ORC 2017 Depoe Bay July 15th

Results are in.  In a field of 72, Clayman came in first.  I came in 2nd.  Brandi came in 5th. 

In other news, NCKA is no longer invited to Oregon tournaments.   

Results are in.  In a field of 72, Clayman came in first.  I came in 2nd.  Brandi came in 5th. 

In other news, NCKA is no longer invited to Oregon tournaments.   

That's great! [emoji3]

We would love to see some pictures and videos!  Ncka'ers rock!!

We would love to see some pictures and videos!  Ncka'ers rock!!

I'll share what I've got as it comes. Here's a money shot:

Super job, Chris and Doug! What were the respective weights/lengths if you've got them?

Well done Chris, Doug, and Brandi! I was impressed by the fact that three lings over 40" were caught, that's a lot  of "beef".
   Congratulations

Super job, Chris and Doug! What were the respective weights/lengths if you've got them?

Chris's ling was 22.75 lbs, 40.5".  Mine was 23.11, 41".  There was a 24 lbs ling brought in as well.  It was the three largest fish turned in to ORC in the 10 year history of the event.

The tournament this year is pretty much the same format as Albion, heaviest bag of one of each ling, cabby, rockfish and greenling.  Chris had a great bag of four fish and beat my 3 fish bag by about 3 lbs.  One of the more interesting/frustrating aspects of the tournament is that there is a trophy cabezon fishery there but you are only allowed to retain one.  Catch a 22" 8 lbs cabby at 7:30am and you are in a dilemma.  I retained it, and not 30 minutes later caught a 10.5lbs cab that I had to release.  Not enough to have made a difference, but almost.  Goes to show how tricky it can be.

Oh and my rockfish was a 3.85 lbs China.  It was a beast, more than half a pound over the current CA record china and the second monster china I've caught in Depoe Bay.  I'll have to wait to see if someone posts a pic of it since I didn't get one.  I don't usually retain China rockfish, I try to keep it at one a year at most, but it was a kill tournament and I wasn't catching blacks that big.  I have a little guilt over that one

When I lived in NorCal, I’d heard tales of ORC and its awesomeness for years.  Now that I’m an Oregon resident and live 45 minutes away from Depoe Bay, it was a no-brainer to sign up and put some faces and real names to NWKA screen names.  A perfect venue for some kayak angler networking, and oh yeah, Depoe Bay can produce some damn fine fish!

Given that I didn’t bring a head lamp, I waited for the sun to rise a bit before shooting through the hole.  Angled my way towards some waypoints that’d produced for me on previous trips, but besides some black rockfish it was a tough bite.  I went prospecting over some water that I hadn’t yet explored.  Took a couple hours of wading through blacks and some mid-20 inch lings before I connected on a contender.  I knew she was a good fish just based on the dead weight.  After a couple of short runs to the bottom, I worked her into the net.  All I knew at the time was that she was at least in the high 30 inch range, possibly pushing 40.  One of my biggest ever lings.

The big ling affirmed that I was in the game.  I switched focus to cabezon, and it only took 30 minutes for me to find a solid 9+ pounder.  Of course, it didn’t take long before I landed an even larger cabezon, but I had to let that guy go since you can only keep one cabezon a day.

Then it was time to fill out the rockfish category.  The blacks were easy.  After wading through dozens of them, I settled on a 20+ incher that looked to have some girth.  With the rockfish in the bag, I went looking for some greenling habitat and picked up a few small kelp greenling.

All this was by 1030.  Since it was so nice out, I stayed on the water and dinked around with the small gear, exploring some new reef structure and playing CnR with blacks and a few lings.  Got bored with that around noon, and headed in.

A lot of gray whale activity out there.  The blowhole exhaust smells like concentrated dog farts spiked with rotting shrimp.  Gave me a new perspective on whales, haha.

We couldn’t have asked for nicer conditions.  Swells were a very gentle 2-3 feet and spread far apart.  The wind stayed away.  To score such nice weather on a tournament date is a rare thing!  Back at the weigh-in, I was told my 4-fish bag (one of each of ling, cabezon, rockfish, and greenling) came in at over 37 pounds.  From the looks of the tourney directors, I knew this was a very good score but I also knew there were a lot of very good anglers still out fishing.  Given that I couldn’t bear the suspense, I hung around the weigh station after filleting my fish just to see what else would be brought in.  One of the OGs hauled in a monster 24+ pound lingcod at the 1400 buzzer, but he couldn’t find a cabezon to fill out his bag.  It was then that I knew I had it. 

