AUSTIN: Checking various ocean forecast websites, conditions looked ideal for large gulf grouper. 62-64 degree water with little to no wind for the couple days we would be diving. We lucked out on the best days of the whole week. With a large storm tearing through California right after our departure to Baja, we found some great weather down south before the storm made its way down to us. The first day we found pretty terrible visibility at the first spot with only about 8 feet on the surface and 10-15 feet down on the bottom. I was testing out a new gopro for the first time and didnt secure it to my head properly (What an IDIOT! I know...) and it fell off my head on my first dive to the reef 55 feet below. When I surfaced I went to turn it off and it was gone! Five minutes of making repeated dives up and down scanning everywhere in hopes of relocating the lost camera put me a few years off the reef into the sand. As I was scanning around I noticed a single large yellowtail slowly cruising by about 12 feet off my right hand side and about 8 - 10 feet down. I knew this was the largest yellowtail I would have a chance at. The fish wasn't spooked an it was an easy shot with my 63" Ono gun. Stoned the fish in the head just behind the gill plate. Cool, at least we're eating some sashimi that night. The fish ended up going around 50lbs. Never found the gopro though...

DB: What were you targeting? What species of fish did you have opportunities to take? 

AUSTIN: This last trip was specifically targeting gulf grouper and the usual Sea of Cortez suspects like yellowtail, cabrilla (leopard grouper), and snapper species.
I was after a personal best gulf grouper and wasn't going to shoot anything under 100lbs. We found our usually productive spots devoid of all the large gulf grouper that usually dwell there and my goal was becoming less and less of a reality as the first day went on.
We took a little break and hoped maybe the current would change in a couple hours possibly bringing in some more fish with it.
Two of us dove a shallower reef in the 30-40' range finding the fish extremely spooky. I grabbed my 110cm eurogun and a flashlight and chased some nice pargo around the caves. We ended up with 6 pargo between 7-20lbs from three species of snapper, dogtooth, colorado, and yellow snapper; all world class eating.
The current change turned out to not make much of a difference except for opening the visibility to up to 25 feet. After a few dives, I had a 70-80lb grouper come in about 12-14 feet away and closing. After none of us had seen any really large fish, my focus had shifted from personal bests, to just getting something to bring home. Having just made new bands for my 63" gun the week before, and hearing some very bad reviews for this particular company's (which I wont name here) quality of band material, I pulled the trigger and those guys were right. As this nice fish got within range for a good shot, I squeezed the trigger and watched my shaft slowly cruise out not making it farther that eight feet before dropping down as the grouper bolted away never to be seen again.
A lesson learned the hard way. ALWAYS make sure you use the best possible quality equipment when it comes to rigging your guns. It does not pay to skimp out on things like bands, shooting line, tips, cable, lines, and other terminal gear involved with successfully landing fish. It should be one of the divers number one investments of time and funds. You dont need the most fancy, expensive speargun out there, divers get amazing results with cheaper or home made guns. Whatever you are shooting, make sure you rig it right to not lose fish. What was nothing more than me trying to save a couple dollars looking for the cheapest band material I could find, proved to be what stopped me from hitting this grouper as well as two cabrilla within 10 feet the next morning. Having pulled the trigger hundreds of times with this gun and having it dialed in surgically, I can tell you that it there was something very wrong with the quality of thest bands which barely shot a shaft eight feet out on gun that is capable of taking 25 foot shots. I dont want to publically badmouth this company because I have usually had great experiences with then and some of there other products are great quality. Their bands are bad news though. They shot fine the first shot, less than 10 minutes into use, but after that they just werent cutting it.
Thanks to the crappy bands, the first day was wrapped up with only the one yellowtail and the few smaller pargo.

Next morning we headed in the opposite direction to another proven big grouper spot.
This day we found exceptional visibility even as the wind had begun white capping the water. 35 to 40 foot visibility is not what you want hunting grouper unless you have a ridiculous bottom time. We did not find any large grouper here either and the smaller grouper we saw were exceptionally skittish. We were the first divers there in the last two months so the fish acting this way was quite odd. I have a little theory that with the approaching storm, the fish might have sensed the drop in barometric pressure and headed to deeper waters and leaving the remaining fish on edge. Even a a couple sightings of yellowtail would have the fish staying way out of shooting range and not coming in for any of the old tricks. Soon after we began diving, the reef became barren as most fish ducked into the vast cave structure in the reef below. The weather picked up a bit and we headed in calling it a trip. All I shot on this trip was the one yellowtail and three pargo not worth bragging about.
With so many seemingly negative things happening and the trip going way off the original plan, we still salvaged a fun trip out of it and got away for a little bit while socal was hammered with rain.

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