HMB tourney

Arrived at the parking lot around 7pm Saturday. Two hours later than expected thanks to the logger jam  they call the Bay Bridge.
A group of us walked over the the Brewery and had good food and brew and a great time at the table. Headed back the the parking lot where we geared up the yaks and put them on the beach. Nice bonfire with Ben ( Guitarzan ) providing the entertainment then Jackson ( CHUB ) taking over for a little bit too.
Launched a little after 6am into slightly foggy conditions. As I was launching it looked like someone fell out of their kayak right next to shore and was swimming it to the beach, maybe about 15 feet away when I saw him. Then I realized his yak was sinking!!!I When he puled his yak onto the beach I could see the waterline on the INSIDE of his kayak was almost to the top. I do not know who this happened to but I would like to hear the story.
My 1st time to HMB we paddled out of the harbor and followed the jetty rocks north. Decided to look for deeper water. Pretty intimidating looking at the big breaks that were in front of us, but after watching them for a little bit I chose my line and CHUB and I made it through cleanly only to find everyone else on the other side of the breaks too.
Fishing was slowwww. I got a big fat zero. Really had to watch the water with all the breakers around, but as the day went on it actually got nicer.
Headed back to the launch spot while CHUB fished the rocks on the inside of the harbor. He ended up scoring 4 small rockfish. I think Mooch got a pic of one of them.
I have to say it was the most fun I have ever had getting skunked. GREAT people, good food afterwards and quite a lot of nice raffle prizes too.
I avoided the Bay Bridge on the drive home and took Hwy 92 to 880, then 580 to 680 then 80 to 50. Only 11 miles longer than going over the Bay Bridge but shaved 2 hours off my time.

To give you an idea of what it was like out there I have 3 photos taken in succession. Kind of a "now you see'em now you don't" because of the swells. These are all from the same perspective too. Sorry if it is a little blurred, there was a drop of water on the lens. Look closely and you can see a bunch of kayakers in not too far away.

Hopefully this is the missinf photo

Glad you had a good time Tote and thanks again for donating the RoRows!

I am a little spent from the long day in the sun and not enough water so I will keep it short for now.

It was an amazing turnout, we had 50 (!!!) kayakers at the event today. I think this is the largest turnout for a NorCal event to date!

The fishing was a bit tough with a pretty good swell pumping. I only manage one fish, a nice red. Freddie had the biggest stringer, he might have had a limit or close to it. Every else had 0-2 fish. However there where some pretty large fish. EyeAtBay had the largest rockcod I have ever seen in person, a 4.5lb brown rockfish. Here is a rundown of the top 3:

1. Javier Guerrero - 8.25lb Cabezon - $1000

2. Ben "Guitarizan" - 7lb Cabezon - Okuma Catalina reel and Convector rod

3. Scott Thornley - 6lb Ling - HookOne giftcertificate

Javier's cabezon was massive!! I will post some pics tomorrow after I have recovered.

Thanks again to everyone for making it an amazing day!

Great pics tote, it was cool meeting you and your son, great to take him out in big water, and it was pretty hairy at times.
Well I think I lost my car/house keys in the parking lot where we spent the night, anyone see any extra keys?
Got some fat cab fillets, we're gonna grub out tomorrow! Anita got some great shots, ill post the tomorrow, Im beat, its been a long day. Thanx everyone for making it work! Ben.
                                              And congrats to Javier for landing a $1000 cab!

Where are the fish?  Maybe the rockfish are fished out in local shore reefs?  I am sorry I missed the Fun today but I was busy driving home from Disneyland.  Good job to the winner, Chuck and Bill who did a great job even though I wasn't there to witness the success. .  I can't wait for Elk!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jason

It was cool getting to meet some of you guys finally! Even though I didn't win.... I still had a blast!

I'm looking forward to seeing the you guys at Elk next month!

Peace!

first post here but I read the reports here all the time and they are all very good.

my brother and I arrived at the half moon bay harbor @ midnight and slept in our trucks till 5:30.  woke up to find that we and the other fellow yak fishermen that arrived there while we slept were in the wrong place. Somebody there with a cellphone quickly found out the right location and off we went to Halfmoon Bay Yaught Club.  Kneetoe and I were in the water @ 7 and trying to catch up to everyone that had already left. We didn't know were we were going, south or north, but figured our best bet was follow the pack.  Ended up going north along the rock wall and fished some of the kelp beds at the end of the rock wall for nothing. I was using a metal jig for deep sea rockfishing and felt like I was going no were using in in the shallows.  Kneetoe and I then went for it and followed the floatilla of other yakers brave enough to fish the water behind those killer waves (Mavericks). we methodically manuvered the swells and finally reached the outskirts of the floatilla. I continued using the jig where the water seemed to be surpricingly deep and cought nothing. kneetoe pulled up a kingfish and I decided to switch to a live bait rig which i baited with dead squid.  I figuered king fish action was better than no action.
10 seconds later my pole goes bendo and I thought I was going for a sleigh ride but I didn't.  Took my time bringing the fish to color and what came up was the most beautifull $1,000 dollar cabi I have ever seen. Cought a nice 24 25 inched ling that was hard to measure with all them sharp teeth threatning me and let him go. I also caught the bigest black rockfish i have ever caught and kept him.
here are some pictures that my brother kneetoe took.
Thank you all for making events like this happen.

oops! didn't mean to post 2 pics of that guy holding a check.

