Shelter Cove - NCKA hookup

I was going to use the headline/subject:  "Sailfish at the Cove!", but decided against it.     Got together with Sonny / AKA "Sailfish" from this board at the Cove this afternoon.  The forecast was 10-15 knots this morning with a 5-6' N-NW swell - very do-able for the Cove, but it was to build to 20-25 knots and a SCA (small craft advisory) from this evening until tomorrow evening, so I knew getting there to meet mid-afternoon could mean marginal conditions, if that...  I came down the hill around 2:30 seeing major whitecaps outside of the whistle buoy and pretty nice looking water inside.  Got down into the Cove and found Sonny right away at his friend Lyle's "Cape Mendocino Tea" house, where he'd said we could rendezvouz.  Sonny had just arrived and I enjoyed meeting he and Lyle, as Sonny announced that he'd met me from the internet - kind of a first of a kind experience for me to drive up and meet a third person as the one I met from the internet narrates!  Good stuff all around!  I arranged to meet them at the boat ramp, as Sonny and Lyle planned to ab dive and I wanted to get out and troll for salmon for a bit before coming back in by them.  I talked to a few people on a charter boat, the fish-counting guy, and Lyle about the salmon bite and they all surprised me with the remarkably consistent response, "the salmon are GONE", not "the bite's off", or "They're not getting many"...  So I knew it was a long-shot, but the fish-counting guy agreed with me that there was a chance, and there have to be a few around...  so I was stoked to head out to fish the nice-looking water around the bell.  I got in my suit and rigged up quickly and headed out by around 2:50something.  As I got out past the nearshore wash-rocks that knock down the north swell it got real squirly--nothing you could see from shore.  There were random rifflers on 5-7' steep wind waves that were coming in from the mess outside.  I managed to troll to within about 200 yards of the bell before deciding to turn around and head back.  I had been surf-turned by a few riffler wind waves at that point and it was feeling a bit uncomfortable.  I had also picked up both a small blue and a small black and was on my 3rd or 4th chovy, so it was managable enough to deal with catching and re-baiting, but I was definitely feeling a bit apprehensive about the conditions.  As I headed in I caught another blue--nicer, so I put it under my leg, deciding it could come in with me.  It had been chased by a ling to the surface - the ling was only about 23" or maybe legal, and it munched onto the blue a couple of times as I held it there next to the yak!  It was the same place where I had that wild ling-hitchhiker a couple of months ago!  As I got in to where I was about to pull my trolling gear for fear of losing $30 worth of stuff to a rock, I hooked up again and pulled in a nice 3.5# black which I kept and I let the blue under my leg swim away - nice thing about fishing less than 40' of water!  As I got in to where Sonny and Lyle were ab-diving the wind suddenly turned on like a switch - from nothing to 10-15 knots from the NW!  What had been creating those buffalo-caps outside had turned a bit and come down right on top of us.  There were now wind-waves all over outside - it was fortunate timing that I'd come in...  I greeted Lyle and Sonny and found that Lyle had just, unfortunately, lost his weight-belt to a boat-flip in the wind swell.  Sonny, meanwhile, was scouting a wash-rock pretty far outside of his normal hot-spot and, although there was nice vis today, he announced that there were no abs at that spot and it was around 15-20' deep.  They re-grouped and Sonny began towing Lyle farther in-shore and to the west and I told them I was heading in because they were heading in to where a breaking set may come through--I felt they were fine because they just had diving stuff, while I had my trolling gear, big net, camera/wallet/keys/scale/GPS in bag, fish-bonker, tackle for bottom fishing...  The wind was making their progress slow, but Sonny was determined!  They got over to the better ab spot and I got dressed and headed up to the cleaning station with my nice snapper around 4ish - around 30 minutes of trolling.  There were only a bunch of very below average lings and snapper at the cleaning station. as I was there right after the party boats had finished cleaning up.  I got a shot of the ab divers from up on the hill and saw them start to head in as I finished cleaning my fish and having a Sierra Nevada.     I headed back down and got more photos of them coming in.  It was a beautiful evening in the Cove - around 65-70, no wind on the ramp, sun shining - times that make me wish I lived there...  They got in and Sonny had gotten one nice ab - around 8.25" (big for that spot).  I gave them the cleaned black and we hung out for a bit and BS'd.  I gave Sonny the rest of my anchovies and wished him well for tomorrow's fishing, but it'll be tough with a SCA call all day.  Good luck, Sonny!     It was a good day, and another good connection through NCKA. 

Terrific report!  Looks like you just you just beat the weather.  I miss fishing weekdays!!

Nice report.  That little voice that tells us to come in is a good one.  Looks beautiful inside there.

HAHA! I LOVE the second and third pics!

Looks like you're trolling for Great Whites! 

Rock Hopper...you nailed it......I nearly fell off my chair!!!!!.................

Great report AbKing!
A little bit of everything.

Good to see people hitting The Cove! Wish I coulda been there.

PK

Hi Abking,

Thank you for the cod, we ate it that evening and it's delicious!!!  I'll post pictures and report later today.

Sailfish

I'll look forward to your report, Sonny - glad you had a good trip.

PK:  although a good time can pretty much always be scratched out at the Cove, it's probably not too unfortunate that you couldn't make it - the conditions were tough Friday and I think we'll hear in Sonny's report that Saturday was likely a windy mess.  Not to mention that the salmon are just not there right now...  Anyway, hopefully Sonny got into some good adventures, and I'll look forward to hooking up with you or any others who venture north in the future.

 

My first fish caught from the kayak.  A "huge" 10 incher jack Smelt