Posted by seahunt on August 16, 1999 at 16:57:32:
There is a lot of history to this site, because diving used to
be more of a frontier sport. Things were different and more raw. In
California, the abundant game fostered a lot of hunters. A much
larger percentage of divers were into hunting then than now. Abalone
are fun to search out and delicious to eat. Lobster hunting is one of
the wildest sports there is. The halibut hunters range over vast open
areas like wolves. Spearfishers play hide and seek with the bass.
These people are not tourists out of their element when they enter the
water. These are local predators that can play a pretty rough game.
The fish die when these guys show up.
The style of these divers is dictated and taught by the hunt. It
is certainly not a style taught by any agency and it is enough to make
many instructors cringe. Here are a few habits that hunters in
California may pick, up that are not considered common diving practice
elsewhere:
Hunting lends itself to solo diving. Some people hunt together,
but it is harder and reduces success most of the time.
Hunting makes it worth it to dive under less than favorable
conditions. Sometimes the worst conditions are where the best diving
is. Often hunters dive in conditions that are not worth diving for any
other diving activity. Vis comes and goes, the bugs are always there.
Hunters must be able to make excellent judgements about conditions.
Successful hunting often requires that the diver cover as much of
the bottom as possible. They often get much farther from the boat than
other divers do. California has vast diving areas. Because of that,
hunters often must develop navigation abilities that are superior to
what most divers need. It doesn't always help and an alternative
solution is just to not care. That requires its own preparations.
Hunters must be in excellent physical shape.
Hunters move quickly, so they must observe and evaluate what they
are seeing, extremely quickly. Then they must be able to respond just
as quickly, to what is going on.
Hunters have to move through the water gracefully. They cannot
start suddenly or bang around. All game will take notice.
Hunters must move through the water swiftly. They must be
excellent swimmers with their gear adjusted to slide through the
water. Some hunters are getting away from BC's and consoles for this
reason. A pressure gauge does not help with hunting and it drags.
Hunters have to be very comfortable with their equipment. Moving
quickly in close quarters tends to unhook weight belts and to provide
other minor gear suprises.
Hunters often have reason to go in holes. This means they get in
and out of their tank under water far more often than most divers.
Some hunters even have an extended hose on their primary regulator, so
that they can go down holes without having to push their tank in front
of them or just hold their breath as they go in a hole. Sometimes they
have the long hose on their octopus regulator and coil it and the hose
into their BC pocket. I just push my tank in front of me.
When hunting, the hunter comes up when they run out of air or
bottom time. Not before.
California hunters are not intimidated by kelp. It is their
friend. Rough water, waves and rock entries come with the territory and
must be handled gracefully.
The activities and the methods of the hunt require that a diver
always is prepared for the unexpected.
The free divers in northern California must be masters of the
waves, currents and rocks. Their sense of caution is highly developed.
There ability to move through the water is superb. The Pelican Dive
Club from Northern California came down for a charter on the Peace to
San Nic. About half of them immediatly went to shore and attached
their BC's to kelp. They then hunted with snorkel. When they find a
lobster, they are moving so fast that the bug is never even going to
start moving.
The hunters tend to be dive fanatics. They are the ones that buy
the diving magazines and absorb any knowledge or technique that will
help their diving and hunting. They spend endless hours scheming about
any technique for finding or catching their prey. They are the ones
that read the first 2 books by Jaques Cousteau, written when he was a
pioneering diver, before he became fashionable. Hunters are often not
that interested in scuba classes. A devoted diver will, early on,
surpass the teachings and scope of most classes. They are there to
dive, not take classes... unless it is a specialty class... that will
extend their diving reach.
The hunters were always trying to improve their diving technique.
That includes even getting in the water. Many of the hunters enter the
water vertically with something like a giant stride, but they tip
their fins up and do not kick back to the surface. Their gear is
adjusted in place and is in use. The direction to go from the boat is
down, not up to the surface to splash around and see if you got it
right.
Lobster hunters, trying to maximize the success of their hunting,
maximize their bottom time as well. Part of the year this is going to
mean deeper diving and the need for an awareness of the hazards of DCS
from multiple dives. The hunters get a great deal of practice with
how one must deal with repetitive dive situations. In shallower
conditions, they do not need tables, timers or computers to know that
they are well within the safe decompression limits.
Universally, hunters hate to be told how to dive by people
spewing the agency lines. Dive equipment is something that they use,
not something to be noticed.
These are parts of the California way of diving, but there are
divers all over the world that dive this way. They are the divers that
belong there and are not just visiting.
To some extent, the style of diving of the hunters gets carried
over to the rest of the divers. This is what makes the divers of
California amoung the best in the world.
Over time, things have changed. There are far more divers, many
with vastly different views of nature. Now, hunting is no longer all
that politically correct nor all that feasible, what with depleted
stocks and all. There are not as many hunters now, but there are
still some intrepid divers out there doing it and many others doing
great photography, underwater exploring and exploring of technology
with technical diving. They dive for the adventure of it. Calfiornia
diving lends itself to that. They dive the California way.
There is no such thing as a resort certification in California.
Gear and conditions mean that a diver in California must have a higher
level of basic competency than is needed in warmer waters.
I like hunting with a camera, but I take a goody bag along too.
Diving is also a private sport for many reasons. Most
experiences of divers are seen only by the diver or perhaps by their
buddy. It is hard to show what we go down there to see. Cameras just
have a hard time capturing the experience at all.
Relatively few divers continue to dive California after a few years. They come to like the warmer waters. I know many of the long term divers that have continued to dive. We see each other year after year on the long range trips. The hard core divers who ignore the long trips and the cold for the chance of an adventure. They like a good day, but they manage fine in terrible conditions. These are the divers that have made the California diving culture.
Note that I usually refer to lobster as bugs. I think that that
is far better than calling them large saltwater cockroaches.
I was once asked why I like lobster diving so much. I had to
think about it for a while. Explaining or describing the excitement
and fun of the sport is difficult, but you can be sure that I would
come up with some description to give you a picture.
Think about a gigantic, very cold building, full of rooms filled
with clutter, strewn furniture, hardware, machines, plants, holes
through the walls and a couple of rats. Now lobster hunting is just
like running in and out of these rooms, looking for rats to grab. You
gotta be quick and really run through this building. It can even be
more fun doing it at night with a flashlight. If you can run fast
enough, you might even be able to keep warm. If you get really lucky,
you can grab ahold of a really big rat.
I hope this explains why we like lobster hunting so much.