santa cruz 2007/06/30 and a bean hollow note.

paddled from the harbour down and under the capitola wharf and back. how far is that anyways?

I came back with 3 brown rockfish for tacos, but spent a long time screwing around in the kelp watching
freedivers and looking at my fishfinder for signs of life, especially bait, and hoping for a halibut like everybody
else.

the rockfish came late, like 11:30 or so, I got them coming back inside of the fleet drifting the capitola
bouy while trolling my swimbait and shrimpfly combo held to the bottom with a banana weight for the
first one, then cast and retrieve for the other 2 I kept and one I released. The rod erik
made for me  is great because it can be used in so many ways: jigging, trolling,
drifting, it works like it was made for the kayak and is always comfortable and a pleasure to use.

I had some adventures with smelt on the sabiki,  , but I could not get the anchovies to bite.
I watched a couple in a small boat by the wharf get a dozen but they were getting
them one at a time, it was a slow bait pick,  .

my sabiki was tiny hooks, but pretty big beads and 10lb test. the sabiki I usually use has 3lb on the branches
and smaller beads. might make the difference, but I think there just weren't that many 'chovies.

I ran into reelfish (right?) out there today. I came from the harbour and went towards the capitola wharf.
he was coming the other way. Also chatted with another gentlemen for a bit before I rushed off to see if
I could sabiki some anchovies.  hope you guys ran into some fish!

The weather was good down there as usual, the wind was a bit more west than last week so it got in down
there eventually but I fished a long morning.

the catching might not be the best, but the paddling, fishing, etc was great. Early I was listening to my
mp3 player and a pod of dolphins went by real near. that is always fun for me.

My friend Leo went to Bean Hollow and ran out of gear in short order, but not before hooking
and releasing a 16" halibut in shallow by the breaker rock.

J

Hey nice to meet another NCKA yaker out there.

seems like lots of small halibut close to shore, and a decent number of stripers in the area.  Have you ever tried trolling a pencil popper, or some other surface lure?  Dont know if it would work right without the rod action, but if it did, you could cover lots of water relative to surf fishing.  Figured with all your experimenting, you would be the guy to ask!

Eugene