Outdoor Adventure USA

Last Saturday my diving buddy and I dove a secret reef off Newport Beach. We went out in the hopes of finding dinner. Normally you dive for lobster at night, but a swell was due in and we couldn't wait till nighttime. We scored 3 legal size lobsters for dinner, but we also enjoyed an unusually clear day of diving in Newport. Visibility is usually about 5 feet. We had 15 foot vis. Here are a few images…





Dinner, yahoooo!


My foot is in there to give it some scale. My foot is 12 inches long, or I guess you could say my foot is a foot.

Very cool! Thanks for posting. Just curious... do you need a special license or permit to take lobster or will just a fishing license with an ocean stamp due?

Valid sport fishing license. You must catch them by hand only, no tools or devices whatsoever and you must have a measuring device on your person. The width of the area between the eyes and the body must be equal or greater than 3 1/4 inches. From a boat you can use a hoop net which you bait with little cans of cat food, not near as fun or challenging as catching them by hand but they taste just as good. FYI our lobsters don't have pinchers like the East Coast versions but they put up a hell of a fight with there tails.

Those are nice bugs Braden, you must of really snuck up on them to get them during the day. I'm guessing you were down at the coves....

Nice! Reminds me of last night's dinner.

Thanks for the info, Scott!

gon2srf wrote:I'm guessing you were down at the coves....

Actually we dove a secret reef that’s right off Newport Beach. It's between the pier and 56th street. I don't think those lobster had ever seen a diver before. They were the easiest ones I ever caught. They just sat there and let me snatch them up with hardly any fight. No one knows about this reef, so the pickings are good. The only problem is the visability and the surge. It's only good when there is absolutly no swell. It has to be totally flat. The surge will blow you right off the reef, or right into it.

cmjrfan8 wrote:

gon2srf wrote:I'm guessing you were down at the coves....

Actually we dove a secret reef that’s right off Newport Beach. It's between the pier and 56th street. I don't think those lobster had ever seen a diver before. They were the easiest ones I ever caught. They just sat there and let me snatch them up with hardly any fight. No one knows about this reef, so the pickings are good. The only problem is the visability and the surge. It's only good when there is absolutly no swell. It has to be totally flat. The surge will blow you right off the reef, or right into it.

[It's between the pier and 56th street/quote]

Haha, good job keeping it on the "down low".

gon2srf wrote:

cmjrfan8 wrote:

gon2srf wrote:I'm guessing you were down at the coves....

Actually we dove a secret reef that’s right off Newport Beach. It's between the pier and 56th street. I don't think those lobster had ever seen a diver before. They were the easiest ones I ever caught. They just sat there and let me snatch them up with hardly any fight. No one knows about this reef, so the pickings are good. The only problem is the visability and the surge. It's only good when there is absolutly no swell. It has to be totally flat. The surge will blow you right off the reef, or right into it.

[It's between the pier and 56th street/quote]

Haha, good job keeping it on the "down low".

It's very hard to find. It's a small reef, and that’s a big stretch of beach between the pier and 56th. We were given very specific instructions on how to find it. We had to triangulate using a compass. Taking a bearing on two predominate landmarks. Even then it took repeated dives to find it.

cmjrfan8 wrote:

My God! Look at the size of that foot!

bruisedFJ wrote:

cmjrfan8 wrote:

My God! Look at the size of that foot!

Hey, that's not a foot... Oh boy, I can see this thread going way in the wrong direction...