Pt Pinos/Coral St 07-08-06

Launched from Coral St this am.  Overslept a bit and the sun was already up by the time I launched.  I met up with Etienne (sacyak) who had launched from Otter Cove and paddled up to Coral St.   

We paddled out a bit into the kelp and stopped at one of the first holes.   A couple rockfish for sacyak and nothing for me.  They were finicky . .just pecking at my swimbait but not really hitting it. 

The next stop was further out . . in about 45-50 feet of water.  I switched to an iron with cut squid above and got the pictured cab on the first drop (on the iron).  My first ever legal cab!  I'm not sure if it was pregnant . .it was super fat and heavy.  It's kind of hard to tell from the picture but you can see the enourmous gut on this fish.  I let it go, benevolent as I am.

Next bite was a ling on the cut squid. .pretty sure was legal.  I'd estimate 26 inches . .but I didn't measure as I wasn't going to keep it.  Just took the picture and let it go.  Switched from squid to sardine and that took another ling, this one smaller but maybe legal.  Again, released. 

After that it slowed down a lot.  Pretty constant pecks and nibbles and occassional (blue, olive, black and yellow and kelp).  The fog came in pretty heavy at around 9:30.  It got cold and I finally wandered back in around 11.  The beach was packed with divers by then.  I talked to a couple of guys about to spear some halibut (hopefully) and got some tips on where to maybe look.  We'll see .. they are elusive for me so far.  All in all .. . my best day of rockfishing ever!  And nice company to boot.

wow, nice photos and nice fish! i wish i could go out there today. thanks for a nice report!
john

It's good to live in paradise......................