Ft. Bragg PB- too many shakers, lings, rockies and ????

My buddy Ron called to see if i would crew his PB since the FB salmon bite has been hot.  I would normally say yes anyways, but since Ron is still recovering from the recent passing of his dad I was there for sure.

Weather was perfect, and the swell was minimal and got better as the day went on, which is REAL unusual up here.  We dropped our gear near the fleet and had a double going in less than 5 minutes...woohoo! Mine was a shaker, his was legal but small.  As we measure his and check the gums it jumps out of the Whalers fish box like a kid skipping to school...DOH!  Having never seen anything like it we were in shock but blew it off and got back to fishing.  Over the course of the next 2 hours we got bit, bit, bit, bit...ALL shakers   We are now down to our last chovies and trying to make it count.  On the last chovie we get a nice fish going.  It screams to the boat, I scoop the beotch like Barry Bonds and we finally have decent fish in the boat.  I look over and instantly start to cry...its a BIG coho        We tried staight lures for a while for nada.

In disgust we blow off the salmon and head to our favorite reef looking for action and something in the box.  We find a good drift and limit out on quality rockies in under an hour.  We are feeling better now.  The megabaits produce rockies like no tomorrow, but for whatever reason lings don't eat them that much, so we change tackle and go looking for lings.  The water is dirty so I tie on a glow in the dark scampi...BAM

Line is peeling off and I know I having something heavy.  I get it near the boat and it goes down again, and again.  The fish doesn't feel like a normal ling so I am thinking maybe its a halibut.  Finally get it to the boats and it is a slob of a ling...woohoo!.  This baby went 40.5 inches and 21 pounds.



Worked another area nearby for a short while and I was limited on lings too.  My second ling was also nice, 31" and about 11 pounds, but it looked tiny next to my biggie.  Looks like I can prep the fish for the tourney taco dinner ahead of time!



We went to get our crab gear and picked up 10 nice late season dungys



I start pulling the last pot and it feels weird.  Not heavy, but a lot of drag, like a parachute or something.  I get it to color and I am looking at it thinking WTF...sweet taco bonus.  This bad boy was eating all of the crabs in the pot!!! GOT RICE?



Our frustrating day turned out to be a blast with a few neat surprises including a pod of beluga whales.  Fun!

Nice ling. That thing is a beast!

Nother nice ling.
You guys will be eatin a good variety.

you sure caught a lot of different species. when is the tourney i need the dates.

that octopuss is freaky looking!

The assortment was just plain crazy.  The tako was a flowing mass of muscle and booger, but man are they tasty.

CP-the tourney is 8/13.  See the tourney page for highlights.

Brudah Sean.... you're on fire!
What tasty seafood smorgasborg!

Thanks Chuck!  It was just meant to be that day.  After a horrible start we rallied big time.

NICE WORK SEAN!!!