Stillwater slow - great vis

We fished Stillwater N sunday morning, 5 of us only caught about 12 smallish rockfish, including a few canaries that had to go back - by far the worst showing for this area I've even seen.  The visibility in the water however was, great - I could see the bottom in 25' of water.  I got a couple uni and a limit of mid-sized abs.  Perhaps the good visibility put the fish off the bite somehow.  I only saw a few smallish blues and perch, and a greenling that was too marginal WRT the 12" minimum for me to pull the trigger.  My brother dove too, but he had trouble equalizing and couldn't get down below 12' or so.

what about this 'dead zone' in oregon, the de-oxygenated water?

maybe some of that is happening here due to the wind?

J

I don't think so.  There were fish, just not very many.  Perhaps the visibility made it too bright and put them off the bite.  OTOH there was a CPFV fishing farther out, I see them a lot there, perhaps they've been pounding it to oblivion.  I dove for perhaps an hour and considering how well I could see I didn't see many fish.

that report on oregon said huge numbers of rockfish vacated the affected areas.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/08/040810091946.htm

just wondered if that kind of thing could happen here.

seems like it could.

J

I doubt the nearshore areas would be depleted like that either, certainly the churned up areas near the kelp beds would maintain healthy oxygen levels.  We tried areas between 30 and 90' deep with squid tipped 4" scampis.

A bunch of us have also noticed the decline in quality rockfish at Stillwater Cove North.  I first kayak fished that place 3 years ago.  We caught nice lings and reds drop after drop.  It has been that way since.