NorCal Kayak Anglers
Kayak Fishing Zone => Fishing Tournaments and Events => Topic started by: DrHabanero on June 19, 2017, 12:07:09 PM
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So I just paid my entry fee so wondering if anyone else is making the journey up here. Got my boys this week so ready for an adventure!
http://www.northwestkayakanglers.com/index.php?topic=19356.0
Camping at the Chinook Glen Campground probably getting up there Wednesday thru Sunday
Let me know :smt006
JImbo
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Brandi and I will be there.
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I'll see you guys there! Only a 45 minute drive for me so I'll just show up for the day. Might pre-fish Friday if conditions are decent.
So far this year the fishing out of Depoe has been very good. A lot of nice lings, quality blacks, and I've heard of several big cabezon being released (they open to retention July 1).
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I would like to go again, but I'm just getting back from almost 2 weeks in Texas on the 12th and I just bought tix for Beck @ the Fox on the 15th.
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Checking out the route and was wondering what any thoughts on the route up there. Take 97 to 58 or I5. Pulling a trailer just trying to figure out the flatest route.
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Take I5 north from California, go west on OR34 to Corvallis then continue on US20 to Newport. Go north on 101 from there and depoe bay is 10 miles up the road.
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Bsteves just posted up the cutoff for sign ups as July 5.
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Yes, the last day to register for the Oregon Rockfish Classic this year will be July 5th. We are at about half capacity at the moment and because the ocean was blown out last year we think a lot of people are waiting until they know the marine forecast before registrating. As an organizer, this is problematic for figuring out logistics.
If the ocean is uncooperative there is salmon and steelhead fishing in the river right at the Chinook Bend Campground and we'll switch to a tournament for those. Last year several were landed by those that were smart enough to bring salmon gear.
Brian
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If the ocean is uncooperative there is salmon and steelhead fishing in the river right at the Chinook Bend Campground and we'll switch to a tournament for those. Last year several were landed by those that were smart enough to bring salmon gear.
This would be a killer fall-back option if the ocean is rough. Some beautiful fish have been pushing up the Siletz lately :smt001.
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Clayman, how do you like your AquaGlide Blackfoot? I just got word that we'll be getting one (the XL model and some extras like an electric air pump) as a top prize for the ORC.
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Clayman, how do you like your AquaGlide Blackfoot? I just got word that we'll be getting one (the XL model and some extras like an electric air pump) as a top prize for the ORC.
I love it. It was exactly what I was looking for in a lightweight, durable river kayak with plenty of room for gear. Quick to inflate, easy to pack into the large backpack that comes with it, can stand up in it, and STABLE. I'd have to try really hard to swamp the thing. The cooler and seat that come with it are also very nice. So far I haven't modded anything on it, but there's plenty of options for adding rod holders and whatnot.
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Nice steelie!!!! :smt001
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Nice steelie!!!! :smt001
Thanks David! These summer steelies haven't been easy to come by, but man are they sweet. Dime-bright, full of fight, and the hatchery fish cut just as well as a springer IMO.
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Jealous :smt001
Nice fillets, looks delicious.
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A friend of mine saw a dime bite 6lber caught on the upper Russian a few weeks back.
Crazy. Ya never know!
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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. :smt003
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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. :smt003
That's great! [emoji3]
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We would love to see some pictures and videos! Ncka'ers rock!!
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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:
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Super job, Chris and Doug! What were the respective weights/lengths if you've got them?
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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
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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.
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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 :(
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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!
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Few more pics.
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Way to go everyone! Those are some big lings.
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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? :smt003
Way to represent LCKA Doug and Brandi.
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Congratulations to Chris, Brandi, and Doug on kicking butt.
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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? :smt003
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 :smt003. 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 :smt044.
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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? :smt003
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 :smt003. 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 :smt044.
Hey keep it down!!! We don't want all them Californian's moving up here.... :smt006
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I had a great time up in Oregon fishing in the orc. I should have followed Doug and Brandi up North but decided to go south. Conditions were great caught a lot of nice blacks and lingcods. Couldn't get the greenling or cabbie . Had a whale breach about 15 feet away which is always nice. Overall I ended up catching 10 lings and about the same blacks. Chris, Doug and Brandi all did great. The guys up there are a great bunch of people also. The potluck was very good. Logan ended up winning a spot light he wanted. Took the boys out on a charter on Wednesday and we killed them. The boys and I out fished everyone on the boat. Luke caught a 26.5 Cabezon and Logan caught a 22 inch Quill back. I just caught lings.
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Way to go guys and gals! Those are impressive fish!!
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Fish porn for sure!!!! Looks pretty fishy up there in the big O.