Mikey....The White Seabass season has just started is some ways but it's already over in others.
After a dozen dive trips without a fish, I'm on a roll now with 3 fish this month....today's being
my second biggest ever at 63 lbs. Even If I don't shoot another one all year, I'll be satisfied
with this season. I got it in dirty water sitting 10 feet under the thick kelp canopy. at first
it was only a dark spot in the haze....as I approached, it slowly transformed into the silhouetted
figure of a seabass sitting broadside to me. I could not see any detail but I knew it was a big
white. I fired and it ran through the kelp bed and out to open water where I pulled it up with
out much of a fight. Here are the pictures.....Mel
Big Mikey ....The Rapture has returned to the sea and is running great. Tom and I did a 2 day trip to San Clemente Island and the conditions and hunting were ideal. We started at the West end of the Island. On the first dive of the trip Tom came back to the boat with a white seabass and later a halibut. I found a 20 lb halibut.
Here's Tom trying out my new fillet board. Tom later found another Halibut and Seabass in the same area. We spent the night at Northwest Harbor in a calm anchorage. We had dinner , coffee, and talked for hours before retiring to bed. The Navy jets were doing touch down and takeoff practice in the night under the glow of a full moon behind the clouds....the whole scene was surreal. The next morning we started down the front side of island diving our usual spots. The water was clear and warm, there was bait everywhere. Tom came back to the boat with another white seabass and another halibut, This one 25 lbs.
We anchored for the last dive of the day and Tom Stayed on the boat to fillet his fish. I went hunting. There was so much bait that it surrounded you wherever you went. It blotted out the sun and made it hard to see when you dove down to the bottom. I was mesmerized by them. As I tried to look for halibut I looked up and saw a big White Seabass cruising towards me....I readied my gun .....as it veered off I pulled the trigger and off it ran taking my float line. It tied up on the only piece of kelp in the area at about 45 ft. After slowing my heart rate again I dove down and cut it out. It weighed 55 lbs.
For every trip like this we spend days and many hours seeing no game fish and often enduring bone chilling cold water. Yet I'm never bored and I don't regret a minute of it since the ocean always keeps me enraptured with it's mystical beauty and silently refills my spirit with His Spirit. Today I am refilled.......Mel
Mikey....We missed you on our trip. Tom and I went out Thursday night to Catalina for some night diving. We did pretty good and had a peaceful nights sleep at a calm anchorage. The next morning we had coffee and went to the big bug hunting grounds where I found this 12 lb bug. It was at the same reef where I found that 12.5 lb bug with you a couple of years ago. Check out the video below. I took it home to show Logan and the he and I went with Grace to Marina Del Rey and let it go on the jetty. Give me a call, we need to set up a dive soon. Your friend, Mel
12.5 Bug
Mikey...I went out to SBI with Tom this Friday / Saturday. I did 5 dives and ended up with good numbers, including one dive which included 4 nice ones..... a 9.5, 7.0 , 5.5, & a 5.0 lb Bug. Here are pictures and video. When you can, maybe you can add these videos to the Mel Page. I hope you can come out on the Rapture" on a super calm day or night for one more trip before you go....Let me know....Your friend, Mel
