk" it went, in a way nothing does in the natural world. I silently cursed myself and checked another hole. Then I saw movement.
Perhaps I had scared the ling or he may have been curious, as he suddenly moved to exit the cave. From what little I saw of him I extrapolated an exit point, which seemed below and to the left of me. I used my hands to back up, slid down the reef and moved lower. I couldn't see where he was going to come out, so I waited. While I waited I paused to think. Would this homemade converted ski pole actually work? Would the rigid 3-prong point penetrate deeply enough? Would it hold? Where should I hit him? When he appeared a half second later I hit him right behind the gills. The 3-prong point penetrated completely and held firmly. He didn't flinch a bit and had virtually no chance of getting of the spear. "Whew", I bubbled in relief, "no worries afterall."
In retrospect (er... RetroSpect?) that was one of the best times I ever
had stalking a fish. In all it probably took me 8 dives before I got him.
The purity of that hunt that kept me energized for quite a while. Although
that ling didn't turn out to be the monster that I thought he was, I still
look upon that fish as one of the best I've speared.
-Mario