Set out from the harbor mouth, directly to the green bouy to the south. Marking blacks/blues around 15-20 feet all over the place. I stop for a bit, maybe a quarter of a mile shy of the bouy to see if I could catch some "bait" (small blacks) Sure enough, I pick up a couple in the 6" range, as well as one that went about a pound that I decided to keep. Headed a little further, pretty much at the bouy, and sent the line all the way down this time. It seemed like there was no current/wind at all, and thus no drift, so I'd move a little bit after 5-10 minutes of no action. After one of these short moves, Bam - my poor little modified $25 bass rod goes bendo. I make some headway, and then the fish takes out line. This repeats several times, and I've got the drag cranked all the way down on the ABU 6500 too. Finally bring the ling to the boat, and it measures 24". Give or take maybe 1/16". I measure it three times, with the same results. I play it safe and release it.

No more love for me in this spot, so I paddle out to the red bouy, not really marking any fish as I head out there. No love for me there after about 20 minutes, and no sign of fish on the fish finder. So, I paddle back to the green bouy, and now there is no sign of fish their, either. I keep at it, and eventually decide to head to the east side of the reef, rather than the west. First drop, and I have a 17-18" cab that later weighs just over 4 pounds. I give him the last rights, and now decide that it's time to start using the "bait". So I keep fishing without any action, moving slightly every 5-10 minutes or so. Still no luck so I decide it's time to head to Mavericks. I zip on over there, stopping along the way to fish some encouraging looking structure, but again no love. Finally make it to the 40-50 depth outside of the Mavericks reef. I Keep looking for fish on the finder, with hardly anything showing. What a change from Friday, and from the initial paddle out. Anyway, I switch to a diamond jig from the scampi, thinking that maybe a little noise might help. I keep getting the occasional snag, but the 6 oz jig frees itself easily. Until I get the mother of all snags. That after about 15 seconds of me just yanking and relaxing, yanking and relaxing, starts to come up. But there's no tugging whatsoever, just dead weight. My dad once brought up about a 10 pound rock on a party boat one time, so I'm thinking that it's happened again. Then I see the ling. I get the fish gripper in it's mouth, and this one goes an easy 26", so bonk bonk. Anyway, I keep fishing with the jig  and a small black on a bait hook about 2 feet up, but get nothing more than 3 10-12" cabs that go back in the water. All of them hit the jig. I finally call it a day at 11:00 or so, after meeting up with Craig and Mike. I decide to take the shortcut rather than paddle around the jetty, so head to the beach and hump the kayak over into the harbor.

Random thoughts:

All in all, a good day on the water. Action for me was slow, but consistent.

Javier's and Bens Cabi's were just plain toads - way to go! 

Freddie, that was an excellent stringer, in my mind the most impressive fishing result from the derby. I'd really like to pick your brain for good ideas.

Bill, your daughter is adorable. She obviously takes after her mom    

Thanks again to Chuck for all that he did.

I also spoke to John Lull for a bit. He was the grey haired gentleman at the bar, with the Sea Gypsy t-shirt on. You may have heard his name mentioned in conjunction with the Tsunami Rangers. He also literally wrote the book ( or at leasty one of them)  on sea kayaking safety. He was pretty impressed with the fact that we could get 50 people out for a kayak fishing derby.

I've got to get a beefier rod if I'm going to target lings. One that's about 6" longer, to make it easier to get around the bow of the boat. And a reel with some horsing power.

I'm also going to bring along a light weight rod and some smaller jigs, and see what I can do on suspended blacks. Heck, maybe even try out the fly rod. A three pound black on a 6 weight ought to be a hoot.

I also found something at the cleaning station at the harbor. Describe it, and I'll get it to you. Otherwise, the gear gods have smiled on me again.

Regards,
Scott

Here's my story, I arived about 430 or so and began to mingle around the campfire and decided to start getting my stuff to gether, ended up launching right at 6am with craigh made a few short stops at the first reef for 1 little black and one large black early, we decided to head for deeper water and went twards the western green can paddled a little north of there and fished for a while and caught 1 black and yellow and that was it for me craigh however did alright landing one underling and several assorted rock fish.

 All in all good day good party afterwards and alot of nice fish caught by the group. good prizes and good food you cant beat it cant wait to do it again.

50 is a number that can begin to get the attention of the kayak manufacturer's to donate prize packages thru local dealers.
200 is the number for the event in Dana Point where mfg's have their latest model as a grand prize, such as, Hobie adventure fully outfitted with everything ($2600) went to the biggest fish winner who caught a puny halibut. Wilderness Systems, Cobra, and a new company making fiberglass sleek SOTs all donated a model.
So we should keep supporting Bill and others in building something over 5 years.
Craig

How about uping the ante to 50 bucks? It will take 20 buck in gas. That would have made 2500 dollars for first place.
Thats a boat!

That is an awesome picture of the cabezon.  I like it's eyes.

Congratulations to Javier and sounds like a good time was had by all.

No way my stomach could have dealt with those conditions....

MolBasser

I am bummed to have missed it. 

as far as prizes...we all already have kayaks,   I think cash is great!   

 1g is alota bait, gas, or lap dances....and $2500...well.... 

g