hammet
Contributor
Uni is good stuff. MMMmmmmm yum! If it's a sustainable harvest (and legal of course), go for it!
Getting started with Urchins
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lamarpaulski
Contributor
I was an urchin diver many years ago so my info is very dated but fwiw :
We used hookah. Diving was usually shallow, often in surge. Almost always in or near kelp which the urchins eat. Some used tanks and scooters to scout for urchin beds but the work was on hookah.
Most of my diving was off San Clemente Island although most boats worked the Northern Channel Islands and North. We worked year round in often very cold water..probably ought to get a rugged drysuit tho we went wet. Radon boats with small cuddy were by far most popular type boat. Seaworthy, good hold, fast, trailerable. Urchin divers tend to push the envelope on safe boating. Easy to get caught in a storm over-loaded with urchins.
We harvested only big red/black urchins. The roe quality was very important as sometimes it was very valuable and others wirthless. Boom or bust. We used a claw fabricated from stainless steel that was braced by your forearm and extended past fingers liked Wolverines claws only hooked a bit more. This worked great at extracting urchins from under ledges. We filled up big cargo nets that we dragged around then filled lift bags and swam them to boat to be winched up. A mother boat winched a combined cargo net load from the urchin boats, took it to San Pedro, processing and flight to Japan.
You ought to become a very solid diver ASAP and become familiar and adept with coastal and offshore year-round diving. I would then check Santa Barbara, San Pedro, Ventura and maybe San Luis Obispo harbors, fisherman associations,dive shops for any urchin boats needing a diver/tender and get some experience in all aspects of the job.
Btw Uni tastes like salty snot and is only seafood I dont like.
We used hookah. Diving was usually shallow, often in surge. Almost always in or near kelp which the urchins eat. Some used tanks and scooters to scout for urchin beds but the work was on hookah.
Most of my diving was off San Clemente Island although most boats worked the Northern Channel Islands and North. We worked year round in often very cold water..probably ought to get a rugged drysuit tho we went wet. Radon boats with small cuddy were by far most popular type boat. Seaworthy, good hold, fast, trailerable. Urchin divers tend to push the envelope on safe boating. Easy to get caught in a storm over-loaded with urchins.
We harvested only big red/black urchins. The roe quality was very important as sometimes it was very valuable and others wirthless. Boom or bust. We used a claw fabricated from stainless steel that was braced by your forearm and extended past fingers liked Wolverines claws only hooked a bit more. This worked great at extracting urchins from under ledges. We filled up big cargo nets that we dragged around then filled lift bags and swam them to boat to be winched up. A mother boat winched a combined cargo net load from the urchin boats, took it to San Pedro, processing and flight to Japan.
You ought to become a very solid diver ASAP and become familiar and adept with coastal and offshore year-round diving. I would then check Santa Barbara, San Pedro, Ventura and maybe San Luis Obispo harbors, fisherman associations,dive shops for any urchin boats needing a diver/tender and get some experience in all aspects of the job.
Btw Uni tastes like salty snot and is only seafood I dont like.
OP
NotOnlyButAlsoPete
Registered
Thank you! I really appreciate the inside info! And if I wasn't already hot on the idea, now you tell me there are Wolverine claws involved. I'm sold.
lamarpaulski
Contributor
You're welcome.
Caveat is my info is very stale. I was a dedicated sport diver before I urchin-dived and have remained so AFTER. It was a tough way to make a living and I was 20 years old. I did love diving San Clemente Island all day long though. Saw amazing things being u/w that much.
I did read an article in the San Diego Tribune about a year ago regarding a small scale harvester out of SD who catered to sushi and fusion and high-class restaurants with fresh daily uni. Seemed a more civilized lifestyle but gist was he was last of a breed. There might be a similar niche out there but i think the 'industry' is a fraction of what it was.
If all you do is become a proficient SCUBA diver you have lost nothing and gained much.
Caveat is my info is very stale. I was a dedicated sport diver before I urchin-dived and have remained so AFTER. It was a tough way to make a living and I was 20 years old. I did love diving San Clemente Island all day long though. Saw amazing things being u/w that much.
I did read an article in the San Diego Tribune about a year ago regarding a small scale harvester out of SD who catered to sushi and fusion and high-class restaurants with fresh daily uni. Seemed a more civilized lifestyle but gist was he was last of a breed. There might be a similar niche out there but i think the 'industry' is a fraction of what it was.
If all you do is become a proficient SCUBA diver you have lost nothing and gained much.
dumpsterDiver
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growingupninja
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I am a freediver and spearfishman and have pulled my share of uni, particularly when conditions were not great for fish and lobsters are out of season. Off the LA coastline they are plentiful. I see the commercial guys out frequently, they work in about 20' - 50' usually with a hookah. Don't need much boat for it, most of the guys I see out there regularly are one man operations. Probably about 97% of what gets pulled out of our waters gets shipped to Asia. They are stupid easy to harvest, even freediving...
