On and off the beach

[efishent]

Not a lot of reporting on surf- fishing lately and the DFG warden confirmed today – not much fishing has been going on either. He did find someone’s damaged spear-gun at the site, but I was the only person at that spot that he met.

As a prelude- I’ll mention my brief outing last week to newly developed trench just north of town. If you haven’t been out in the surf you may anticipate that the storms/hide tides through winter and spring reshaped the surf zone. IN many places sand is gone and rocky troughs appeared. My first cast into it was rewarded with short 16” halibut, and few short strikes later I pulled a 10” BSP from around the boulder. The water was cold and poor clarity but vegetation was manageable with LC.

Today I had an opening and took my old 9ft surfboard out to check the kelp areas in the south, also for the first time this year. Conditions were greasy clean with no wind, almost no swell and few raindrops.
Because it was so quiet and still (no boats or people in sight) the ocean sounds were amplified: various birds were communicating, seals and dolphins exhaling around kelp, and whales would rise on both sides of me in slow motion like black mountains, fountaining water like giant siphons. Visualizing one of them surfacing under my board was bit discomforting but I figured I’ll just drop in the water and then swim back to my board.
Oh ,and the fishing: it was slow at first and croc did not produce except one short bite, so I switched to plastic jig and worked inside and outside of kelp. That helped and soon I pulled 2 calicos (around 12” each) and a sandy at about 15”. Then I got a couple of 12-14” rockfish and on a last stop checked remote patch of kelp that was likely rooted on a nice rock pile as rock-fishing went wide open – I would get 10-14” models of 2 species on every drop until my plastic was reduced to shreds. Just before getting out on sandy patch , taking a breather from paddling I casted and hooked what was likely a sub-legal hali that got off the hook right before getting ‘on-board’. All fish released. Water was on a cool side and not very clear but I sure got my fix.

[WCAngler]

Awesome dude! It's always nice to see an abundance of wildlife.

[Viejo]

Very cool description of your outing. We used to use 10'+ Tandem boards to go fishing out side the surf line in So Orange County. Worked pretty good as did your long board.

[SP Dan]

Excellent write up Sir!

Thanx for the fish report after probably hours of resting your worn out arm in a bucket of ice!!!
That was a great session!

SP Dan <"))><