It was great to see some NCKA/LCKA faces up here: Doug, Brandi, and Jim (DrHabanero) made the long trek up and luckily we were rewarded with great fishing and weather.  The tourney format is great, as it opens up all sorts of possibilities for strategizing what to target, versus just dragging a big lingcod bait around all day for the “ biggest fish takes all” type of format.  So even though none of my fish were the biggest in any category, all four were very solid fish and enough for the win.

As for the lings: THREE lingcod over 40 inches were brought in.  Insane!  The previous heaviest fish record for ORC was a 19 pound cabezon, and it was beaten 3x on this day.  On a personal note, this marked my third ling over 40 inches in the last three years.

Potluck and fish fry at the campground was awesome, raffle was filled with killer prizes (I scored a GoPro Session and a spotlight!), and I met a lot of very cool people who are also VERY talented anglers.  I know I can learn a ton fishing with this crew.  And for me, that’s what fishing is all about: always learning, putting the puzzle pieces together, and striving to be better at the craft every time out.  Good times this weekend, already looking forward to the next one!

Few more pics.

Way to go everyone! Those are some big lings.

Congrats on the win with those solid fish Chris.  You'll never want to come back if you keep catching that quality of fish.  Isn't your freezer full by now?   

Way to represent LCKA Doug and Brandi.

Congratulations to Chris, Brandi, and Doug on kicking butt.

Thanks guys.  I still consider my first year of living here my "exploratory year" as I continue to scout the waters and reefs, so taking 1st in the ORC was definitely not in the plans.  It worked out well beyond what I was hoping, which was placing somewhere in the Top 10.  That big ling changed everything!

Congrats on the win with those solid fish Chris.  You'll never want to come back if you keep catching that quality of fish.  Isn't your freezer full by now?   

At the rate things are going, it'll be a very tough sell to get me to move back to CA.  The ocean stuff’s great in itself.  Add all the streams and rivers that support fishable runs of steelhead and salmon, and CA just doesn’t quite cut it for me, at least not at this time.  I am SO looking forward to bonking some fresh fall-run Chinook in the local bays and rivers this fall, then hitting some coho in the coastal lakes this December, at which time the hatchery brat steelhead will be showing up in the rivers.

Come up to visit sometime and you’ll see what I mean  .  I think you’d dig the coho lake fisheries.  One of the few places you can legally retain a wild coho.  They run up the lake outlets in late fall, stage in the lakes for a bit, then head up the lake inlets to spawn.  People catch them trolling or casting spoons and spinners.  It’s just like trout fishing, except the coho can approach 20 pounds and they taste great.  There's a kayak angler in Florence who has it pretty dialed, landed some chrome coho in the mid-teens.

As for the filled freezer: luckily I have coworkers who like fish  .

Thanks guys.  I still consider my first year of living here my "exploratory year" as I continue to scout the waters and reefs, so taking 1st in the ORC was definitely not in the plans.  It worked out well beyond what I was hoping, which was placing somewhere in the Top 10.  That big ling changed everything!

Congrats on the win with those solid fish Chris.  You'll never want to come back if you keep catching that quality of fish.  Isn't your freezer full by now?   

At the rate things are going, it'll be a very tough sell to get me to move back to CA.  The ocean stuff’s great in itself.  Add all the streams and rivers that support fishable runs of steelhead and salmon, and CA just doesn’t quite cut it for me, at least not at this time.  I am SO looking forward to bonking some fresh fall-run Chinook in the local bays and rivers this fall, then hitting some coho in the coastal lakes this December, at which time the hatchery brat steelhead will be showing up in the rivers.

Come up to visit sometime and you’ll see what I mean  .  I think you’d dig the coho lake fisheries.  One of the few places you can legally retain a wild coho.  They run up the lake outlets in late fall, stage in the lakes for a bit, then head up the lake inlets to spawn.  People catch them trolling or casting spoons and spinners.  It’s just like trout fishing, except the coho can approach 20 pounds and they taste great.  There's a kayak angler in Florence who has it pretty dialed, landed some chrome coho in the mid-teens.

As for the filled freezer: luckily I have coworkers who like fish  .

Hey keep it down!!! We don't want all them Californian's moving up here....