Abalone, the other white meat...
Abalone, mmmm that is good on a cracker. Ok, now raise your hand if you have ever heard of abalone before this. Hold then up now so we can get an accurate count. Abalone are medium-sized to very large edible sea snails. They are a very sought after creature and because of that they are very valuable and therefore very highly regulated by the California Department of Fish and Game. It is not legal to sell Abalone, however most people that we have talked to say that it does sell for between $40 - $90 a pound. So again if you are looking for an easy way to make some good money and you are not concerned about laws, abalone diving can bring in some good cash. Once again, another reason enforcement is big as well.
There are some other key reasons for some of the regulations. First, the minimum size of a legal ab. is 7”. And if you are diving for abalone you are required to have a sizing gauge with you at all times. The reason for the size limit is that abalone between 6” and 7” contribute the most to spawning the next generation. The other reason to require a gauge on divers at all times is because ab. do not have any clotting mechanism. Essentially they are hemophiliacs. So if you pop off an undersize ab. and you nick the body of the creature it will not likely survive. So ensuring that you have a legal size beast before you grab it is very important.
Here is what an abalone looks like…
The Ab. is the one in the bucket. The feet are of an ab. diver.
Here is the underside of and ab. And a little more of what an ab. diver looks like.
And finally here is the real deal. An abalone in real life, as well as an ab. diver. (FYI the ab. is the one with the orange zip tie in it. The diver doesn’t have a zip tie.)
Here is the beach on a Saturday afternoon. The ab. divers come out in mass. The go out in boats, they swim out from the beach, and they also scramble down the sides of the bluffs and jump in the water from there as well.
Here you can see three vessels out in the bay. And straight out, just past the little island you can see a few black dots. This is several divers. The next photo is a close up of them.
What is the one thing that you do not see on any of the divers? I’ll give you a hint; it is a good equalizer in the hunt. It is kind of like hunting grizzly bear with a knife, or hunting white tail deer by running them down on foot. You are not allowed to SCUBA dive while abalone hunting. That’s right, take a deep breath and keep reading and see how long you make it. (Hand on to the computer table with two hands in case you pass out.) So basically these folks are in wet suits with a mask and snorkel and some flippers and they wrap a bunch of lead weight around their waist to help them dive. As you can also see the round thingiee that they have is a buoy that they float out on, and it also is a holder for anything that they catch. So they snorkel around looking at the bottom for prospects and then they take a deep breath and dive down to try to grab there find. Abalone are basically a muscle on the bottom, and their defense mechanism is to suck themselves down to a rock and pull their shell down tight to the rock. When they do that they are basically impossible to remove. We tried to pull one off the tailgate of a truck an it was stuck on so hard that you could lift the whole tailgate with it. So in addition to holding your breath, you have to be stealth while doing this.
Sound like a great time doesn’t it. Well there are a few downfalls. Actually it sounds like there are numerous fatalities each season (April 1 – June 30 and Aug. 1 – Nov. 30) on the north coast. The water temp in this area averages in the mid-50’s. So not normally lethal in short doses with the proper equipment but a risk never the less. The bay that we are on is about 70’ deep at the max. And your dive depths will completely depend on your strength as a diver and your ability to hold your breath. Most people are in the 10’ to 20’ range. And as you can see from several of the ocean shots that I have posted there is lots of kelp in the area of the coast. This is thick heavy duty stuff. The stuff in the following photo was washer up on shore and it was 1.5” thick at the largest diameter. So, can you say entanglement??? That gives me an idea for a new SCBA drill!!! Basically it is a fairly safe sport as any if you take some basic precautions and are reasonable about your capabilities. And as in any sport there are screw-ups in with the reasonable people. This is one of those sports that doesn’t require allot of money to get into but it still requires some skill. Where as SCUBA you need to layout some serious cash before you jump in. So that alone weeds out some of the unreasonable types.
So after all of that, the fines for not following the rules are very high. If you are caught with SCUBA equipment on a vessel while you have an abalone, all of your equipment will be confiscated as well as a $1350 fine per ab. that you have. Remember these penalties as they are the same for all of the infractions. Over the bag limit which is 3 per day, and 24 for the season. Each ab. has to be tagged with a tag that you receive from the state as well as a report card filled out with your yearly catch. Any undersize abalone carries the same fine. So you can see it can be very expensive if you don’t follow the rules. And they are out there watching. We have seen the Fish and Game Warden on top of the bluffs with his spotting scope and binoculars watching divers while camouflaged in the brush.
The last two photos are just some cool shots that we got today at low tide while climbing around on the bluffs. As you can see the star fish population is very high here. Just kind of interesting to see this many stars at one time.
