white seabass
Painting by Terry Maas
knew this fish was big, but it wasn’ t until I tried to pull him over the rocks that I realized I might have a record.
Bill Ernst’ s perfect dive:
Author’ s note: For well over 48 years, Bill Ernst has been my closest teammate and dive buddy. He and I were scheduled to dive together for an episode of Speargun Hunter. When I called him several days before the filming, he explained that he had just landed his personal best white seabass, a 68-pound fish taken while shore diving. Because the weather offshore was iffy, we agreed to check in the next day. When Bill called saying,“ Terry,” I could tell from his voice something really great must have happened. Before he could say more I guessed,“ You got a record white didn’ t you?”“ YEAH!” he shouted. In the following pages, Bill describes the events leading up to his Perfect Dive.
After a few slow, rhythmic breaths, I tipped over and quietly slipped beneath the surface, gradually leveling off at 15 feet. The camouflaged wetsuit blended my potentially threatening shape into the green-water and brown-kelp environment. Mingling with
undulating balls of bait fish, I scanned side to side like a lighthouse. I spotted two massive forms and tried to conceal my increasing heart rate as I gently applied pressure to the trigger. Little did I know what was about to happen would exceed my wildest dreams.
In my view, landing a white seabass is more than pulling the trigger. Spearfishing represents my lifelong love affair with the sea, surrounded by great friends and divers. My brother John – arguably the best competitive diver the U. S. has ever produced – guided my introduction to spearfishing. As a result, I won the Junior National Spearfishing Championships at age 15. Soon after, I teamed up with John and Terry Maas, and we melded into what would become the alltime most winning spearfishing team in the U. S. This experience gave me a strong desire to be a team player. I gave back to the sport by teaching spearfishing and acting as the Director of Spearfishing for the Underwater
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