I caught nothing today ...

But you all knew that as you were right there with me catching NOTHING.

Here's the play by play.  Allan and I arrive at Bayside at 4:55 and waited for them to open at 5 so we could buy bait (squid and chovies).  Met up with a crew of people in various states of preparation. Lauched with the first wave (Pierre, goldenarrow, and a couple others) and stopped just outside the harbor to make bait.  And man, did we make bait.  Probably put 40-50 chovies in the bait tank in 10 minutes.  Good thing we bought that expensive tray bait.  Headed out to 55' as thats a favorite depth of  mine.   Stopped just short of the buoy and proceeded to hook a couple rockies.  Kingfish galore! The drift was pushing out, against the wind, and we pulled up at 60 feet and ran into 50.  Kingfish galore!  A nice blue and a nice red too.  The drift slowed as the tide was changing and the "bite" slowed with it.  Pulled up and ran into 45'.  Kingfish galore!  Even with the slow bite.  The drift turned and we drifted all the way into 28' just outside the harbor and called it a day.   Did I mention the kingfish?  We used up all the live chovies, a few of the tray bait, and 2 boxes of squid.

Nice to put some faces with some of the names here!

-Allen

Look at the bright side....

IT WAS A 30-WAY TIE FOR 1ST PLACE  

Allen,
Sounds like maybe you should have weighed in with a kingfish or anchovy.... from what I'm hearing even an anchovy could have taken 1st prize!!!!    

--jb

Yeah it was pretty brutal out there. I landed a decent ling and few small rockies. I could not even make bait, not that it seemed to make any difference.

Looks like we get to do it again July 17th!

what a great day of NOTHING!  no butts, no stipers, and no salmon.  but WFO on friends, both new and old.  

like polepole, i also made a few baits right outside the harbor. and those baits managed to get me a few quick hook ups of rockfish. so that was the end of the live bait portion of the program. the rest of the day was drifting frozen tray bait & squid  everywhrere from the 1 mile can to the orange bouy.  i caught mother earth a few times and had a few baits cleanly chomped in half, (where's that stinger treble hook when you need it).  i think the butts were out there, just smart enough to stay unhooked.

the best i could come in with was an embarrasing  couple of  lunker king fish, which i'm relieved were not allowed to be weighed in. where's the sport in that!

i'm looking forward to the another chance at the new kayak that'll be up for grabs at the next tourney next month.
 
see y'all then

pierre

It was rough all around.

I spent the first 2 hours trolling tight in to the beach looking for stripers.  No love on the stripers so I headed out to about 40' deep and proceeded to dropshot for the halis.  No love, and even less love from the fact that I sped out of the house this morning without taking my meds.

I spent the next hour puking every 5 minutes which sucks on a yak as you can't really lean to far over without dumping the yak.

on the plus side, the swell did a pretty good job of working the dropshot while I puked.

All my electrical work seemed fine on the yak (modified FF and bait tank), but I was just too fricking sick.  I felt that I may get so sick that I could not safely paddle back, so I packed it in around 10am.  Took a quick nap at home to get a little better and headed to the weigh in.

No fish, no potluck, but lots of people to talk to.

Let's hope the bite and my health are better next month.

MolBasser

Molbasser, with all the bait that was stacked up next to the harbor, I would have thought  there would have been some stripers hanging around.  It's interesting to note that the bait did not seem to be around when we paddled back in.  I was thinking we could troll around the bait or flyline some chovies looking for a striper, but I guess it was not to be.

jbflyfish17, I'm sure everyone out there thought twice about weighing a kingfish.  I'm glad no one did and caused a controversy.

At least we'll have another shot at it in July!

-Allen

Sorry bout the skunk guys but consider yourselves lucky.  I had to sit in the roasting sun for 4 hours while listening to bad life metaphors and the, "a wise man once said," speaches at the ucsc graduation.  At least I'll get to go to the next one.  

Looks like we get to do it again July 17th!

Is this the official date?

about as official as it gets so far.  That was the "agreed upon" date by those present at the "weigh" in.

I for one, hope that they will be more clear on the entry what is weighable.

I must say that I was quite dissapointed when I brought this up and it was brushed off.  The organizer said it "wasn't my call, it is the call of Shamrock"!!  WTF, who runs this thing?....

Just print on the entry form what is or is not acceptable.  I have half a mind to weigh a batray just to point out how stupid this is, but I don't want to piss people off.

MolBasser

Well, I was gonna say I'm sorry I missed the derby on July 12th...but I'm not really. J/K! I always seem to be out of town for the June Derby when all the heavy hitters attend. I was down in SoCal fishing the islands for WSB & halibut, and I guess the vibe sort of trickled down there too. My first drop got me a legal 28" ling so I thought the day was off to a good start but it slowed from there for only a tough scratch on the rockfish. No halibut or WSB anywhere to be seen. Largest fish to come aboard was an 11 pound whitefish (never seen one that size before). While I'm bummed that ya'll traveled to SC from the far reaches to fish hard por nada I'm totally stoked that I'll get to fish in the "derby redux" in July. Please confirm the date here so the word gets out. I'm in for next month & amped to go out.
-Sean Walker
aka PISCEAN ARTWORKS

June derbies will be much more compeditive, with at least half of us bringing in lings with visions of kayaks swiming in our heads.

I made the mistake of launching out of Davenport.  Got there around 5, and was worried to see the launch all frothy white.  Made it out about 6 without too much problem to about a mile out - where it was relatively calm at easily 10 foot swells.  My fishfinder display was like a heart monitor rythmically zigzagging up and down.  Came in after about 2 hours - I was surfing breakers a quarter mile out, but made it in without spilling.  It was the ugliest I've seen it at Davenport.

Packed up and headed to SC, and decided I'd gotten wet enough so decided to play photog.  It is pretty amazing how calm it is in SC vs. Davenport (and Moss as well it sounds like).  Got bored around 11 after seeing 5 or 6 come in (incl. Allen Bushnell) with nada, so headed home.  Did get some nice pix though...



Click through them, starting with...
http://www.pbase.com/daveswenson/image/44784174

Sorry I didn't get everyone!!

-- Dave