So you've been diving a while, can free dive 30 feet, and have no trouble getting your limit of four abalone in a few free dives. But now you want some really big abs, and we're not talking nine-inchers. You want a trophy, you want hubcaps. For the purpose of this discussion I will define a hubcap as any abalone over 10 inches. Allow me to offer the following suggestions to bag your hubcap:
Try to scout an area before you dive and look in areas that are normally too rough to dive, but are currently diveable. Look for an area that has old abs, ones whose shells are riddled with holes from boring marine parasites. Take a measuring device that will allow you to gauge the size of the big abs, and don't spend any time messing with the tiny nine-inchers. A boat helps to get you to these remote areas and most trophies are found in only 10 to 15 feet of water. If the area is not presenting any big abs, choose another location. Where one big ab is found, another will be close by. Big abs are often found in dirty water, and on boulders in sand, and never in an area with a lot of loose rocks. Storm-driven rocks break abalone shells.
Once a suitable area is found, systematically search with the help of two marker floats. The first marks the center of the search area and the other is pulled around with the abalone hunter. Many attach a line between their ab iron and their surface float. Should you find a hubcap and don't have enough breath to pull it, you can drop the ab iron as a marker and pop the ab on the next dive. A 30-to 40-foot piece of plastic tubing is useful for this purpose. This is available in hardware stores for 25 to 50¢ a foot.
Back in 1993 John Pepper, a general contractor from Half Moon Bay, caught the world's largest abalone. Pepper had been diving for about two hours on September 5th, "somewhere off the coast of Humboldt county." He is unwilling to describe the exact location. "Let's just say it's not easy to get to," he jokes.
Pepper's abalone was 12 5/16 inches across, was 9 3/4 inches wide and weighed 11 3/5 pounds. This is both a world record and a state of California record. The abalone had nice clean shell, free of parasites, unlike many other trophy abalone taken. The previous record was held by Don Thorp with an 11 3/4 inch abalone caught in 1983.
So where should you start your search for hubcaps? In Sonoma County, try the Sea Ranch. In Mendocino, try the area around Elk. Perhaps, the biggest abalone are between Shelter Cove and Westport along the Lost Coast. Remember, you must retain all abs you pop that are over seven inches. Even though you carry a 10-inch gauge, you must also have a seven- inch "legal" gauge. Happy hunting!
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Remove the foot from the shell and slice off the sole, mantle and black skin. Wrap the ab in a towel and pound until the muscle begins to relax. The muscle just needs to be a bit limp not pounded to mush. Remove the towel and make deep incisions with a sharp knife about 3/4 of an inch apart. Turn the abalone over and make another set of cuts perpendicular to the cuts on the other side. Finely chop several cloves of garlic and saute in a sauce pan with one stick of butter. Soak the ab in the butter mixture for a half hour (do not heat) and barbecue over very hot coals. Pieces of meat will fall off the ab as it cooks. Dip the abalone in the butter mixture frequently to add flavor and to prevent it from drying out.
1 bottle Pickappeppa (Jamaican pepper sauce)
1/2 cup white wine vinegar (rice or cider vinegar works too) juice of
4-6 limes (bottled works too)
1 sliced med. onion
1/2 sliced sweet pepper
3-4 smashed cloves of garlic (more if you like)
Tabasco to taste (or fresh, diced hot peppers)
1 cleaned 8.5 inch abalone
Clean as above and thinly slice the ab with the grain (the opposite of slicing for steaks). Do not pound! Combine all ingredients and refrigerate for 3 to 48 hours. It's better after 24 hours, but the impatient among us may consume it earlier.
Clean and slice the abalone as above. Again, do not pound. Prepare a mixture of wasabi (Japanese horseradish) and soy sauce. Dip, eat, and enjoy. No cooking necessary.
Bruce Watkins is a photojournalist residing in Northern California. Bruce is a regular contributor to California Diving News and hundreds of his articles and nearly a thousand of his photographs have appeared in various magazines, including Discover Diving, Ocean Realm, Outside, Rodale's Scuba Diving, and Skin Diver. He is the author of A Diver's Guide to Monterey County, recently published by Saint Brendan Corp.