Until next time...
R.J.
P.S. I wrote this one at 2:30 AM, so if some if it doesn't make sense guess what your chances o getting your money back is!
There are some other key reasons for some of the regulations. First, the minimum size of a legal ab. is 7”. And if you are diving for abalone you are required to have a sizing gauge with you at all times. The reason for the size limit is that abalone between 6” and 7” contribute the most to spawning the next generation. The other reason to require a gauge on divers at all times is because ab. do not have any clotting mechanism. Essentially they are hemophiliacs. So if you pop off an undersize ab. and you nick the body of the creature it will not likely survive. So ensuring that you have a legal size beast before you grab it is very important.
Here is what an abalone looks like…
The Ab. is the one in the bucket. The feet are of an ab. diver.
Here is the underside of and ab. And a little more of what an ab. diver looks like.
And finally here is the real deal. An abalone in real life, as well as an ab. diver. (FYI the ab. is the one with the orange zip tie in it. The diver doesn’t have a zip tie.)
Here is the beach on a Saturday afternoon. The ab. divers come out in mass. The go out in boats, they swim out from the beach, and they also scramble down the sides of the bluffs and jump in the water from there as well.
Here you can see three vessels out in the bay. And straight out, just past the little island you can see a few black dots. This is several divers. The next photo is a close up of them.
What is the one thing that you do not see on any of the divers? I’ll give you a hint; it is a good equalizer in the hunt. It is kind of like hunting grizzly bear with a knife, or hunting white tail deer by running them down on foot. You are not allowed to SCUBA dive while abalone hunting. That’s right, take a deep breath and keep reading and see how long you make it. (Hand on to the computer table with two hands in case you pass out.) So basically these folks are in wet suits with a mask and snorkel and some flippers and they wrap a bunch of lead weight around their waist to help them dive. As you can also see the round thingiee that they have is a buoy that they float out on, and it also is a holder for anything that they catch. So they snorkel around looking at the bottom for prospects and then they take a deep breath and dive down to try to grab there find. Abalone are basically a muscle on the bottom, and their defense mechanism is to suck themselves down to a rock and pull their shell down tight to the rock. When they do that they are basically impossible to remove. We tried to pull one off the tailgate of a truck an it was stuck on so hard that you could lift the whole tailgate with it. So in addition to holding your breath, you have to be stealth while doing this.
Sound like a great time doesn’t it. Well there are a few downfalls. Actually it sounds like there are numerous fatalities each season (April 1 – June 30 and Aug. 1 – Nov. 30) on the north coast. The water temp in this area averages in the mid-50’s. So not normally lethal in short doses with the proper equipment but a risk never the less. The bay that we are on is about 70’ deep at the max. And your dive depths will completely depend on your strength as a diver and your ability to hold your breath. Most people are in the 10’ to 20’ range. And as you can see from several of the ocean shots that I have posted there is lots of kelp in the area of the coast. This is thick heavy duty stuff. The stuff in the following photo was washer up on shore and it was 1.5” thick at the largest diameter. So, can you say entanglement??? That gives me an idea for a new SCBA drill!!! Basically it is a fairly safe sport as any if you take some basic precautions and are reasonable about your capabilities. And as in any sport there are screw-ups in with the reasonable people. This is one of those sports that doesn’t require allot of money to get into but it still requires some skill. Where as SCUBA you need to layout some serious cash before you jump in. So that alone weeds out some of the unreasonable types.
So after all of that, the fines for not following the rules are very high. If you are caught with SCUBA equipment on a vessel while you have an abalone, all of your equipment will be confiscated as well as a $1350 fine per ab. that you have. Remember these penalties as they are the same for all of the infractions. Over the bag limit which is 3 per day, and 24 for the season. Each ab. has to be tagged with a tag that you receive from the state as well as a report card filled out with your yearly catch. Any undersize abalone carries the same fine. So you can see it can be very expensive if you don’t follow the rules. And they are out there watching. We have seen the Fish and Game Warden on top of the bluffs with his spotting scope and binoculars watching divers while camouflaged in the brush.
The last two photos are just some cool shots that we got today at low tide while climbing around on the bluffs. As you can see the star fish population is very high here. Just kind of interesting to see this many stars at one time.
Until next time...
R.J.
P.S. I wrote this one at 2:30 AM, so if some if it doesn't make sense guess what your chances o getting your money back is!
posted by R.J. at 3:20 PM
1 Comments:
So how did it taste? And what’s with the orange zip ties? And, and how did an Abalone get a hold of a truck’s tailgate anyway? More Abalone stories please.
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