sunday 9/23 coral street

nice enough day, a swell that continued to grow through the morning but nothing serious.  Fish apparently heard about the MPAs on both sides and went to live there.  They sure were not around the coral street area.  first two hours only had a few bites and that had to be micro blues hitting the bait up but unable to get their mouths around the hook.  The pisser was that I have these nice points in my GPS that always produce but they are neatly inside the asilomar MPA.

decided to go for sanddabs over a sandy area and caught 1.  Yes that is one sand dab.  No bites.  They left for lovers point as well I guess.

as I was contemplating the defintion of terrorism and wondering if leaving fish guts on our blue ribbon panels doorsteps counts, I finally got lucky and saw a bunch of blues making the dash from one MPA to the other.  I paddled over, cast a spoon and was rewarded with medium sized blues.  They were going nuts, with their dorsal spines breaking the water and every once in a while going totally airborne.  Kept some for tacos, released the smaller guys and in a few minutes, they were gone.

on a side note when I came up on the beach a man walked over and asked if the MPAs were in effect yet.  I was all ready for the "you fishing bastard" speech when to my surprise he was bummed that his children will not be allowed to fish the shores he did as a youth.  That beats the last time, when I was lectured about the fish stock being 5% of their historical past. 

Eugene

Very cool report, e2g!
Too bad the fishing wasn't better. But [how does the saying go] thats why they call it "fishing" and not "catching." 
The last couple trips to Coral St or Pt Pinos area have been really slow for me. I think that area gets pressured heavily by boats. All types of boats...from Skipjacks to 8ft aluminums to float tubes.
Saw your Hookup post and considered joining you. But, alas, I had to torture myself by watching the Niners get crushed by the Steelers. Worst part is I KNEW they would get pounded...and knew I shoulda went fishing...and I still watched the game.

Thanks for the report!
PK

   Nice report, Eugene.  I also considered joining you at Coral Street, but opted for Stillwater instead.  Sounds like I made a wise choice. 

One thing I heard out at Stillwater may be part of the explanation for the slow bite.  I was monitoring Ch69 and heard a couple of the dive boat captains talking about the visibility.  The Monterey Express was near me and he said the vis was good "once you got past the clouds of fish".  Apparently there were loads of minnow-size baitfish clouding up the visibility.  The Cypress Sea captain said he'd seen the same thing...maybe the fish were just too full to go for our lures. 

You might be right, Usagi.
When I fished Monastery beach two wknds ago, I saw HUGE clouds of baby rockfish. Right there in the north corner of the beach, wherere the sand meets the rocks...SO MANY baby fish swarming about...it was crazy!
PK

I fished there in the rain on Saturday for a few hours and scored blues and kelps for tacos.  The rain was steady but the fishing was too so I stuck it out for a few hours until I was so cold it was hard to load up the van.  I ended up with four medium fish that were consumed in Tacos Sunday night after my daughter's birthday party at the Forrest Theater's Peter Pan.  It was fun but not as good as fishing.

Nice report.  Glad you finally found the fish.  I did have a few hits that were heavy but came off.  I regretted that I did not have bait with me at those times.