Salt Point Stillwater 10/19-22

Per my prior posts in the Hookup section we left Seaside just after 5 AM 10/19/06 and drove to Stillwater cove on the Sonoma Coast.  With my wife Constance and Daughter Natalie in tow, we stopped once for breakfast and arrived just before 10.  After unloading my Scrambler and Malibu II from the Van we rigged up and carried them to the beach since I had forgotten the wheels doh  .   We were on the water just before 11:15 after parking the car and Constance running back up once for her fishing license.  It really was not that bad considering Natalie is only 10 and was going along with much encouragement.  She has kayaked before but was not interested.

Natalie and I had a mission to have Constance catch her first fish.  It did not happen Thursday as Natalie became impatient and they ended up paddeling more than fishing.  I caught sevaral limits of medium to large blue rockfish and a nice 18-inch Vermillion plus a few gophers and a 20-inch underling.  We were only on the water for a few hours but Natalie had big fun "surfing" down the swells.  We ended up with 5 fish all blues and the Vermillion and headed to the cleaning station at Salt Point.

We skipped the ranger station since we wanted to get the fish clean before choosing a site etc.  My habbit is to trim the spines using kitchen shears before cleaning the fish but I had forgotten my shears and my favorite filet knife was packed away deep so I pulled out a kit of camping kitchen knives that had I really sharp 8 in filet blade and got to work.  The blade had a serrated part near the base so I sawed at a few spines to see what it would take to remove them.  I hacked at it a little and poked myself so I decided to reevaluate.  I had had most of the dorsal fin off and was up to the two big spines but man this fish was really bleading alot..........Holy shit Batman, I mean Constance, I think I slit my wrist...............

At this point a person I know but only enconter during emergencies and highly stressful work situations took over my body and I was "in charge of the situation."  I grabbed my wrist and applied immediate pressure while I elevated it.  I told C and N that this was important but not to panic.  I told Constance to come over hand help me rinse and I told Natalie to get the fist aid kit from the car since she was closest.  The blood was rinsed off my hand and I lifed my thumb to take a look not bad for about 1/2 a second then blood all the way down my hand.  Grabbed it again and sad down to stay calm all the while elevating it.  I directed Natalie to reload the car just in case and to distract her and Constance began extracting supplies from the First aid kit.  A little more rinsing and cleaning we were able to pin point a location and a 1/4 inch wide but 1/2 inch or deeper wound.  It pulsed with blood when I did not hold it tight.  Direct pressure stopped it thought and it did not hurt bad.  We dressed the wound and all took a deep breath.  The van was mostly reloaded and we considered our situation.  Did we need to seek emergency care or was the fisrt aid we did OK and good to go?  Wer would we go for such emergency care around here?  We decided that since the pain was not bad and the bleeding was appearently stopped by the dressing, we would take a wait to make any decision.

I sat and drank a cool ice tea.  At this point my normal personality returned along with my misplaced priorities.  I really wanted to clean those fish and get those filets on ice.  I skipped the spine removal and cleaned and filleted the fisht one by one while Constance worked the hose and tap at the cleaning station.  When I was finished the dressing was soaked through with my blood and when we changed it the bleeding had stopped.

We found a site and checked into camp and I think at that point I was kind of spent because Constance and Natalie did most of the  work I just kind of sat around.  I am not sure how much blood I lost but I really felt very lethargic.  Maybe I ws just getting up at 4:30 and go go go to get here since then.

A beautiful evening and sunset followed by a clean bandage in the morning made me keen for fishing on Friday but first we needed to move our camp to the group site where we would camp with my college buddies and their families for the next two nights.  We fished at Salt Point and launched from Gerstle Cove about noon.  Constance caught her first fish a nich blue rock fish and Natalie had another fun day on the water.  I stayed out longer and caught as many blue rock fish as I wanted.  I also caught one male greenling and a big China about 13-inches that I kept along with five of the larger blues.  I alos had a big Olive that got away at the boat.  This place is heavily populated by large blue rockfish and someone on a meat only trip could limit on blues in no time.   I cleaned Constances fish along with mine and we headed back to camp to see who showed up.

