50+lb Yellowtail Speared San Diego

I’m still in shock that I landed this fish. A 50lb+ yellowtail... that I speared in 15ft of water... from 8ft away... shot it with my left hand... and a lobster in my right... and to top it all off I shot it with a jbl explorer 75 with improved tip and an added band and only had about 12ft of coated cable from the gun to the shaft.


The story goes “I was fishing the pier and the water was super clear and there was bait around but no bites anywhere. So said to my friends that I was going to go down and get some lobster. So I go to my car get my gear on then get into the water. Was diving along the pier going towards the end when I grabbed a nice size Legal lobster. So then I go the to the end to yell at my friends to lower a bucket down so I can put the lobster in it. I call their names for about a minute and nobody comes. So in my head I’m like what’s going on. Little did I know they were casting baits at a yellowtail for the past 20 minutes. And apparently it ate on their baits but spit it before the hook was set. Then I guess the yellow swims under the pier and my friend finally yells out “Yellowtail!” And he points at it about 40ft away from me and says “its swimming towards you!” I’m like uh oh here we go so I kinda keep holding onto the lobster in my dominant right and and kinda shuffle the gun into my left and I start to see the shape swimming towards me then it turns to its left. I’m finally holding the gun right and then it shows me it’s whole side. I hear my friend yell “Shoot it!” So I dive down slowly about two feet and it starts turning away and I tell myself it’s now or never and I pulled the trigger... and hold on tight didn’t feel anything for 2 sec the my line goes straight down an I could feel it doing death circles. I come up and yell “I got em!” Then yell at my friends to grab gaff and bucket. One of them finally comes back and lowers the gaff and I finally have to release the lobster lol. I pull the yellow in slow and steady and find one of the floppers is sticking out which means the spear was about an inch away from coming out. So I grab it mouth and it does a big head shake and shove the shaft back through it. It goes nuts but I keep a hold of it somehow then I swim it to the gaff. And poke the gaff through the bottom lip and my friend finally takes video and pulls it up slowly. And he finally flips it over. “Yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhh!!!” So what do I do afterwards... I go look for another one haha! I have my friend drop my spear down and I go look for the lobster I had. Couldn’t find it but I found a different one. Then I wandered around for an hour looking for another yellow then I finally give up and go back up on the pier and see a massive yellowtail hanging on the rail. At first I didn’t think it was mine. I thought the one I got was maybe 30lbs. It was 5 planks 58” 50lbs 6oz - 51Ib 5oz took pictures with it then fillet it up. Woke up the next day and thought it was a dream. Then told myself “I speared a 50lb yellowtail... then just laughed at how crazy it all was.”

A dream come true.

I think it could have been a lot bigger before it spawned out and had a full stomach. It had nothing in its stomach. But it’s good that it spread it’s big homeguard genes before it was harvested.
Literally copied and pasted this from Instagram. Just wanted to share one of my biggest fishing achievements on sdfish since I know a lot of you guys aren’t on Instagram but there is a ton of local fishermen on Instagram sharing their catches.

 

Yes of course. I have permission from life guards and I have friends up top that can say something if someone thinks it’s funny to throw bait or even try to intentionally try to hook me. Haven’t had any problems yet . Crystal pier is also one of the least pressured piers due to parking so there aren’t too many lines in the water. But I always keep an eye out.