06/03/07 Bean Still Puttin' Out

Met up with Martin, Eric and Craig at around 6AM to a light breeze and some variable swell hitting the jaws at bean.  We all managed to get out and back in without wiping out (mostly).  Most of the fish i caught were in less than 50 ft water, sometimes as shallow as 35 ft.  We all saw plenty of blacks and gophers, a few reds, some lings and the cabbies had a big turn out. 

I fished a 5 oz diamond bar all day and brought home a few black RF, couple coppers, 2 lings (25 &31") and a fat cabbie; my arm hurts but definitely double thumbs up for sure on the Bean.
 

thanks for the report greg, glad you got it good.  I ended up surfing mitchell's cove this morning.
maybe since I'm over here I will do a "quickie" to the bean tomorrow...

J

cabbies had a big turn out. 
 

Uhm.... In addition to his lings and RF, I believe Greg boated 4, count 'em, 4 nice cabbies, all over 18"...  Enough to go around for sure.  After Martin's late cabbie, good thing there was a PB'er nearby to take our smallest.  The rest were probably all 20-24".

Greg was a superstar but Martin and Eric rocked the water also with great catches.

Martin and Greg, thanks for the extra carry/load.  All 3 you guys were super nice to fish with today.

OTOH, I was a skunk today...  Maybe the fish smelled me coming.  Picked up a couple floaters and undersized (teeny) cab & ling.  The drift was too fast for my weights, my jighead hook/swimbait gap was too small resulting in several missed hooksets, my new irons stayed home due to missing OPS hours for siwash hooks yesterday, I snagged 3 times, my GPS batteries ran out early, couldn't find the reefs I had marked - I was a mess.  But I am ready for HMB derby at least - needed the primer, obviously.

Thanks for the charity fish Martin!  At least I have a couple fish dinners lined up for this week.

J, hope you had fun with the breaks today and if you are cool with the winds tomorrow, BH would seem to be a sure thing.  We were hooking up most often NW of the inlet about a mile out.

Gotta shower - too bad I have no tomato juice for it - might still smell like skunk tomorrow even.

oops, I am going to cancel the other post. Follow this thread instead.

We (Greg, CafeCraig, Yakuza, eyeatbay) met prior to 6AM and went out the same time at Bean Hollow around 6AM. Swells were small, however there were big sets rolling in. Fortunately, those big sets were sparse. We paddled out fast between the sets and managed ok.

There was the wind around 7AM. Fortunately, the wind die down quickly, the condition could not be better.

In the early hours, fishing were good. One reason I like BH is the quality of fish. That place holds big lings, cab and reds. Today I kept 2 reds (19", 20"), 2 lings (31") and 1 cab. I released all other RF fish. Greg did best, Wait for them to chime in.

We all came in before 12noon. I got dumped at breakers. Water was at chest high. Not a big deal.

Pictures follow soon.

The condition at BH around noon.

Morning wind waves, not as calm as flat, but managable.

Lings (31") and reds (19")

I saw you guys out there; I was on the Queen of Hearts. We too did well. No reds for me  , but a limit of gophers, china, and B&W. Also got into a "honey hole" of cabs and the boat got one for everyone. Some guys on board got nothing but cabs so it was the switcharoonie all around. Good day, but had to really watch the bite. The fish bit so funny, you could hardly tell the first hit. If you did and you did things right, the second hit was the grabber. Had a fun day and I did wave at all of you. I was the guy in the yellow rain gear in the front. Hope to meet up with you next weekend

Huh, now I know who waved. At one time I stared at your boat. It seems holding ~30 people. It must be crowded - a popular day for fishing. Now I feel kayaks having more advantage - covering more water at your preference plus less elbow edging. 

Yea. we had 32 on board, but only seven in front. We were the ones who got most of the bigger fish and more of them. It was real crowded in the back like you saw. As we call it, " another rental rod day;" which means a lot of "rookies" on board.

I also got an "underling" which me and Jimmy, the deckhand laughed as we saw how short he came up (<1/2").We were going to "stretch" it (fan it's tail out) but it still would have been short. Sent it back to the deep to grow up for next year. Great fight on my lite rod. My sis got a 31" which has been a long time coming. My wife got her share of good sized rockies too.

WHoa, sweet lookin water out there.  The day before was ugly just down the road.  Lots of seals harrasin me and bungle as we tried to get cods to bite.  Looks like the fish were less spooked at the hollow.  Oh, and craig, is that your first skunk in a long time, its a normal occurence, happens to the best of them.  No reason to go bathe in tomato juice.  jtf..

Eyeatbay and 6Mhz were definitely the hot sticks on Sun.  'Bay covered a lot of water, and it paid off big time.  6, well, just look at his stringer - Those cabs were practically lapdancing his diamond bar.  Craig was just being modest.  He hooked up a couple times on some fatties to be sure, but was still shaking off the ring-rust.  Just a headstart for this weekend, he's due so look out!  Great quartet for sunday companions. 

Conditions

I'd been out a few times already this season so I knew I had the conditioning to paddle through a few waves.  But I gotta admit, there were some breakers at 0600 that gave me pause.  Just gotta sack up and go for it.  It helps to have a guy like 6 at your side yelling, "move your ass!  don't let up now!!"  Sure guided me through that washing machine.  Launched/Landed without incident.  Real nice water by the time we landed.

Equipment

When we were hauling my boat up, it was f'ing heavy!  I thought, hmmm, my stringer ain't that big.  Turned out I left my drain plug out and had taken on a ton of water.  6 had noticed that I was sitting kind of low, but I chalked it up to the adventure's draft!   .  Everyone was laughing at the amount of water my boat purged.

The mirage was having trouble in the swells.  Could feel the pedals lose catch when pitching through the high frequency bumps.  Kind of irritating.

Tackle

I'm a big fan of the swimbaits, but the wind was just blowing me to fast to drop much plastic.  Majority of drop time was using 5 oz P-Line hex bar tipped with squid.  (This lure sucks, don't bother.  it actually got rusted on the drive home! real POS)  Also dropped 4 oz dorado megabait (lost), 6 oz glow Sumo jig (lost), and a 10" kalin's jumbo with 8 oz 'head.  Did best on the megabait.  Just prepare for lots of snags.  Pinnacle fishing is definitely not like pothole kelping.  tough to stay verticle due to wind, so i got hung up a lot.

Fish

My big fish was an 8 lb cab.  It had crazy gastric distention, had to see what was in there.  Turns out, it was a whole crab at least 7" across the shell!  Pretty cool.

I can't wait to head out of Bean again.

Some more pics.

WAF ALERT.  For those of you who are going home by way of Hwy 92, stop at Repetto's for fresh cut flowers.  They're having a blowout dads and grads sale.  I scored 2 dozen wine-red roses for only $10!!!  Oldest trick in the book when you want to come home with a limit of cod, yet still see a smile on her face. 

Martin - good pics. WAF alert is sweet. It is convenient next to 92 at hmb.

I was really sad when the cab limit was reduced because bean hollow produces them so reliably.  I've caught 7 keeper cabs in a day there.