Wife gave me the green light to go dive with my buddy Brent on Sunday AM as long as I was home by 2pm to spend the afternoon with my daughters.

Brent had some stuff come up with his wife’s family so he couldn’t make it, but I still paddled out at first light.

Started off in shallow and found some small lings but nothing I wanted so let them be.

Then I decided to go check out this crack which frequently houses Lings and/or Cabezons…I had it marked on my cheapo GPS app on my iPhone but had recently got a new phone so lost the mark. DOH!

No prob…I used the FishFinder and some landmarks and clipped the yak off close enough that I was confident I could find the crack…

10 minutes later I found it and decided to check the far left corner where there is a little wide part and where I have seen nice Lings before…

Drop down and lo and behold there is a nice 32 inch Ling sitting there. Shoot him in the face, put him on my belt stringer, leave the gun to mark the spot and swim the Ling back to the yak.

I paddle the yak back to the crack and drop down and look back in the crack and in the EXACT same spot where the first Ling was is another one!

Slightly smaller, but still a nice bright blue 28 incher.

Was waiting for my buddy Nathan and his Dad to meet me out on the water but they still weren’t there so decided to explore a little until they showed up….

Have seen a high point on my FishFinder a couple times before in this area and had been meaning to check it out so decided to go find it and do a little exploring.

Found the spot, clipped up and jumped in. Beautiful finger of rock, lots of schooling blues and olives and some promising looking cracks and holes in the boulder field below…

Start exploring and checking every crack I could find…

One of the reasons why I am straight up addicted to diving is that no matter how many empty holes you check, the very next one could hold a monster…

And that’s exactly what happened to me this day…

Drop down and head to check out a promising looking horizontal crack…shine my light in and can see it goes way back… and right then I see movement and a flash of red and a big black tail and realize it is a BIG male sheephead heading for the back of the crack!!

Wiggle in a little but can’t get a good shot lined up but the sheep appears to be staying still so decide to surface to breathe up and keep my fingers crossed there is no back door that he can escape out of…

Drop down again and there is a stupid Ling at the mouth of the crack blocking my view , and have to push him out of the way with my spear and he stirs up some silt and I can’t see much but I can still make out the red band of the sheep way in the back and go up again for a breath.

Drop down one more time and this time I drop down so my belly is flat against the bottom and wiggle as far into crack as I can (it’s pretty narrow so I wiggle in until my shoulders can’t get any further), extend my arm and gun as far as I can, line up the shot and blast the sheep mid body (head was obscured the way he was facing away from me).

Right away the sheep goes nuts and I can feel him trying to pull the gun out of my hands…I start pulling back firmly but smoothly hoping that the shot is solid and that I can get him out of the crack before he can thrash enough to get free or get stuck back in there…

Get free of the crack and keep pulling on the shooting line and the fish keeps coming and as soon as it gets out I grab him and head for the surface.

See that shaft didn’t go all the way through and try and shove it through, but it has obviously hit the spine and won’t go any further in.

Get to the surface and cut some gills out and he starts calming down…and then I swim back to the yak, get him on the stringer and let out a BIG yell of joy!!

Right then Nathan and his Dad paddle up and I get to show off my prize!!

I’m spent, so after a few high fives I paddle back in, enjoy talking to tourists and folks on the beach and letting them see the fish, and then my good buddy Daniel shows up and we have a beer together and he takes some great pics.

Dan was there when I shot my only other male sheephead last year so am super glad it worked out that he was here for this one as well!!!

Sheep taped out to 29 inches and is my new personal best!!!

Here is a little vid and some pics.

Thanks for reading and looking!

Sincerely,

Jim

ps…I made it home by 2pm as well to keep the wife and girls happy. : )