2-21 china camp

Fished China Camp on Saturday from 10 to 2. Nice conditions, calm wind, the usual chop came up around mid day but then slacked off after a little while. Spent some time fooling around trying to get my anchor to hold. I eventually found that i could drag one foot over the side and it would keep the boat more or less parallel to the movement of the tide and the anchor would hold. When i'd take my foot out of the water the boat would turn broadside to the tide and the anchor would drag. Any how I used a combination of ghost shrimp and herring chunks, caught one leopard shark probably a little over 3' and hooked another that kept taking line out til he broke it. It did the same kind of head shakes that the first one did so I think it was another shark, but it must have been a little bigger. The end of my line came back with the last three inches severely abraded. That was it though, no sturgeons this time. I only saw one other yakker, he was leaving when I was getting ready to launch, said he hadn't caught anything. Nice day...

Hiya! That was me taking out as you put in. Good to meet you Mike (?).
It was a nice day wasn't it? It was good to get on the water one last time before these current rains.
You don't run your anchor off the stern?

Thanks for the report fishinmike. Good luck out there next time. I wonder though
with all this rain if the sturgeon will start hanging around that area?

Jedmo

they should start hanging out up there...that's the normal pattern, but we'll see!

You don't run your anchor off the stern?

Hey, Mako1, good to meet you too. I have a sliding set up for my anchor line. I got it from Hawk up in Eureka. Its a stretchy line, I think made from a couple of paddle leashes, that clips on at the stern and has a hook at the front. The anchor line has a metal ring on it, and the stretchy line goes through the ring. So to release the anchor you just have to unhook the front hook and the ring can slide right off. Anyhow, I normally keep the ring at the stern end of the stretchy line but this time it wouldn't stay there, unless I kept my foot in the water. I couldn't figure out why that was happening, I've fished on anchor several times before without any trouble. Maybe the waves were turning me, I don't know. Anyone else have this experience?

When the tide is going out at China Camp and there is no wind coming from the east or the south your bow should be pointing in the direction of the richmond -san rafael bridge. When the wind starts blowing your bow towards shore and you are on a sliding ring that runs from the cockpit to the strern the ring will ride up towards the center of the boat. To eleminate this you must have the line come directly off from the stern. But putting your foot in the water to offset the wind push is a good idea. Till your foot freezes. You can put your paddle across your lap also with one blade in just enough to straighten the bow out.

Check out the current maps you can see in the China Camp area the currents can be almost 90 degrees to the current flow in the channel its sorta like a river system where the water is trying to get to the point of the least resistance which is deeper water. If you are fishing close to shore points above and below you will effect the current also .

http://sfports.wr.usgs.gov/SFPORTS/vec_map/spbay.shtml
Click on the map for detail

Cool current maps!

i'd say its exactly like a really big river system, the currents around ccamp are odd - I've been trying for a few weeks to get a picture of them from up at the Nike Missle site..about 1/3 or less of a mile off the beach is a big current line, that runs first toward Rat rock, then away toward the channel. You can see it when its ripping, and often you'll see a bunch of floating junk at its edges....

there's a bunch o' things that can make your anchor slip-- most common one is not enough rope out-- should be around 7:1 - length to depth. That's a hundred feet in 15 FOW.

I use a 10 lb pyramid anchor, about 25' of rope in 15 FOW. It has never slipped, even landed a 47 incher w/o pulling it.