Blue Cabezon caught from shore. Pics.

    The weather seemed to be as good as its gonna get right now. I called up a friend of mine who was enthusiastic about fishing today. His car ran out of gas though on the way over so i had to help him out with that. We left Aptos for north coast at about 11:30am. We saw a bull elephant seal sleeping at the mouth of Waddel Creek. I flipped a bitch and we took some pictures right next to this behemoth. He was a fourteen foot long scarred up male looked like he weighed 3000lbs.
    We ended up fishing Bean Hallow. I had 3 poles with me; one was had a double surf leader set up, one had the 3 inch white grub, and the 3rd was a poke poll. When we first got there i dropped the grub into a tide pool that looked good to me and bounced it around not really expecting to get a bite but just playing around. I say to my friend "Look how good the action on this grub is." as i swing it past a ledge. Then the cabby hit it. I told him i got a hit and pulled to set the hook but the cabezon let it go. I dropped the grub down again and started popping it off the bottom next to the ledge and 30 seconds later it hit again hard. I let him swim with it a while this time and when he swam back under his ledge i set the hook in an attempt to prevent him getting stuck. I hooked him right through the lip and he gave a good fight on my noodle with 12 lb test swimming back to his a hole a couple of times and all around the tide pool. My friend couldn't believe i caught a fish that size in a tide pool with hook and line. The fish was a 15 1/3 inch female blue cabezon and she is stunning. I was torn between keeping this delicious fish or letting this beautiful fish go. I kept it of course.
   We kept fishing but the rough waves made it hard. I looked for some monkey faced prickle backs with no luck. My buddy had to work at 3 so we had to leave at the lowest tide of the day unfortunately. I'm thinking about how to incorporate these chanterelles into my fish dinner. Maybe a wine butter sauce.......

Nice catch!

Very nice catch, I think those guys taste better than lings, in my opinion.

WTG on the blue cab Bambora.

Jedmo

Good report and nice fish , question ; how do you determine the sex of a cabbie , unless it was obvious when cleaning , eggs ?

Very cool looking caby, Love the chanties too. What type of trees did you find em under? I've only found a couple this year.

It had eggs. Lots of them.

FYI-cabby eggs are crazy poinsonous...not joking! Nice catch.

Beauty!  Thanks for the photo spread.   

Generally speaking, the red cabs are male and the blue/green cabs are female. But there is of course some variation too.

Lovely smurf-eater.

About those chantrelles: any good public hunting grounds on the coast (plus or minus Santa Cruz area)? I haven't found any this year on the eastern side of the coastal mountains. Admittingly, I didn't make it out after the storms in a timely fashion this year, but still... not one.

Cab fillet, foil steamed with wine and butter over bed of veggies .  I would eat it everyday if I could. 



Thanks for the report.

I use chanterelles with my fish all the time.  I take a rockfish or halibut filet and put it in a buttered pyrex baking dish.  Put a little soy sauce or garlic salt on the fish.  Pop it in the oven for 5 min at 400.  While it is cooking mix up a cup of cooked mushrooms and small tub of sour cream and a little dry sherry (2 TBLS).  Pull the fish out and cover with the mixture.  Put back in the oven for 15-20 min at 350 depending on thickness of filet.  Eat over rice.  It is delicious.  Nice work.
Dave