GSB at Catalina Dive Park 9/15/13

[socaljohn]

Reposted from older thread about 50th dive. (sorry if you see it twice I'm pretty jazzed about it)
Capture from video taken by last Sunday at the Catalina Dive Park. This was my 50 dive since I got wet again.
This was our second dive, we were heading out toward the 3 wrecks straight off the stairs and caught site of this guy swimming away from us. Decided to skip the wrecks and mosey after him.

.

 

[drbill]

Sightings of the gentle giants are wonderful experiences. I've only had two this entire season, but then I'm night diving almost all the time. Last year I had hundreds of sightings and each one was a joy (I was part of a team filming them for Japan's public TV network, NHK).

 

[tracydr]

When we went to Catalina in summer,2012 I saw GSB on every dive, including our night dives. Dr.Bill, are you saying that you don't usually see them at night?
We didn't see any last March. Are they more of a summer/ fall sighting? Dr.Bill, I'd love to see an article sometime about the changes of the seasons in the dive park wrt the fishes that you see.

 

[socaljohn]

Sightings of the gentle giants are wonderful experiences. .

It was quite and experience, I honestly do not seem to remember much else from the dive. We saw this guy 3 times, the first time swimming away off to the side, them found him twice more kinda just sitting near the bottom. IT WAS AWESOME!

 

[tracydr]

It was quite and experience, I honestly do not seem to remember much else from the dive. We saw this guy 3 times, the first time swimming away off to the side, them found him twice more kinda just sitting near the bottom. IT WAS AWESOME!

They are awesome. I nearly touched one on one of our dives,it was so close. I really love them. One of these days, I'd like to get out to Florida and dive with the giant Goliath Groupers when they aggregate. I bet its an amazing experience, too.

 

[fnfalman]

The black seabasses I've seen this year had been rather reticent. I only had one opportunity where the fish slowed down to eyeball us for about a minute and then went off elsewhere. Most other sightings had been just quick passings. One of them approached the kelp line and I peaked from behind the kelp. It whipped a 180 and hauled ass.

 

[drbill]

The black seabasses I've seen this year had been rather reticent. I only had one opportunity where the fish slowed down to eyeball us for about a minute and then went off elsewhere. Most other sightings had been just quick passings. One of them approached the kelp line and I peaked from behind the kelp. It whipped a 180 and hauled ass.

Ha, do you blame it when it saw your wetsuit!

---------- Post added September 18th, 2013 at 09:46 AM ----------

Dr.Bill, are you saying that you don't usually see them at night?
We didn't see any last March. Are they more of a summer/ fall sighting? Dr.Bill, I'd love to see an article sometime about the changes of the seasons in the dive park wrt the fishes that you see.

I barely see anything at night that is more than 30 ft away, but I did see giant sea bass on two twilight dives.

Yes, the bass usually appear around May and are gone by mid to late October although there still are occasional sightings. We think they go deep in the fall.