11/04 Coral Street

I launched from Coral St. at about 7: on Saturday.  The tide was high and only about 6 ft of beach were exposed.  There was swell outside but the launch was easy.  The fishing started slow.  After hooking up with a few smallies, I lost two rigs, both with nice shrimp fly stingers on top, in a row on bottom snags.  After retying leaders I was back in action and started a steady haul of blue and kelp rockfish.  As the wind and swell were relaitvely small and the bite was scattered, I worked my way around Pt. Pinos and although the wind picked up the action did too at least marginally.  I deployed my drift shoot to slow down the drift and it worked great.  I hoooked a really nice and active olive and had him at the boat and he was fighting hard and really did not want to give up.  Anyway, during the commotion, my rod handle knocked my VHF into the deep  .  This was becomming an expensive trip.  Finally, I hooked inot something big.  It felt like a big ling as it was comming up but very slowly.  Suddenly nothing, I reeled up a leader with nothing on the end.  Either a bad knot (tied on the water ealier) or he bit through the leader (I am guessing the former)  .  As this was already an expensive trip, I really wanted to fill my stringer so I kept fishing.  With all the lost hardware and spotty bite I had a chance to try lots of different things.  At the end I was working a crippled herring iron on the bottom with a 4-inch fish trap stinger on top rigged on an 8-inch leader with 4/0 siwash hook without a lead head.  The last two fish I caught hit the fish trip on the siwash leader.  They were both about 16-inch brown rockfish that really faught hard.  They were the two biggest of the day.  I call it after that and had a pleasant paddle in.  I planned this as a meat trip to suff the freezer for winter.  I ended up with four bags each with four filets in the freezer plus we had delicious fish tacos for dinner last night.  All in all, not a bad day.  I was really relieved when I found out that I had not spent all that much on the VHF.  Just one more thing that need a lanyard.

Fish on.

Anyway, during the commotion, my rod handle knocked my VHF into the deep   .  This was becomming an expensive trip.

Hey Sackyak, Sorry for the lose. It would be saved, if you would tie VHF to your jacket. It happened to me a few time. Luckily I had it tethered. Even with kayak being rolled, I was in water and VHF became loose and dangling, it was attached with the string. Oh well ...

 Hard lesson on the water, hopefully not the wallet. Sounds like you had a great trip lots of different action. I'm headed to the Sac for Salmon, w/ Ty, later today. Nice post. Randall

Either a bad knot (tied on the water ealier) or he bit through the leader (I am guessing the former)

Typically a knot that slipped will leave a curly end of the mono, whereas a bit -through/snapped leader will be a clean break.

Nice job, Etienne.  Don't feel too bad about your radio . . . .all gear must eventually find it's way home to the bottom of the sea.