South side of Point Arena, 10/19

I went exploring with DaveW and Amphibian, and Dave's son Dillon and a friend of Dave's from work (Nate on his maiden sea kayak fishing adventure) on Sunday on the south side of Pt. Arena.  We had done well in the general area a month or so ago and there was a weather window to give it another try (kind of).  The swell was not bad, but as soon as we launched at 9 the wind started to come up and it just kept getting stronger.  I managed a mixed limit of rockies (china's, blacks, gophers, one blue, one greenling and one nice red) and one nice ling, but it was not an easy mission.  C&R on a few 24" zone lings to be safe and for karma's sake.  Even with a drift sock and two clips of fish in the water, the wind was pushing me between 1 and 1.5 mph according to my GPS.  It made fishing swimbaits a challenge with a 3 oz head, but when you could stay close to the bottom, there were biters.  Lots of short bites and long line releases shortly after hooking up for some reason this time out.  I had at least 4 or 5 swimbaits come up missing the end of the tail.  Everyone caught a few fish at least, but the wind was not our friend.  The paddle back to the beach with a side wind from the North was less than fun.  There were some interesting wave rides into the beach, but everyon made it without any garage sale action, so it was a success overall.

Sorry no pics, my camera was out of juice.........

Norm

Nice report Nawm!
It was a productive weekend for a lot of NCKA'ers. We had forays to Big Sur, Bean, Salt Point, and now, Pt Arena.
I was down to only 2 swimbaits on Sunday, and those were both in "damage-control" (repaired from the previous day with a lighter/soldering iron). Neither one made it to the end of the day, & I was down to scampis. Lings especially can be tough on the soft lures.

Yeah, it was kind of a pain in the ass.  I gave Nate (the newbie) an old XT for stability and he did fine.  But that only left me one more boat for my son, a very tippy Spectrum Solo that I've had for years but never use cause it's such a piece o crap.  Dylan ended up flipping it out there (about a mile out), and man he came shooting back out of that cold water fast.  He came up smiling, and I was glad for all the yaking and waterman experience I've tried to impart to him over the years.  It paid off:  a quick self rescue and a smile.  Unfortunately I lost a rod/reel setup in the process.  Worth it I think.

Good report.   Glad everyone caught fish and had a good time, but most importantly, glad everyone came back safely.