Caught Me a Big Bug

Wow so this is the biggest lobster I've caught while freediving. Grabbed during the day; which seems even more impressive now that I know it's easier to dive for lobsters at night.


Here's the skinny on the dive: Caught the lobster shorediving in Orange County (just freediving), 1:00PM on 11/7/2008, at around 20+ feet down, Vis 10-15ft, and my scale read 5 lbs~

The ocean was a little rough today, with waves crashing against the surface rocks creating swarms of bubbles that both whitened my underwater view and empowered the surge to dangerous levels. I was not at the mercy of the sea, but I was forced to continually maneuvering myself around while floating on the surface.

When mother nature present less than ideal diving conditions I sometimes take a moment to swim out to a patch of open water. Floating there calmly on the surface I examine what lays before me and ponder the dangers of staying. Within moments I can feel my answer.

Today I will dive.

It was impossible to see past a few feet in front of your face. Diving past the turbulent surface to the deeper water the bubbles disappeared and my Deep underwater the conditions cleared up substantially.

On one of my deeper dives I swam past an undersized lobster near a rock wall to my left. Continuing around the bend I turned my head to see what was further on and immediately found myself starring at the largest lobster I'd ever seen! He was just sitting there with his back against the flat rock wall. No cave to escape to or crevice to squeeze into, he was out in the open. "Alright!", I thought, while still holding my breath. So with nowhere to go I floated in for the grab. I looked at him, with his monster body, and decided this called for 2 hands. Closer... closer... a.. little closer... NAB!!! Got him! Holding him as tight as I could I swam for the surface! He wasn't escaping now! Before I even reached the surface I yelled a woo hoo underwater, I was just that excited. Unfortunately I was still underwater, so I lost quite a bit of air in that rush of emotion. But with a few more kicks from my fins I reached the surface with a splash, gasping for fresh air.

Looking down the big guy was still there. Made me happy as hell! I let out a good couple hell yeahs. And I gotta say I never do that, so that shows how ecstatic I was over my find. But with the celebration over I still had to get the lobster still clinging to my body into my lobster bag. Well it took a bit of juggling, because of the size, but I finally got the monster in the bag. Dove a couple more times before I realized I had plenty of lobster to eat for the night. And headed back home to find someone to cook my find. Gotta say this is one of my all time favorite dives~