Santa Cruz - 12/12/13

Left the harbor at about 9 to nice glassy water with a work buddy of mine. Paddled out to the edge of the kelp close to steamers lane. Was a slow start. Got one gopher rockfish early and then things were slow for a couple hours. Hooked a nice big lingcod. Had it by the gill flap and was pulling it over the side when it managed to thrash free and dove for the bottom - broke the line with his teeth I think. Switched to a wire leader after that.

Picked up another couple rockfish. Caught an octopus, put it on the hook and sank it back down. WHAM! Got another ling about the same size. Didn't let this one get away. Early afternoon I picked up another legal ling and a smaller one that got tossed back. Bout 3pm got into some vermillion rockfish almost one right after the other. Had a few good hookests on fish that got off and a number of stolen squid.









My buddy ended the day with 3 big rockfish - a gopher, a copper and a vermillion and he caught and released 3 lings that were right around 20-21 inches.

Paddled out and brought my crab traps in for a rest and an overhaul of the one trap. Will set them back out when my brother comes to visit.

Great day on the water. Very smooth and some good fish action. Fish and Game was there at the docks doing checks and congratulated us on our catch. Only 16 days left til these things go out of season and I have to adapt to something else.

My wife and I made some fantastic fish tacos last night from this catch! 

Looks and sounds like a great day.  Nice fish.  WTG.   

Nice variety of fish there man. Way to go out there and take advantage of the conditions. Congrats.

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Sweet report!

I need go get to the salt!

thanks for sharing a great day on the water, great conditions, fish a plenty, and i thought there were no fish in santa cruz , cameron

Great job! Filling the freezer!

Great report. Way to go!

Nice bounty. Bet dinner was good.

Thanks! These fish are delicious! Great day compared to a few that were just plain slow. I feel like I'm getting better at this whole kayak fishing thing - thanks in large part to this board and it's members.

Early on I had trouble catching anything but croakers. This day I think was a combination of learning much by trial and error to find where the fish are hanging out and just good conditions/luck that the fish were present and hungry.

A buddy of mine fished the same area all day on the 13th and caught a small halibut and nothing else all day.

Couple more weeks and I'll have to start from scratch and figure out how to target sand dabs, halibut  and whatever else can be targeted before the lingcod, rockfish and such are back in season. Or get a spear gun and jump in after them.

Congrats on the day out and great looking fish. Gotta love live octopus for lings!

awesome catch bro. its been fairly calm the past few days in santa cruz.

vin