This is a “sequel” post to Loleta Eric’s “Lost Coast - 8/13/23”  - I was the “client/friend” on that wonderful Cape trip.  I first met Eric through NCKA back in 2011.  I still lived in LA at that point.  He’s been a great friend and guide through the years. ——— Thanks, buddy for another Epic Cape Trip! ——

Last Friday I learned about the CDFW early, unanticipated closure of the near shore boat-based rock fish season for the Northern Management Area.  That covers the Northern California coast from Cape Mendocino to the Oregon Border.  It meant that rockfish season would be over for kayak anglers within one week.  The very next day Eric contacted me about one last opportunity to get on the Cape on Sunday.  I immediately said, “YES, I’m in.”  No hesitation!   

The Cape is a special place. Its rugged rocky coastline, with just a few access points, is a challenging place to fish on a kayak. Wind, tide, current, and swell conditions determine where and when it’s safe to go, and those are dynamic. Conditions can change throughout the day.  I will only kayak fish the Cape with someone like Eric who grew up here and thoroughly knows the place.  But the rewards of fishing the Cape are great.   Eric knows it’s one of my favorite trips and I’m really glad he got hold of me for this one last hurrah for the season. 

Sunday morning, I was up before sunrise and made it to his place by 7 am. We transferred my gear to his truck and made the trip over the Wildcat and down to the coast in short order.  When we arrived it was very foggy but not windy.  It was difficult to see beyond the close rocks.  We checked out several launch sites and he made the decision on which one was best for the conditions.  We reviewed our potential landing “plan B” and “plan C” in case conditions go south.

We schlepped our gear down the small cliff to the rocky launch site (no small task, that!), gave it one last look and then launched.  I went first, Eric followed.  Once I was out far enough, past the near shore rocks I deployed my mirage drive and rudder.  Conditions were “sporty.”  Wind was not an issue and there were not huge swells but the seas were “confused” and “crunchy,” they were not smooth at all.  But it was absolutely no problem.  The kayaks handled it well and I’m not prone to motion sickness.  We were good to go!   There’s an exhilaration that comes from a successful Cape launch.  Because of the fog we stayed close together, using our electronic nav-aids and sight when possible, to keep track of our location.

Once we were on the water I knew this was another epic day at the Cape. It’s enough just to be there.  But angling is the purpose and we were on it quickly.  My first catch was a greenling that ate a whole herring. I took its photo and released it.  We opted to stay in a bit closer because of the surf conditions and visibility.  However we had a great day catching a wide variety of rockfish. We were selective with our take. I brought home four black rockfish, a vermillion, a yellowtail rockfish, and a small (but legal) lingcod.  I’m not sure how many fish I released, quite a few.

We saw two dolphin, likely a mother and calf.  As we headed in there was one post card moment when a large sea lion posed on a rock, above a rowdy ocean.  With the coastal mountains in the background it looked like a painting.  Eric and I both took that photo.

We landed back at our original launch site, no need for plan B or C.  The swells were a bit tricky and the breeze and ocean was picking up so it was a good time to end the excursion.   There’s also a thrill that comes from a successful surf landing at the Cape.  It’s a rewarding moment to celebrate.
Next comes the schlepping of the gear back to the truck. This is definitely the most physically taxing part of the day, but I have to admit, I was so pumped up from the great day, it was no difficult task at all.
After the gear was loaded on the truck we drove up the road just a short hop to Eric’s favorite spot for the tailgate fillet station.  This is a favorite time, we take the “hero” fish photo, and the professional guide fillets the fish.  I’ve been known to help but this time I just bagged fish while Eric did the filleting.  We both have our favorite cold beverage.  It’s a time of celebration, conversation, and friendship.   Once the catch is filleted and on ice, Eric heads to the ocean for a quick dip. On this trip as I stayed with the truck I watched a lone buzzard riding the ridge wave above the cliff.   

It was a moment of mindfulness.  I’m concerned for the ocean, for the fish, and for this place.  I’m grateful to have such a good friend.  I’m grateful to be in this amazing place, and I’m grateful for this excellent day.   I am especially grateful that Kristin bought me a guided kayak fishing trip with Eric for our 41st anniversary.   Life is very good.  Retirement is awesome. 

I broke the idler cable yesterday on my early (2016) GT drive.  It looks to me like it's the same size cable as the "classic" V2 idler cable.  That is the same cable fits the both drives.

The only size difference in idler cables seems to be between V1 and V2 drives.

Can anyone verify for me that the idler cable for the V2 and the early GT drives are the same?  ... before I plink down some $$ online? 

