Ever since day one Richard Balta's love for the sea and his passion for catching and hunting prey was undesirable. Through all his early years he was an avid line fisherman. At age thirteen Richard Balta came to the U.S from Lebanon (his home town). His passion fallowed him and he got more and more into line fishing. He hunted solo with a pole spear for four years. At age nineteen he joined one of the best spearfishing clubs in California, The Los Angels Fathomiers. Richard’s love and passion for the sport as well as his large frame made him very noticeable amongst his club mates. In no time he started winning competitions in the club.

At age twenty two he was simply unstoppable. His dedication that grew more through out his years started putting him in a league of his own. Many say, “Richard has fish sense that is second to none.” Richard is very known to always have the biggest fish and it is not uncommon for him to have three to four times the amount of fish as the next best catch. What also makes him different and unique is that he is super versatile with different gear and equipment. He can effectively use small euro guns and be deadly with it while at the same time use big game guns or anything in between and still be super deadly with them.

During his peak, Richard was fortunate enough to become friends with one of the Old timers and a true technician of our sport, Skip Hellen. Skip and Terry Maas dove together for nearly ten years. They studied the ocean, tides, water temps, current, and fish behavior and truly took game hunting to another level.

Richard has set and still is setting the bar high for many competitions now. He has won GLACD competitions a few times, he has also won his Fathomer Club dives countless times with scores usually doubling or tripling that of the next competitor. He has won the Fathomiers Scramble meet (one of the biggest and toughest open water competition in California) four times in the last six years. He is also one of the toughest guys to beat in the Charlie sturgill pole spear meet and will likely remain the titleholder in this meet for many years to come.

Besides Competition, Richard has many outstanding game fish catches under his belt and has landed countless fish over 100 pounds with two of witch being world record fish and one of them still standing. He held the IUSA world record for the Yellow fin Tuna that weighed in at two hundred and eight three pounds. He also still holds the IUSA world record for the Gulf Grouper weighing in at one hundred forty eight pounds. He is also one of the very few guys to have landed Blue Fin Tunas in local California water.

Richard Believes Omer gear is in a class of its own and he believes the precision in quality is by far the best on the market. Richard looks forward to using Omer gear for the rest of his career as he says is a must to help set more record catches.