capitola july 4th.

42 anchovies, 9 rockfish, 1 toad jacksmelt and a 29" ling.  .  ling next to kelp, in about 30 feet.

kept 41 anchovies (but fed them to rockfish), 1 rockfish that ate my hook, and ling.

there is a lot of of bait in there now in 20 feet of water, it felt like I was paddling in anchovies at times.

used wacky trolling scheme with big weight on salmon release to get ling. was hoping for halibut.

J

Right on.

I didn't get up early enough to drive to capitola to toss you some TJW.

Ah well.

I am gonna hit that up pretty soon.  Wind looked like it came up early on the 4th.

MolBasser

No sweat, I had a couple weedless bass jigs in the 1oz range, but didn't deploy them that day.

mainly I was distracted by the insane numbers of anchovies. almost didn't try my wacky scheme.

I was off the water about 11:15? No appreciable wind until then.

Mol, when you get your boat ready, some fun awaits you there.  It's like a really big bass pond.

I am very fired up about it.

Wind came up around 1pm in Santa Cruz.

MolBasser

were you fishing the capitola reef? 

For opening day, I hit it by new brighton and noticed a $hitload of bait also.  the water was blacked out at times with the schools of chovies.

Anyway, i tried potholing the kelp, then out to the mile buoy, then even further out.  Not much luck.  I threw a shallow diving Rapala on and figured I'd get a workout going.  So I pedaled my outback around and picked up a nice black in a gopher.  Aside from that, I'm not a big fan of capitola anymore.  It was the weakest opener ever there.  Glad you got into them though.

BTW, wasn't the weather a trip?  It was blowing like crazy at Stillwater with big swells on sunday, but when we got back to New Brighton, it was flat calm and only mildly breezy.

Capitola requires more fishing effort for sure. It is not Big Sur or stillwater carmel or ft ross or linda mar, etc,
where you just drop a hunk of iron and FISH ON! But you are pretty much guaranteed to be able to paddle
out, which is the first requirement to catching fish.

I like it because I feel justified in trying wacky fishing schemes.

sounds like when you tried the wacky scheme, the trolled rapala, you caught fish. there is a lesson there!

maybe you should have just trolled more. remember to use a plug with only 2 trebles b/c of rockfish rules.

I caught the ling on a broken back rebel with the front hook removed at the edges of the kelp
(not the reef where the skiff's fish). shallow water. I had a special arrangement with a salmon sinker
release and dropper line on 8oz weight to keep the thing on the bottom close to the boat so I could
slalom kelp stalks. the weight release makes it fun to fight the ling as well as allowing the rod to snap
up and set the hook. I use a bicycle mirror on my sunglasses and a 10' rod that points directly over my stern
to allow me to troll between obstacles and keep an eye on the rod. You don't have to look in the mirror
all the time. when the rod jumps, your peripheral vision will pick up the movement. just make sure it is
in your field of view in the mirror.

the rockfish came on the reef, but with live or fresh dead anchovies. I used a 3oz mooching weight and
circle hook. I had a couple halibut like hits, but they did not stick. raked bait.

metal jigs have not produced for me. neither have heavy swimbaits. light 1oz swimbaits cast way out away
from the kelp and retrieved toward the kelp with the occasional bottom bounce seem to get a lot of
rockfish hits.

My potholing has been successfull before, but it looks like the water is not clear now, some kind of kelp
"pollen" or red tide or something. I don't know if that prohibits standard pot holing.

check this article by mol's bud down south on potholing:

http://www.trixjettyworm.com/everything.htm

J

Thanks for linking that.

I am very anxious to get out and catch fish on my buddies bait and post pics.

I am CERTAIN that local kelp will produce fish for this lure as it does down south.

Can't Ocean Kayak make my boat faster?

I would like to link the lure website, but I don't want to spam.  If you are interested in cool kelp jigs, pm me and I will point you to my friend.  Just fiddle with the link above and you will get to the site.  TJW are a SoCal phenomenon and should be up north too!

MolBasser

Mol link away dude, all is welcome here! 

www.trixjettyworm.com

Dude, these jigs rule.  Trust me.

Or, just look at the gallery on the site.

Awesome, and will kill up here.

MolBasser