Fishing Journal - 2012

I put together my stats of all yakfishing trips this year, and it reminded me of years past that I've done that.  Here's a cool thread with past stats that I stumbled onto that also discusses the first Gimme Shelter gathering of 6 of us back in '07.  I found it relevant also because I'll be putting up the tournament announcement for GS7 soon.   

http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php?topic=11227.msg102536#msg102536

The stats for this year were strong, and, as always, I feel very lucky to have the family support and some flexibility at work to be able to go do the stuff I love in the outdoors.  As for being a lucky guy for living up here - I hear that all the time and can't argue with it, but I would point out that it's not just luck to work very hard at watching conditions, being tuned to what opportunities are available, and executing a plan in a small window.  Much of that is tied to traditional activities which I've pursued and honed for many years, and that is reflected in my annual pattern.  This is feeling more and more relevant as I write it, because I'm hoping to push a priority this year of making sure people know that coming to GS is a commitment for experienced kayakfisherpeople who've established some kind of annual pattern of activity on and knowledge of the ocean. 

The stats:

- 81 trips fishing from kayaks in 2012 including 39 ocean trips
- 49 solo trips including 16 solo ocean trips
- 30 skunks including many short trips for steelhead on the rivers and salmon on the ocean
- 20 legal ocean salmon to 20 pounds
- about a dozen legal lingcod to 20 pounds with only a few kept
- 9 crabbing trips including the midnight opener solo (until Dom showed up at 115AM   )
- 7 adult steelhead to about 13 pounds
- a few Tahoe kokanee
- an assortment of several dozen rockfish with only a few kept
- participated in 3 tournaments:  Gimme Shelter, Albion, TRW2
- other than tourneys, hooked up with at least 10 different NCKA members during the year and 1 each from Humboldt Tuna Club and LCKA/Facebook
- ab trips = 4 with 5 abs harvested including one 10

Please adopt and support the mindset that Gimme Shelter is a place for people who understand the drive behind stats like these.  It's called the Madness.   

Thanks for sharing in the reminiscing of the carnage.     I'll try to make a movie with much of the stats in it soon.  Keep an eye out for the Seventh Annual Gimme Shelter Kayakfishing Tournament thread to come up soon.   

Strong year of fishing for you Eric! Good job! To be able to fish the ocean that much is lucky!


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Nice stats Eric! This was the first year I kept a log. It's kinda cool to look back & relive the memories. 

Great stats!!!! I would make one but it would be too short and boring!!!!

I wiped out a small colony of sand dabs this year. 

... And 1 31" ling

Strong work Eric! Heck of a year 

I had a bunch of pix and writeups disappear a few years back from a website that I post to. From then on I started posting to a blog and now I will not lose all of this work. It was a good year excpet for a  no show on the fall striper run.
http://joulebox.wordpress.com/