5/11/07 at the Cape

I decided to trek over to Cape Mendocino today even though the wind was heavy.  I was ready to Rolleez down the beach to try some in-shore rockfishing very near the beach.  When I arrived along the coast south of the Cape I saw that it was very flat, but windy.  The whitecaps didn't seem too bad, so I decided to go out.  I geared up and got in, paddled northwest against the wind for half a mile to show myself I could go against it, then went out to a favorite reef to fish.  Once out there it was a challenge to say the least.  Wind waves were breaking in my lap, but it was flat enough where that only pushed me around a bit.  I jigged with a 6 oz. head and found it impossible to drop anywhere near to straight down, even when I paddled into the wind while dropping line.  I put on a 10 oz. head - my only one - and got it to the bottom, but got snagged up and broke it off.  I tried again with a 6 oz. head and another shrimpfly rig and got snagged up again and broke off.  I decided that it was too windy to jig on my good ling reef, so I drifted with the wind, dropping 6 oz. heads with shrimpflys while paddling into the wind.  I finally got a bite - a double black hookup.  Put them in the hatch and set up again.  Pulled in a 27" ling, netted it and hatched it.  Caught and released half a dozen more blacks, each time I'd drift a few hundred yards while reeling in.  Decided to head in as I was constantly drifting south.  Headed in and the wind picked up at the end - paddling my hardest I was making slow headway.  Yes, I could've turned southeast, paddled with the wind and swell and beached south of my truck, but I made it in with some work...  It was too windy to fish today.  I'm lucky to have hooked up at all...    1st photo:  I don't use hair gel!  The wind was rippin'!  2nd photo:  whitecap city all the way into shore.  3rd photo:  worth it for 3 straight hours of paddling against the wind?... 

Relax AbKing you have all year to catch fish man. Nice haul for a short time on the water.

Nice going Abking! at least you have some fresh fish for the effort. Sound like you had a  good work out...

Any news on the Salmon fishing?

Well, you were dying to get out there and you made it, just too bad the conditions weren't better.  Good catch for such a nasty day.