Fort Ross/Fort Ross Reef

Past the parking lot at Fort Ross, there’s precarious road that goes down to beach level where there’s a loading zone that can accomadate half a dozen cars.   Past a gate it’s about 50 yards of gravel road down a hill and 100 yards of beach to the water.  Good sand capable kayak wheels are very helpful here.  After unloading, cars must be parked topside, and the walk back is about half a mile with a 100ft hill, so don’t forget anything.  

The beach at Fort Ross is well protected from all but southwest swells and the best launch seems to be at the north end of the beach, which is closest to the parking lot anyway.  

Once on the water, you’ll see the immediate area is shaped like the number 3, with the launch being on the south edge of the middle point.  Straight off the middle is a kelp bed, and there’s a fair amount of kelp off the bottom point as well.  Both these places have abalone piled on top of each other, but they also get a lot of fishing pressure from kayakers, divers and the odd powerboat.  It seems the fishing improves with distance from Fort Ross cove.  There are two choices here, to the north, past the top point of the ‘3’ is a vast expanse of bull kelp with a large seal rock jutting out of it.  The rockfish are plentiful here.

To the south is Fort Ross reef, it’s easy to see from a distance with many rocks sticking out of the water like the teeth of some huge ancient beast.  There are bull kelp beds here interspersed between the rocks and a very dynamic bottom.  This area also holds many rockfish.  Out past the kelp beds the bottom is less rocky, but still holds many vermillion, copper and canary rockfish, not to mention lingcod.  Make sure the canaries are released, I seem to catch about 1 per trip, average.  Big reds seem to hit best in 45 to 60ft of water, and often are found in groups.  If you catch one, mark the GPS and make a few more drifts over that spot.  Hot baits are diamond jigs between 4 and 6oz for lingcod, and 4-6”rootbeer scampis on 1-4oz heads for the rockfish.  A drift anchor helps keep you on the water when the wind picks up in the afternoon.

I’ve found Fort Ross to be very good fishing, but maybe a little more pressured than Stillwater cove.

It’s a good idea to bring salmon rigging in the event you find a large bait ball, you can then troll around a bit for salmon.  

-Josh Simonson