Arrived at MBK at about 645 am and there was someone already there which is most unusual because my brother and I always hit it first. It was Allen getting ready to teach his fishing class that hopefully went well. Launched to a real mellow swell though there was a slight shore break in surprisingly clear conditions. Paddled right, twords the monterey beach hotel, past the huge kelp ball and fished all around from 20' to 55'. First fish was caught 5 mins after we started at 8:10 and we basically saw steady action to 1:00 on the rockfish.

The first fish.

About an hour into it a fog bank starts to come in and it looks like the sun is gone for good, but it burned off an hour later.

My first rockfish double.

One blue.

And one brown.

A batray (I think) that my brother caught in 25 FOW. It put up a hell of a fight.

Last fish of the day which was also the big RF of the day.


At the end of the day I caught 8 rockies and my brother caught 2 plus the ray. All rockfish were CPRed in less than 60' most at around 50'. No baro stress on any of them because I've started to reel them up slower and I'm fishing shallower. Used the good old dropper loop and swimbaits with cut smelt and frozen squid. We saw all of the WSB fishermen out past  100'. One yakker came in with a huge fish (WSB) that looked like it was about 50#. I was jealous. Sorry no details or pics.


-Tim

Well I finally have a working camera so it's time to start with the reports. I am basically new to kayak fishing (May 09) and ocean fishing as well. I have fished a ton of freshwater C&R for mostly bass though I have caught just about everything else.   

Went out today with my brother and tried for some halibut. Arrived at the north jetty at about 6:00am and it was foggy. So we took our time rigging up and it cleared up enough to launch.

The blurry brown things are sea otters.


My brother Adam in his pimped scrambler.

Drifted the whole time from 12-30' fow south of the jetty. We stayed on the flat that starts around the last set of the marine research buildings and fished it to about half way between Salinas River State Beach and Molera beach. Fished squid and fresh caught bait w/6oz sinkers. As far as the bait we caught mackeral and giant smelt on the good old sabiki. 



The smelt on top was huge. The bait tube is 3" in diameter.

Other than that a slow day no hali bites. The hunt continues...

-Tim

Fish story time.
 A fellow NCKA member and I were paddling early sunday morning (7/25) from MBK over to the monterey beach hotel to try for some buts. There were 3 yaks including mine along for the trip and one of us was paddling around 20 yards or so if front of the other two. I was one of the back two. Midway between my position and the guy in front a fin popped up. The other yakker with me saw it immediately as it was closer to his boat. The fin came up for maybe 5 seconds and went back down for about 3 and came up again for maybe 5 seconds. It was clearly gray and triangular shaped maybe 10" high and 6 or 8" long though this is a rough estimate. No tail fin and after that it disappeared. Although I can't say what kind of shark it was, I sure felt like a 13' swimbait.   

I know your pain.

My first trip yak fishing I was trolling a crankbait on a one pound ball. I hooked up on a 25" Ling and when I brought it to the boat I didn't know if it was legal. So I proceeded to grab the fish by it's gill plate for a measuring. Huge mistake. The Ling started thrashing around and I ended up w/ 3 hooks on the front treble buried in my pinky and ring finger. Honestly I sat there for maybe a second or two thinking this is not happening. So the fish is thrashing and the one pound ball is flopping around and I eventually got the fish between my legs and unhooked it.
2 of the hooks were through past the barb and the third was buried just to the point of the barb all on the same treble. My ring and pinky fingers were pinned together. So I paddled in with the bait dangling and cathing various things on my yak.  I got to shore and another yak fisher lent my bro and I a pair of nice side cutters.  I popped the hook (that wasn't past the barb) out and my bro cut the barbs off the other 2 and I pulled the shanks out. 

I went back out and caught two nice gophers, you guessed it on the same rig (different crankbait). This was at MBK about 4 months ago and thanks again to the fellow yakker that lent me those cutters and first aid stuff. Also, I troll nose hooked swimbaits now.