 -- as an aside, I really like the thread about the bungee cable temporary fix      I'd try that for a temporary fix except I have two spare V2 drives. 

DaveTheSynthGuy

I'll just leave this here.



This video evolved on a rainy day this week.  I was playing with GarageBand, iMovie, and some media I shot while fishing on Stone Lagoon over the last two months.  These were all trips fishing with my buddy, Scott. (I forget his NCKA handle.  )  It's not just a slide show of pix, there's video of of catching, loosing, and releasing fish.

That's me on synthesizer, faking like I have a whole band. I made up the short music track ditty on GarageBand (not pro stuff!).  If you have nice headphones or big speakers, use them or you will never hear the bass, especially on your cellphone, tablet, or laptop.

That's why I'm DaveTheSynthGuy. 

It's been a while since I posted here.  My computer died, but now I have a "new" one.  Reconnected the browser to NCKA for the first time this morning.  I've been catching fish and having a blast in my semi-almost-completely-retired life in Humboldt. This was yesterday at Trinidad. It was another beautiful day OTW.  While I was thrilled to catch a nice ling cod, it's the friendships you make on the water that last. I am amazed they tolerate me when I do my happy fish dance as well as tolerate me when I get grumpy-fish skunk faced. 

I’ve been kinda bad about not posting on NCKA so I thought I’d break that habit by posting my improvised smoked trout recipe from a recent fishing trip to Freshwater Lagoon on 4-1-2018.   Two of us went up there on Sunday with the expressed intent of catching some of the recently stocked hatchery fish to smoke.     We managed to get a limit of small fish each  (11”-13”) and I smoked them the next day on my offset smoker. 

I’ve never smoked trout before, and I’ve never smoked such small fish.    My buddy suggested I butterfly the little trout which I did. I smoked his fish for him, too.

I used a commercial brining solution that someone gave me for Christmas (you can see it in the pictures below) but after tasting it dry, I decided to add more brown sugar to it.  I added quite a bit.

After brining overnight, then drying for about an hour the next morning, the fish went on the smoker at 11 am.

I used charcoal and alder chips, for smoke and heat, along with an occasional chunk of mesquite, mostly to keep the heat up.  I tried to keep the smoker on the cooler side, mostly hovering around 150 or 160 degrees.  You have to monitor the offset smoker often, there is no thermostat like you’ll find on some electric smokers.

The racks on the top and near the fire seemed to be cooking faster than the ones on the bottom rack, so I took the first fish off at 4 pm and rotated some of the fish up to the top rack where I continued pulling them off up until about 6 pm.

I sampled the first one at 4 pm and OMG — that was really tasty!!! Later, as I took more of the fish off, I began to flake it off the backbones and ribs to keep in the fridge.   I must admit, “de-boning” it is somewhat tedious, and I do miss some of the small pin bones, but after about the third fish it seemed to get easier.

I keptt the flaked fish in the fridge in a Tupperware container and have been having some daily. I’ve pretty much consumed all I made in a few days. 

I’ve never smoked trout before, but DANG… that’s stuff’s good on a cracker!  Gonna do this again, for sure.  I’d like to catch some BIGGER trout for this.   

I've been on NCKA quite a while but I've been kinda silent for a spell (my bad) except for the occasional Stone Lagoon post. I just changed my username to one that is a little more "descriptive."  dbradfield is now "DaveTheSynthGuy".  (Get out those voltage-controlled low pass filters.) 

Now, how can I MIDI my FF/GPS ?? 

I made it to GS 11 last weekend.  It was my first GS ever !!!  . So great to meet folks!  Hope to get some photos up later today.

dbradfield is now DaveTheSynthGuy. 

OK .. this report is in the spirit of posting more often on NCKA … I got out of the habit. 

I SHOULD HAVE POSTED THIS WEEKS AGO!!!!   

This will be short because, technically, Loleta Eric already filed this report.  It was from a trip on 9-16-2016.   Here is his report.

http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php?topic=74907.msg853140#msg853140

I was his client that day.   It was  -- THE MOST EPIC FISHING TRIP EVER … (turn on the reverb for that one.)




That trip is one I will remember for a lifetime. 

His narrative of that day in his report is great, so I won't rehash it.   But I've got a few pix and a video of what happened to add to it -- Aside from that first pic up top, these are new.

Eric's account is right -- I thought I'd snagged the bottom, we were trolling/mooching.  But it woke up.  Once I saw the fish roll beside the kayak I knew it was HUGE! and was just praying "please don't f*ck this up"  (over and over)  I was thankful to see both Eric and Dominic coming over to assist.  I did NOT WANT TO LOOSE THAT FISH!  I also didn't think it would even fit in the net I had. 

