I realize this has nothing to do with kayaks and might be a bit far away for many of you, but I just got in from volunteering on a rockfish tagging study in Marin County.  As for a report, I caught about 30 rockfish and 2 lings including one really fat one at 83 cm (about 33").  I was too busy helping with the tagging and catching to take any photos, but it was pretty fun despite the sea conditions.

Here's a link to more information.

http://www-csgc.ucsd.edu/EXTENSION/StarrFishing/FishingStory.html

Basically, they need people to catch as many rockfish (including lings, cabs, greenling) as they can out at Duxbury Reef near Bolinas.  The scientists and volunteers meet at 6am in Sausalito to board a charter boat and return at about 3pm (depending on the weather).  

Of course, this is a scientific study so no one is allowed to keep anything, but if you have a need to catch some rockfish before the season opens for free this is a pretty good deal.

I'm not sure how many more volunteers they need or exactly which days are still open but the chief scientist Rick Starr told me that they still need more volunteers.

-Brian

There have been rumors around about expanding the RCG complex season for boat-based fishermen.

Anyway, I found the new regs posted on the DFG website.  Here they are for the North Central Region (our main region). Basically, it still opens in July but is now open through December.

http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mrd/bfregs2005_nc.pdf



The regulations for north of Cape Mendocino are somewhat more generous, they now open in May and extend through December.  Here's the link for the northern mangement area.

http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mrd/bfregs2005_north.pdf.

Has anyone here ever done much kayak rockfish fishing north of Cape Mendocino?

Brian

After reading everybody else's reports I thought I should give one of my own.  I would have done it sooner, but I wasn't sure I could pull down photos from Ofoto or not.

Anyway, I went out to Lake Sonoma to do some kayak-in camping and fishing with some friends from work last weekend.  The weather was amazing and the fishing was pretty good.   Lake Sonoma is a fairly young resevoir (~22 yrs old) and they've left a lot of flooded trees standing in the upper reaches.



 They (the Army Corp of Engineers) have many designated boat-in only campsites.  We all decided that the "Skunk Creek" campsites looked the fishest on the topomap, if only because it was the farthest (~3 mi) from the boat launch.  Here's a couple photos of the campsite.




The fishing was pretty good.  The bass have begun to move into the shallows and were hitting soft plastics on the surface. 



I tend to practice catch-and-release fishing, but when it comes to camping my survivor instincts kick in so we kept enough to eat during the trip.



I think the four of us brought to the boat a total of 40+ largemouth bass and one crappie in two mornings and one evening of fishing.  Most of the bass were in the 14-15" range and we had a few in the 16-19" range, nothing huge but I was using my ultra-light and had a blast.

Oh, the first morning we got up early and on the water by 6am.  Fifteen minutes later I hear this rumbling noise and this line of about 15 bass boats  was slowly making its way towards me.  Luckily we were in a no-wake zone.  Anyway, I was fishing a nice point with structure and one boat pulls up beside me about 20 yds to my right and another 20 yds to my left.  Evidently there was a bass tourney that day and common courtesy isn't part of there clubs by-laws.

-Brian