I bought an inexpensive 7' pole spear with a paralyzer tip. After getting some advice from local fishermen, I set out on my first fishing dive. I caught nothing. A few weeks later, my dive instructor invited me to go along on an early morning dive at the Wedge in Newport Beach. The entry and exit are interesting - you clamber down the rocks and time your entry with the surf that's crashing up against them.
Exit involves the exact reverse process.
Both are exhilarating even with minimal surf. Anyways, I got to watch this guy do his thing and learned quite a bit. When I started going out there on my own I met with reasonable success right off the bat. Here they are about to be filleted. On the next dive at the Wedge I caught this huge sargo and medium-sized kelp bass.