post your biggest catches....

[Frank Castle]

Yeah white sea bass are very beautiful fish and very elusive as well, I got lucky and shot that 60lber. Calico Bass is also known as Kelp Bass, as the name suggest they live in or around Kelp Forests. Yellowtail is in the Amberjack family, Australia also has them but they are a sub species known as Kingfish, they look identical but grow out waaaay bigger over there, Japan also has them and they are known as Hamachi. We don't have any Grouper in California beside the Giant Black Sea bass but they are protected by the State of California so absolutely no take on those Mystical giants. Sometimes Broomtail Grouper venture in from South of the Border. Cabrilla or Leopard Grouper are found in Baja California Mexico specifically on the Sea Of Cortez side of the Peninsula and that's where I travel to go shoot them along with an array of other tasty game fish. That area is also home to the Gulf Grouper which is a trophy fish that I've yet to land. I'm working on getting one though. They get really huge, over 100 pounds!

Do you also use rod and reel or strictly Spearfishing??

Yeah, 20-6 blacktip shark. Caught it on Bald Head Island which is in southern NC where the river meets the ocean kinda (river side and an ocean side). Saturday I head to Myrtle Beach, just got my 9/0 shipped today it's filled with like Dacron or something, this stuffs like rope lol. It won't let me upload the pics, oh well.

What type of bait did he hit on and what type of rig?

 

[PYRU]

Spear fishing and chasing down a male sealion for your fish. You are hardcore my friend.

 

[Hendre]

I would love for my dad to just take me fishing again

 

[HEX805]

Do you also use rod and reel or strictly Spearfishing??

Once in a blue moon I will Rod and Reel but 95% of the time I Spearfish for my food.

 

[HEX805]

Spear fishing and chasing down a male sealion for your fish. You are hardcore my friend.

Haha not really. Looking back the potential damage a full grown Sea Lion could have dealt could have been devastating. I'm so used to swimming within very close proximity to them that after a while they are just invisible to me if you get what I'm saying. They scare off quite easily anyway so I felt like he would let off the fish and he did. It's Elephant Seals you don't want to mess with let alone swim with, they are an extremely territorial beast!

 

[Oompa Loompa]

What type of bait did he hit on and what type of rig?

We got him on the front half of a 6" pinfish, yakked about 100 yards out on the ocean side of the island, around 8:30 in the morning, maybe earlier. My rig was just something I threw together that morning, it consisted of a ~400 pound swivel (the only ones over 60 pounds I had on hand) crimped to about 6 feet of 200 pound mono with a sinker slide and a 4 ounce pyramid, then crimped to another swivel, then about 2 feet of 240 pound (maybe it was 360 pound) single strand wire, crimped at the swivel and haywire twisted at the hook. Hook was a 8/0 Gamakatsu circle

 

[Frank Castle]

I imagine they r related but try finding one over 2' and 5.5 pounds... Here's a shot of some good size big eye or menpachi on the same cutting board.
View attachment 1162520

I just realized these are Blackbar Soldierfish - what are they doing in the Pacific ocean????? They're native to the Atlantic.... AlG Wailua Boy

 

[Wailua Boy]

the one we were calling a deep water aweoweo is a bulleye or Cookeolus japonicus, rare in Hawaii. We have plenty of glasseyes or Heteropriacanthus tho. The last pic are menpachis or soldierfish Mypripritis berndti

 

[Chub_by]

might as well post this beast here too.......I love seeing this fish lol

Don't you live in PA? I thought these were only around in the south, at least the large ones.

 

[Frank Castle]

Don't you live in PA? I thought these were only around in the south, at least the large ones.

they have been introduced to over a dozen states they were nnever native too. We got them by accident when Fish and Game thought they were stocking little tiny baby Channel cats and Brown Bullheads, but it was "contaminated shipment" and they couldn't----I CAN'T tell the difference in those 3 catfish species at only a few inches, so we have had them since 1997. It was "Kill-on-sight" for a long time, but now people have embraced them and enjoy fishing for them and realize they are here to stay now.

Our state record is 48lbs 9oz I think, but I know there has been a 72lbs and a 53lbs taken locally in the past 2 years, and I've come close myself at 42lbs, but I have no intention of killing any fish for a state record. i'd rather release it and tell only my fishing buddys so we can catch them again. Pretty sure I already broke the state record for Smallmouth 10 years ago, but I can't kill a bass lol they aren't farmed or stocked so I let them reproduce as much as possible before they die