Carmel River SB 10/13

I got caught up with school work, so I joined Sackyak and Fuzzy Tom at daybreak.  Launch was a breeze.  The wind was blowing right out of the valley pretty briskly, so we anchored ourselves in the kelp beds and fished for the first few hours.  I kept a handful of averaged-sized blues, widows, and grass/kelp or whatever they are.  I hooked and lost a few big ones.  Etiene sp? and Tom did as well.  Tom had one really strip the line off of his reel before breaking off.  Around 9 or so the wind died and we were able to fish the open water.  I left before those two so hopefully they did better as the day went on.  Good trip overall but nothing special.

Right on!
Hope this weather holds!

PK

As we guessed, that breeze out of the river valley died off and that gave us a solid hour or so of perfect calm until the ripples started with the onshore west wind, never got very breezy.  At some point after Marmot left, I got bored and trolled my Walleye Runner ($2. Rapala anchovie look-alike- 2 trebles) behind piece of rebar right on the bottom-  got a couple of medium blues and then got hit hard with a 30" ling, which ripped up and down a few times before I could gaff it.  It was pretty fat, and its head looked like it belonged on a bigger fish.  It also had what looked like an old cut on its side, healing over with red patch, didn't go into the flesh -probably a line cut from previous encounter or some such.
    What I really wish I'd gotten a look at was whatever ripped off about 200 ft of line, headed right for the kelp.  It really felt like a seal, but maybe it was a big ling or butt. There was no slowing it down.  I think it was on my diamond jig with red skirt.   Didn't see any seals/sealions except one later on the inside.
    Besides the ling, I kept 5 assorted big rockies, threw twice that many small ones back.   Lots of fish in the kelp, and out to about 120 ft, then nothing on finder out to 140.
   Saw another kayak angler when we got in, he was told about this forum.
 The gate to CRSB was locked when we got there about 6:30 in the dark, tho it was open later.  Swell made almost no difference, and L/L were pretty easy.

There is a black sea bass in the area but based on what I've seen it do it doesn't seem like a fish that wants to "rip line".  But, just be aware in case you find a surprise on the end of a lure one day.  I saw it when it followed a silly blue up to my boat one day when I was just around those rocks north of the CRSB launch.  For anyone reading this that doesn't know, BSB is no take.

remember Pat?  i still think about seeing that big fish trying to eat those poor little blues...

this year down in la jolla there have been quite a few caught and released. plus just a couple of weeks ago on the news they show a big school of the in the kelp right off of la jolla....what a sight seeing these big beautiful fish supended in the kelp in which is not common for so many of them coming in. they thinking  they came in the spawn. they are a lot of resdents that still around that area.

chef/jade pirate

 Maybe a white Seabass? I hear rumors every now and then. I caught a 36" off the coranado Ils years ago. I saw a 14" caught in the bay about 5 yrs ago. first sign of El Ninjo?

Again here is my late 2 cents worth.  I think Toms runner was a shark.  Buts and lings don't run like that.  Also the seals were distant mostly.  The fact that it was so strong is the most significant.  But who will ever know?  I heard that someone caught a BSB on the Santa Cruz Pier this year.

Anyway, fishing with Tom and Nomad was a pleasure.  We all caught lots of fish and as usual made the best of the always interesting conditions on the water.  There are never two days that are the same.  I ended up catching a good variety of fish.  In addition to the usual blues, olives and gophers that are ubiquitus in that area, I also caught a nice keeper female Greenling (what a beautiful fish, and tasty too), a small (8-inch) Canary (more on this later) and a large China.  I also had lots of hard hits with spat lours.  I just could not get any lings or cabbies interested.

Anyway I had a few small gopher floaters that had me feeling bad so when the small Canary came up, I pulled out my home-made paperclip decender jig and gave it a try.  The poor canary floated upside down trying a few times to overcome its own balloon and swim down until I got rigged up.  Then I simply hooked the paper clip through its lower lip and let him drop with the weights.  I could not feel him kick off the line but he did not float back up afterward.  I believe he lived because he still had some kick in him when he went down.  I had the clip rigged as a sideways S with two 3 oz weights wired to the upward pointing side and a leader of 30 lb mono snelled on the middle section so that the open hook pointed down when suspended.  The weight keeps the fish engaged against its boyancy until it swims free or you pull the hook up when it releases anyway because there is no barb.  After the Canary, I did this several more times for the China and several more Gophers.

I kept the Greenling and several medium blues.  The landing was fine but I had to wait out one big confused set.  Upon reaching the beach, I jumped out, grabbed the yak and pulled several steps up the beach before falling over like a drunk sailor.  I then got washed over by the next wave and stumbled to pull even futher up the beach.  This happend twice as the wave were reaching well up the beach and my legs were not willing or able to walk and pull the yak up the beach until several more minutes had passed.  I guess I need to stay out less or change positions more while out there.  Overall a great day.  Nice to meet you Tom.  It was really interesting how that ling had that big scar on it.  Good to see you again too. Nomad.

Sounds like our day today, Sunday.  We had just a couple of hours since we are puppy sitting.  We headed out of Stillwater.  Randy will post a picture of his Canary.  24" ling who was all head released and 14 1/2 inch cabbie released.  For me there were gophers, blues, olives on every drop for the first hour.  The swell was still very confused today........very.

I've found that I can paddle my P15 with my legs crossed "Indian" style, and that helps to get the kinks out before I hit the beach.  Maybe I should rig my chute bungie as an excercise band and give it a couple of "pedals" every now and then, because besides it making it look like you're drunk, it might get the warmth to my feet and there is the safety issue in a surf landing if you're not able to pop out and get out of the way of the yak.

I wish I had gotten a closer look at your descender when you were using it, now I'll have to sort through your word picture.  I'd tried a paper clip and a bag twistie before, not too successfully, maybe the wieghts would make it work better. Even if  the fish doesn't survive after it's down, we can hope it feeds the undersea creatures - there seem to be plenty of seagulls already.  As a game warden told me once, some stuff was meant to return to the biomass.