Friends where already arriving and we quickly fell into a routine of welcome and reintroductions and introductions.  Dolfin, Henery, from the NCKA showed up as we had arranged over hookups and I introduced him to the gang, showed him where to camp and offered him dinner.  We ate and Henry got to meet some of the hard core old UCBereley party gang as we hung around the fire and BSed.  I hope we did not offend you Henry.  Some of our goup are...shall we say......indugent   
  .

Anyway this is a fishing report so two of our group Rob W and Rob C went diving and both limited with 3 Abalone each on Friday evening.  Henery and I convinced Bong (his real name, he is Korean) to fish with us so he took out my tandem and borrowed one of my rods.  We fished Salt Point again and had a great time slaying the blue rockfish.  We fished shallow and deep but scored best on the blues in 30-60 feet.  The deeper ones where smaller and suffered barotrama badly.  Other fish were few and far between but included a few gophers and a Canary that bong caught.  I am not sure of Henry total but hope that he will chime in.  We ended up each keeping 5 or six good size rockfish and called it a day as the swell picked up.

We cleand fish and partied all the rest of the day while waiting for the dive crew to decide the proper balance between low tide and dark and dinner time to go for the Abalone and listeng to the Cal Washington game on the Radio.  Go Bears!  Henry reported that he ran inot Skyboy at the cleaning station later on.  One of the regulars in our group turns out to be Dr Habanero of NCKA (we are every where).  The gang assembled a masterful feast including electric sliced abalone steaks, home made french frys, Henry's incredible chicken curry, abalone sashimi, tritip, portabello mushrooms, numerous cheeses, smoked fish, sausages, wines, salads and side dishes.  Followed by more wine and songs around the campfire.

As we drive home Sunday about noon, there were 10 or more fishing boats off of Jenner.  I pulled over when I saw Henry's car and we speculated that they may be were getting salmon?  We did not see any yaks.  The drive home was sleepy but uneventful.  It was a beautiful weekend with both old friend and new.  Great to meet you Henry.

Heh, knock it off or we will have to put on a safety class in fish cleaning!.........

Congrats to Constance on her first.

Good report - sounds like a great time was had!     Any pics?

Sorry No pics.  It is just one more thing that I need to carry and organize and it just did not happen for this trip.

Great report. Sorry to hear about your wrist. Sounds like it wasn't too bad...

Question: How come you want to remove the spines before filleting?

I use to use shears to cut the spines when I am keeping fish whole for steaming. Now I just pull the spines out when keeping fish whole.

Here's a tip my mother inlaw showed me...
 Lay the fish flat and Cut along the based of the spine on both sides, basically all around the base of the spine then grab the tail with one hand while you grab the base of the spine nearest the tail and pull the opposite direction of the spines. The row of spine should/will come out in one piece.

Phishinpat,

Thanks to your mother in law for that tip.  The reason I like to remove them for fileting is simply to make the fish easier to handle to avoid unintentional pokes and cuts.  It works well when I have my shears but backfired this last time.  I did manage to filet all of them without too much trouble but there are many small cuts and pokes on my hands and fingers.

most importantly, glad to see you have your priorities straight!  Wrist cuts are one thing but to let a fish go to waste...karma baby, watch the karma!

Seriously though you may want to consider these gloves they sell at hardware stores, grey material, blue palms and fingers.  Roses dont even get through easily.

sacyak: I'll convey your message to her. She likes her roccfish whole, so she's really happy to see that I removed the spines for her.

You're absolutely right, My hands are usually beat up after filleting and cleaning roccfish. e2G is right on the money with the gloves. There are some cheap gloves out there that have plastic or rubber on the palm side. They work pretty good.

Along with direct pressure and elevation to stop bleeding, applying ice will help.  Especially after you have the inital bleeding under control, ice works well.

Jeff (E.R. Tech)

i hope your wrist is ok. once i drank a bottle of jagermeister and tried to clean a halibut, i ended up with 4 stitches.

Wine and song around the campfire.......   Sounds like a GOOD PLANNED TRIP! and food too! Yak fishin/diving is just a side hobby