Mola in 'tola 8/29

This is a late report from last Sunday even though I'm already getting ready for the coming weekend, but I wanted to write down some experiences from Capitola on 8/29. Weather was super, water had a small disorderly bump early but settled into pond-like conditions for some of the morning. Easy launch/land by the wharf and on the water just before first light. Tons of anchovies around. Not as many boats as usual for a weekend. Headed to SC3 area with a rest stop around the mile buoy, where I got 3 kingfish in about 5 minutes and put them in the bucket for ling baits.

Things weren't as successful as they have been this summer at my non-secret spot near SC3. The immediate area of my gps point was loaded with small rockfish that were making it hard to get better ones when I used shrimp flies and squid, and I never got a lingcod to stick on any of the kingfish/trap rig offerings. One had tell-tale tooth slashes through it at one point, but no hookup.

There was what I believe was a squid boat working right around there, and I wondered if maybe it had dragged gear right through the spot and scattered everything a little. Managed to work through the babies over the course of the morning for nine take-home rockfish (mostly blues and gophers with a couple of browns), some of which were on the small side of what I'm willing to keep.

At one point, it sounded like there were waves breaking closer to the buoy. It was a group of dolphins swimming close together and creating a pretty significant disturbance at the surface. They were cruising around the area like this, coming and going. I figure they were chasing and/or corralling bait in some way, which was thick enough to set off my shallow water alarm a couple of times.

There were also tons of jellyfish around, and some of them were pretty colorful and cool looking. Not sure if it was there for the jellyfish buffet, but there was some variety of mola fish in the water out by SC3. I saw it when I came about after drifting over a spot that I wanted to drift again. It wasn't a super big mola, maybe 2.5 feet long. Its fin was sticking out, which got my attention straight away when it came into view. I rushed toward it to get a better look, and the mola rushed away from me (to the extent that a mola can rush) and headed deeper and out of sight. I got a nice look at it, particularly the weird mola face, and was super pleased to see a rare fish like that.

It was a very nice day to be out. Fishing was busy and produced some tasty filets even though I got flack from my kiddo later about not bringing home any lings. Seeing things like the jellies, dolphins, and mola keeps me happy through the work week until the next episode.

Nicely written report. Sound like a relaxing sunday otw! Get em this weekend!

Sounds like fun. See you OTW…

Great title, and report!