Urchins in the shallow barrens are not good eating; they will have shriveled and may be bitter. The tastiest urchins around LA will be found around the coldest portions of the coast (upwellings), and in healthy thick kelp, the deeper the better, although a lonely guy in a very deep/bluewater rock pile may not be terrific since they may not be getting enough kelp at extreme depths. Look for urchins that are currently feeding (they will have kelp leaves stuck to them). Urchins are somewhat communal, if you see one there are others around. Typically urchins from a particular cluster will all be similar in quality. When you find cluster that looks good, crack one and check it, and if it's good then consider taking more from the cluster. If the uni is lousy then chances are all the ones in that general neighborhood aren't great. The biggest ones will be tucked into caves, stuck stuck to the ceilings of overhangs, or in cracks. A good urchin innard is gold/bright yellow, and should be sweet and ocean tasting, and just a bit minerally but not bitter. Small, brown, and bitter uni is dogfood and isn't even in the same world tastewise as good uni. Smaller healthier urchins will have more yield and better quality/taste than giant ones that have been sitting for too long alone in the barrens (the innards shrivel but the shell of course will stay the same size). If you know what you're doing you can find ones as big as volleyballs with almost a pound of uni inside. They also do move around; some spots will be chock full of beautiful urchins for a months at a time and then they suddenly decide to clear out on their own and there will not be a single urchin on the whole reef, even though there's plenty of kelp and urchins on nearby reefs.
As far as harvesting them, garden trowel is a cheap easy tool, but if you are wearing just leather gloves they can be detached by hand. And of course dive knife, ab iron, or speargun tip works well; I would never bother to carry a dedicated urchin tool. 30 urchins is a lot, and will weigh quite a bit even in the water, and be a lot of drag, and be an enormous mess to clean. When I used to shoredive a lot I would go out with a cheap 5L signal float, find a spot, blow it up, and clip my mesh bag (trident lobster bag) to the float. If you have a boat or kayak, a cloth laundry bag is great to put them in or transfer them into so they don't stain your boat and leave broken needles everywhere. For scuba, you probably just want to leave the bag on the bottom and haul it up afterwards. They will stain livewells, etc. Urchins are very hardy, probably the toughest of the intertidals when it comes to taking them home and keeping them alive for a few days so you can be eating them fresh. If you are shorediving, they can be quite a bitch to hike back up the cliff since a bag of urchins will be messy, prickly and awkward; again, a heavy duty canvas laundry bag works well for transport. If the bag is wet and kept cool they will keep for a long time.
Further north where the water is colder the quality of the uni is better and it's easier to find good ones in shallow water. Urchins are pretty low on the priority list for most bottom hunters. If you are dedicated to finding great urchins in socal you will also come across plenty of other good shellfish eats like lobsters, scallops, octopus, whelks, crabs, etc...
Urchins in the shallow barrens are not good eating; they will have shriveled and may be bitter. The tastiest urchins around LA will be found around the coldest portions of the coast (upwellings), and in healthy thick kelp, the deeper the better, although a lonely guy in a very deep/bluewater rock pile may not be terrific since they may not be getting enough kelp at extreme depths. Look for urchins that are currently feeding (they will have kelp leaves stuck to them). Urchins are somewhat communal, if you see one there are others around. Typically urchins from a particular cluster will all be similar in quality. When you find cluster that looks good, crack one and check it, and if it's good then consider taking more from the cluster. If the uni is lousy then chances are all the ones in that general neighborhood aren't great. The biggest ones will be tucked into caves, stuck stuck to the ceilings of overhangs, or in cracks. A good urchin innard is gold/bright yellow, and should be sweet and ocean tasting, and just a bit minerally but not bitter. Small, brown, and bitter uni is dogfood and isn't even in the same world tastewise as good uni. Smaller healthier urchins will have more yield and better quality/taste than giant ones that have been sitting for too long alone in the barrens (the innards shrivel but the shell of course will stay the same size). If you know what you're doing you can find ones as big as volleyballs with almost a pound of uni inside. They also do move around; some spots will be chock full of beautiful urchins for a months at a time and then they suddenly decide to clear out on their own and there will not be a single urchin on the whole reef, even though there's plenty of kelp and urchins on nearby reefs.
As far as harvesting them, garden trowel is a cheap easy tool, but if you are wearing just leather gloves they can be detached by hand. And of course dive knife, ab iron, or speargun tip works well; I would never bother to carry a dedicated urchin tool. 30 urchins is a lot, and will weigh quite a bit even in the water, and be a lot of drag, and be an enormous mess to clean. When I used to shoredive a lot I would go out with a cheap 5L signal float, find a spot, blow it up, and clip my mesh bag (trident lobster bag) to the float. If you have a boat or kayak, a cloth laundry bag is great to put them in or transfer them into so they don't stain your boat and leave broken needles everywhere. For scuba, you probably just want to leave the bag on the bottom and haul it up afterwards. They will stain livewells, etc. Urchins are very hardy, probably the toughest of the intertidals when it comes to taking them home and keeping them alive for a few days so you can be eating them fresh. If you are shorediving, they can be quite a bitch to hike back up the cliff since a bag of urchins will be messy, prickly and awkward; again, a heavy duty canvas laundry bag works well for transport. If the bag is wet and kept cool they will keep for a long time.
