pacifica newbie seeks fish.....

Hi all, new to the whole kayak fishing thing. Live in Pacifica and want to take my yak off linda mar and catch something....literally anything???   Any recommendations for pole length, lures? Any help greatly appreciated. If there is a topic that covers this please link me. Thanks so much, looking forward to meeting some of you and having good fish stories!
                  Erik

Erik,

Try the "search" tool on this forum, or just scroll through the archives.  That's what I did when I joined last year, and I was suprised at the amount of information available.  Now there's year's-worth more to add to it...you can find answers to just about all of your questions if you just browse around.

Welcome to the madness!   

Hello and welcome ec!

These are only my opinions, and this is not an official must-have list. Just things I prefer when kayak fishing. And I am somewhat "thrifty" so you can substitute some of the items I mention for fancier, more-expensive items if that is what you like. And it should be noted that your gear will obviously vary depending on which species you're targetting: you wouldn't use rockfish gear to target salmon and vice versa.

ROD: For rockfish, I prefer a rod between 5.5 and 7.5 feet long. Short rods are great in the kayak, and I have downsized to a 5'10" and a 6' rod. The rod should have some backbone. Thusly, it should be rated for up to 40lb line. My rods are rated for 12-30lb (my light setup) and 15-40lb (heavier setup) line. Although, it is also very popular (and fun) to use lightweight setups for rockfish. I just happen to prefer rods with a fast action because it is often necessary to horse a big ling out of his hidey hole.
For salmon, you'll want something longer and softer. Especially if you plan to mooch (drift) instead of troll.

REEL: You'll want to use a conventional (or casting) reel most of the time. They offer better retrieval ratios and drop down to the bottom faster. However, I do bring along a spinning setup quite often; usually when I plan to fish kelp beds and want to have "fun" with the blues, blacks, olives in the top of the water column. Plus, I've been a spinning guy my whole life so this type of setup is just 'more familiar' to me. Your reel s/b able to handle up to 30lb line, at least. BUT, you don't want to get a reel that’s too heavy, big, or bulky. A nice, light starter reel would be something like the Okuma Convector or the Diawa Firewolf (I'm really pleased with mine and have been using it for 2 years now and its really light).

LINE: You s/b using 15 to 40lb line. There are literally a thousand different kinds of monofilament lines. And hundreds of kinds of braided/super lines. Lots of people have been making the switch to braid. I still use mono on a few of my setups but that’s just because I haven't got around to buying braid for them yet (and I have a huge stockpile of mono in the garage). For mono, I've been using 30lb Berkley Big Game or 25lb Pline CXX. Pline is a great brand but somewhat expensive. For braid, I have been using the Spiderwire Stealth 50lb line. It casts for miles(which I guess doesn't matter as much when fishing from a kayak because you don't need to actually cast too often) and is very sensitive…I can feel each rock, bite, etc. And the braid seems to be less affected by ocean currents because it is usually straight down below my boat whereas big mono might be at a 45 degree angle to the side of my boat. For this reason, the braid is excellent for trolling; it cuts right through the water.

LURES: A very easy rig to start out with is a store-bought "shrimp fly" rig. I will connect this to my main line and use a leadhead instead of a sinker at the bottom. (Make sure you remove one of the shrimp flies because you can only use two hooks when fishing for rockfish.) Tip the shrimp fly with some squid (Seawave brand from Safeway works awesome). The leadhead should vary from 2oz to 6ozs (I even have some 10ozs). On the leadhead, you will attach a curly-tail grub, swimbait, or scampi. This is done by sliding the lure up the hook of the leadhead. The grub, swimbait, or scampi s/b between 4 inches and 8 inches long. 5 inch Fish Traps swimbaits are great. As well as the 6 inch Kalins Magumbo grubs. Scampis are probably my favorite though…they seem to attract lings!
Alternately,  you can substitute a metal jig for the leadhead. Also referred to as spoons. I really like the Megabait jigs, especially when customized with a hoochie skirt and tipped with squid. Some people add a stinger/assist hook to the top of the jig to increase the hookup ratio too. Or replace the standard treble hook with a single hook, like a Siwash style, to decrease snags. 
Another option is to use bait. Frozen squid, sardines, anchovies, smelt, mackrell, octopus, abalone guts, crabs, mussels, clams, etc all work. I use octopus hooks or circle hooks(if the blues/blacks/olives are thick) in size 3/0 to 7/0 depending on what type of bait I'm using. You can also use live bait if its available for purchase. Or if you can catch some using a Sabiki rig. A Sabiki is a set of 4-8 hooks inline and you attach a sinker to the bottom of it. The hooks usually look sort of like flies and have paper or yarn skirts. They are very effective but they are also a mess to deal with because they easily tangle and are nearly impossible to put back into the package once removed.

One other little bit of advice is to keep it simple; you don't need a big tackle box full of gear. You only need a couple lures, hooks, sinkers, and some bait. [I cut up some bait before launching and put it in a ziplock because cutting bait on the water sucks. You should also tie up all your rigs before launching because it often makes me seasick to tie knots on the water.] Well, I guess that’s actually two little bits of advice! Take it or leave it. Kayak fishing is what you make of it…either very simplistic or very involved: its up to you to decide how you want to enjoy the adventure.

Good luck!!
PK

EDIT: I should have prefaced my list with a note that you should also have all of the appropriate safety gear, like a PFD, wetsuit, compass/GPS, VHF, whistle, mirror, signal/flashlight, extra rope, and all the other goodies. A hat and water are good too!

Thanks very much for all the info! Did a search for pacifica and found some general ideas, that plus sin's excellent breakdown of what I should need and I now have the idea....I think   Pick up my yak next week, should be fishing the day after if all goes as planned. Can't wait!
                                                       EC

Ec

I'm a newbie too and I live on top of Hickey Blvd near Lucky's.  This site is great for hookups but let me know if you want to do some kayak surf launches at Linda Mar.  Right now I'm pimping a ok scupper classic that I don't mind getting trash in the surf.

Willie