Shelter Cove - 8/4/22

Jason did a two day trip with me last year.  We got multiple halibut, a nice Chinook, lingcod and rockfish.  This year he came up to do a one day, and it was a different Shelter Cove this time around.  The forecast looked very good, and the day started out living up to the prediction.  It was flat and glassy as we trolled the point to start the day.  All anyone was announcing were voracious black rockfish, and we were having the same experience as the rest of the fleet - it's a good problem to have, all in all.  We built up our stringers a bit with the higher quality models that came up, and the rest were gently released. 

Before long we trolled southwest toward the Whistle, hoping to find a salmon or at least more variety for our rockfish collections.  We fished out past the buoy for a while, and it felt like a day with the right water and a good enough forecast to let us go with the current down onto the top of the Tolo Bank - it only felt that way for so long though.

A soft breeze from the southeast had been present since mid morning, but that's normal for the Cove.  When there's north/NW blowing offshore, the area along shore south and east of Shelter Cove experiences kind of an eddy, with a light south or SE breeze being common, and the current usually reflects that flow as well.

This day felt no different than many other summer days.  We were enjoying a steady bite and finding a few more species when the breeze began to build up.  I heard captain Jarred over the VHF commenting on how the south wind was coming on strong where he was, a few miles to the south.  Meanwhile, whenever we'd hook a fish, I saw that we were drifting hard to the southwest - even against the breeze.  As the wind picked up even more and solid chop showed up, I told Jason we'd better keep our lines up and move to the inside.  Ten minutes later we were in a washing machine, and progress was slow.  Between the wind, the current and the heavy chop, we were only making about a mile an hour paddling steadily to the east toward the beach.  I figured that since there was some SE to the wind, the nearshore would be the best water to paddle on.  The problem would be getting there - especially if things escalated further.

I'd been checking in with Jason - he felt stable and had plenty of energy.  I told him I needed to ask him to paddle hard for the next 30 to 45 minutes so we could get inside the green buoy and hopefully to better water along the beach.  He buckled down and followed my lead as we worked hard for the next 45 minutes to get to safety.  A small commercial dory with a Cove local came by us in the slop at one point when we were almost to the green can - Lane.  He asked if we were good to get in, and I thanked him and told him we're good.  By the time we hit 30' of water near No-Pass the wind was letting up, but the slop made even beach fishing a mess for the next hour and more.  We scratched out one shaker halibut, a perch and missed a few bites, but the conditions weren't pleasant, and we were both pretty torched from the urgent paddling session to get inshore from that fluke, mid-morning, summer south wind storm.

We landed on the ramp in full sun with the usual crowds of locals and tourists doing their thing in and around the water.  As we put our gear on our trucks, you could hardly tell that there had just been a nasty windstorm offshore.  By the time we were done filleting our stack of rockfish, the ocean looked like a normal summer day again, and a group of paddleboarders from out of town SUP'd right out to the moorings in street clothes.  This is how the ocean works sometimes, and you have to be ready for it - or you don't go.

Jason and I finished up our second annual kayak fishing day at the Cove, and even though we'd faced an unexpected challenge with the weather and not found any keepers in the higher profile species, we were thankful for the experience.  A giant sack of rockfish fillets is sometimes the main ingredient in humble pie, it seems.

I'm looking forward to getting back to the Cove soon.

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