Yes -- the fish took off and ran four times, Yes, it took me for a small ride.  No, at first I had no idea what I had.  While it was just blind stupid luck that I hooked it, I did my best to keep a bend in my really stiff rod.  (That rod has a story to tell, btw).  But I so appreciate Eric and Dominic's help in guiding me, and helping net (land) that fish.  WOW!   Once it was boated, the whooping commenced.





And here's some video I shot, right after Eric subdued it.  He was speculating it was 25 lbs but it turned out to be much larger



One thing Eric didn't say was what we realized after we got the fish in - Notice the bottom hook on the mooching rig.  It was broken!  DANG!  we came very close to loosing that fish I think.



I want to stress how much I appreciated both Eric and Dominic on this trip.  I managed to get a shot with both of them fishing.



After a 30 lbs salmon right off the bat, what do you do?  You fish all day -- and have a blast!  I've sort of lost track of how many lings and rockfish we caught / released / kept but it was an amazing day in an amazing place with two great guys.

I'm sure I released this beautiful little ling but it's a great picture -- It was a memorable day in an amazing place.



Shelter Cove really is a special place and I'm so glad to have had this 2nd shot fishing there.  It will not be my last!



I especially appreciated Eric's help breaking down that monster fish.





It made the most amazing meal, and I had people showing up as guests out of the woodwork that weekend so I served lots of fresh grilled salmon!



One of my former students, Cin Dee, from CSUDH (in LA) even showed up! 








And then I fired up the smoker and OMG -- brined and smoked over pecan wood - so delicious! 

 










So I don't know what more to say except -- Thanks Eric -- that was an awesome trip that I will remember for a lifetime! 



And I hereby promise to post more often on NCKA.   

Today's project:  Take the Lowrance 4HDI from my old hobie hull (already removed) and install it in my replacement hull.

I don't have any pix of the removal because I took it out of my old hull back several weeks back, when I took the hull to the welder to fix the cracks.  I'd glued the transducer (Marine Goop) in my old hull.  I removed it with lots of elbow grease and a putty knife. I managed not to damage the old hull!   

The first difference in my "new" install was using the transducer slot in the replacement hull, a 2014 model.   No glue this time around!   Here's all the hardware needed to connect the transducer to the sleeve.  No instructions come with them but it was pretty clear where things should go.



Here is what that looks like, once it's all assembled.  I left about 1/4" clearance between the transducer and the bottom of the sleeve.



That entire assembly screws onto the bottom of the hull with three screws, and the cable passes up through a scupper hole into the aft storage well.



It comes up behind the seat in the aft storage well and there's a pre-drilled hole there with a "plug".  You remove the plug and then the transducer cable goes through this hole into the hull.



One of the more difficult things  for me to figure out was how to use these grommets to wrap around the cable and then fit into the plug.  These were grommets I had left over from my first install where I did not use them properly.  This time I figured it out and used them correctly !







Here is this step, completed -- the cable goes from the transducer sleeve on the bottom of the boat, through the scupper hole, then into the hull behind the seat.



I did most of that work with the yak on it's side.  It's not a bad reach on a small boat like this (from the hatch to the hole) but I suspect it gets more difficult on a larger yak.



Next, it's the same process bringing the cable up from inside the hull to one of the pre-drilled plug holes on the starboard side of the yak, where I intended to mount the FF.  Pop the plug, run the cable, install the grommet, and re-install the plug/cable combination.



Now it looked like this.   I struggled a bit -- I was not sure I wanted to do this with the cable, but I opted to go with it.
Next I played with where I wanted the RAM BALL -- then mounted it



Then I went ahead and mounted the head unit to to see if this is really what I wanted to do.  At that point I committed to the transducer cable routing and I DRILLED a 1" hole forward of the RAM BALL mount for the power cable.   I planned to keep the battery in a dry bag in the forward hatch.



Then I took my old plug from the old hull and ran the power cable.  Here is the wiring, completed without the FF mounted.



Here is my power solution -- a battery, some trailer hitch electrical connectors for fast connect/disconnect, and a dry bay.



Here is what it looks like, installed, ready for the water.



AND HERE'S THE FINISHED PROJECT -- It took me all day because I went really slowly but I think this will work just fine.  I can't wait to get it OTW! 



Here's a look at the aft area where the transducer cable comes up and goes into the hull, behind the seat



Here's a close look at the FishFinder as installed and mounted …



Dave's happy!