Further north where the water is colder the quality of the uni is better and it's easier to find good ones in shallow water. Urchins are pretty low on the priority list for most bottom hunters. If you are dedicated to finding great urchins in socal you will also come across plenty of other good shellfish eats like lobsters, scallops, octopus, whelks, crabs, etc...
Last edited:
OP
NotOnlyButAlsoPete
Registered
I am a freediver and spearfishman and have pulled my share of uni, particularly when conditions were not great for fish and lobsters are out of season. Off the LA coastline they are plentiful. I see the commercial guys out frequently, they work in about 20' - 50' usually with a hookah. Don't need much boat for it, most of the guys I see out there regularly are one man operations. Probably about 97% of what gets pulled out of our waters gets shipped to Asia. They are stupid easy to harvest, even freediving...
Urchins in the shallow barrens are not good eating; they will have shriveled and may be bitter. The tastiest urchins around LA will be found around the coldest portions of the coast (upwellings), and in healthy thick kelp, the deeper the better, although a lonely guy in a very deep/bluewater rock pile may not be terrific since they may not be getting enough kelp at extreme depths. Look for urchins that are currently feeding (they will have kelp leaves stuck to them). Urchins are somewhat communal, if you see one there are others around. Typically urchins from a particular cluster will all be similar in quality. When you find cluster that looks good, crack one and check it, and if it's good then consider taking more from the cluster. If the uni is lousy then chances are all the ones in that general neighborhood aren't great. The biggest ones will be tucked into caves, stuck stuck to the ceilings of overhangs, or in cracks. A good urchin innard is gold/bright yellow, and should be sweet and ocean tasting, and just a bit minerally but not bitter. Small, brown, and bitter uni is dogfood and isn't even in the same world tastewise as good uni. Smaller healthier urchins will have more yield and better quality/taste than giant ones that have been sitting for too long alone in the barrens (the innards shrivel but the shell of course will stay the same size). If you know what you're doing you can find ones as big as volleyballs with almost a pound of uni inside. They also do move around; some spots will be chock full of beautiful urchins for a months at a time and then they suddenly decide to clear out on their own and there will not be a single urchin on the whole reef, even though there's plenty of kelp and urchins on nearby reefs.
As far as harvesting them, garden trowel is a cheap easy tool, but if you are wearing just leather gloves they can be detached by hand. And of course dive knife, ab iron, or speargun tip works well; I would never bother to carry a dedicated urchin tool. 30 urchins is a lot, and will weigh quite a bit even in the water, and be a lot of drag, and be an enormous mess to clean. When I used to shoredive a lot I would go out with a cheap 5L signal float, find a spot, blow it up, and clip my mesh bag (trident lobster bag) to the float. If you have a boat or kayak, a cloth laundry bag is great to put them in or transfer them into so they don't stain your boat and leave broken needles everywhere. For scuba, you probably just want to leave the bag on the bottom and haul it up afterwards. They will stain livewells, etc. Urchins are very hardy, probably the toughest of the intertidals when it comes to taking them home and keeping them alive for a few days so you can be eating them fresh. If you are shorediving, they can be quite a bitch to hike back up the cliff since a bag of urchins will be messy, prickly and awkward; again, a heavy duty canvas laundry bag works well for transport. If the bag is wet and kept cool they will keep for a long time.
Further north where the water is colder the quality of the uni is better and it's easier to find good ones in shallow water. Urchins are pretty low on the priority list for most bottom hunters. If you are dedicated to finding great urchins in socal you will also come across plenty of other good shellfish eats like lobsters, scallops, octopus, whelks, crabs, etc...
Fantastic response! Thank you!! Great tips. Wanna go get some urchins?
https://www.amazon.com/Bluewater-Gold-Rush-Odyssey-California/dp/0967793432
Blue Water Gold Rush is an excellent book chronicling the life of California urchin divers.
Blue Water Gold Rush is an excellent book chronicling the life of California urchin divers.
Probably Catalina Offshore Products. I have occasionally been getting my uni fix from them via FedEx since I moved away from San Diego, but the price has risen and risen to the point where I just can't afford it anymore. It's currently $44.95 for 120 g of the high quality local stuff, and $25.99 for the next grade down. The high grade uni has been out of stock for months anyway. To meet increasing demand, they appear to be importing uni now from the Pacific Northwest and even South America. So much for my idea of supporting a local industry. Whenever I'm out there visiting, I try to find some SoCal uni.
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