Collin Tiura says:
Here are some photos of some pretty large abalones.
The largest ever recorded was 12 5/16″ caught by John Pepper. He’s pictured here……he kinda looks like church people……don’t be fooled.
It contained a chunk of meat that was over 6 lbs after the guts were removed.
My brother-in-law Joe Brennan, worked for the Academy of Sciences of San Francisco at the time John caught that ab and arranged the press release at the ’round-about’ at the San Francisco Aquarium.
It was quite an event (in the abalone world anyway).
I asked John what he was going to do with the meat. He wasn’t sure at the time. My thought was to donate a cubic inch of the meat to the Academy………..enough for all the DNA stuff they would ever need. I thought that was pretty big of me.
And, with the rest of it, I suggested a select few of us would have an ab feed-extraordinaire, get “—-faced” on rum and smoke some damn fine stogies and dance around the fire naked.
The Academy got all but the shell.
You’ll have to wait (at some point) for Gary Larsen to let us know what became of that world class piece of meat.
………..Collin
And here’s some more discussion about big abs.
To: Frank AirstreamRV* Celestre and Collin Tiura,
Frank,
Here’s some Ab photos to enjoy. My buddy Reggie was a commercial ab diver in Santa Barbara in the 1970s.
Jim
1988 Airstream 345 MotorHome
From Jim Reginato….
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2008 10:42 PM
Subject: Fwd: Big abs
some ab pictures. the diver sitting with the ab was my first tender when i was commercial diving. he still dives for urchins. the other pictures are of some nice shells
Come join us at our annual Abalone Fest on for Memorial Day at Salt Point, CA, just south of Gualala.
Hi Reg
Thought you’d find these interesting. Buzz Owens is an old codger lives in Gualala and has THE world’s most extensive collection of abalone His specialty is hybrids and he has written about them in addition to the large reds. He dove commercially a few years in the late fifties, mostly to collect shells and expand his contacts. Pretty nutty, but a true source of info about abs.
My shell is 293 millimeters and sits in there with a large group between 290mm and 295mm. It weighed 11 pounds in the shell. Found it at Pt Purisima on 5/22/1997, the day before the closure began. Talk a bout saving the best for last! You’d think I’da smiled a little bit for the camera.
Sounds like the wind swell is up maybe there’ll be something today.
Marsh
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Want to see bigger images of Collin’s pix? Please click here