Story - On 6/22/07 at 9:00 am I paddled out alone to my favorite kelp bed in Malibu California. The day before I had shot a 68.1 pound White Seabass on this same reef. I anchored my paddleboard 50 feet for where I got the fish the day before. I got in the water and loaded my 3 band Ernst gun and then flushed all the air out of my suit.

I made about a minute dive and ended up in the heart of the darkest part of the kelp. On my second dive I dove from the dark to the outside leading edge of the kelp. As it started getting lighter I noticed two shapes coming into view in the 20 foot hazy visibility.

The White Seabass were facing away from me and the one in front was noticeably bigger than the closer one to it’s rear. When the sensed me they both moved off to the left. Only the fish in range was the closer one. As he moved off to the left, for a moment his head was obscured by a kelp stalk. I kicked a little harder and waited for him to emerge from the kelp. When his head was clear, I shot him directly behind the left pectoral fin. The detachable head ended up in his gills on the right side. He made a run to the bottom in 60 feet of water. He didn’t run that hard as the gill shot cut his strength. Before he reached the bottom I stopped his run by pulling the drag line.

He tried to wrap the line on the kelp but I swam the line around the kelp also, so it wouldn’t tangle. I then started to bring the fish to the surface. When it came into view I could see it was a good shot, so I horsed it up to the surface. I put my hand in it’s gills and stoned it with my knife in the brain. I swam it over to my paddleboard and with a good deal of trouble, finally managed to get it in the hatch of the paddleboard. On shore was a different story. I couldn’t pick the fish up, so I had to drag it over the sand and steps to my truck. I had to stop several times to rest.

-- Bill - L.A. Fathomier