Skunky goes to Monterey 6/15-6/18/23

overdue report

tl;dr
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Had a free 3 day weekend, wife busy, time to head to the coast.  Goal, simple, catch squids and halibut in Monterey…that is all, nothing more, nothing less.

Targeted three days of fishing, Friday, Saturday, Sunday

JoeDubC came up and joined me.

Friday, I decided to launch from the Monterey Bay launch.  Lots of work being done in the parking lot, launch was fine - a maze to get out of there, and no fish cleaning station - won't do that again.

Headed out to the red buoy, checking the fish finder all the way out, not seeing much on the finder, not seeing any of the commercial guys out, not even many kayaks and small boats at the red buoy, a bunch of PB's out past the point, but that was too far, especially with no intel on the space.  I started fishing my one and only squid rig…I felt hits occasionally, but not able to land anything, Joe was having modest success.  Heard a radio call from Johnny Ab on the radio…ok this must be it, pedaled over, did our say howdies,  and, this is not exactly how it went…but this is how I perceived it.  I'd drop my line, feel nothing, reel up a bit, jig it, feel nothing etc.  Johny, his buddy on the PB, Joe, they were all giggling like school kids, just catching boat loads of squid.  Me…0 goose egg, nada, nothing,  them…I think they were dumping squid overboard they had caught so many.  Like I said, My impression….may be *slightly* off…but accurate.

After about 100 limits of CnR Johnny and his buddy had to go to work, they called me over gave me some squids for fishing and eating (generous) and then Johnny asks what in my kill bag…I'm thinking, probably a  dead skunk…but I blurt out, just some ice and bait, he quickly tosses in a nice Cabezon he caught…thanks buddy.

You know, I was frustrated with my (poor) fishing skills, but I was loving the day.  Weather, wind and waves were perfect, nice overcast morning that I so appreciate coming from the blue sky sunny heat of the valley.

After a while, Joes boat is about to capsize with so many squid and Mable.   So he's like, "Hey, lets' catch Halibut with all these squid we've been catching….errrr….I mean, I've been catching, and before the Coasties come over and tell me I'm not seaworthy with all this squid on board…meanwhile, he's popping some squid sashimi in his mouth, and playing squid fetch with Mable.

I tell him I'm (atypically) dedicated to squid and stay behind. An hour or so later, he calls me on the radio, one Hali in the kill bag…I'd better hurry over…I'm still stuck at 0, goose egg, skunky for squid. 

I finally start pedaling over, realizing I'm now so frustrated….I'm just no good.
I occasionally drop a sabiki on the peddle over - nothing. I get to the hotel area just in time for the skunks to do back strokes across the ocean.

End of day, 0 fishies, 0 squids.

I cooked Johnny's Cabbie with some butter and served with grilled peppers and ricearoni - delicious - thanks, Johnny!


Saturday, thought I'd try CG pier launch, straight out access to the bay, parking lot jammed with divers, no fish cleaning station - headed over to MBK and shore launched.  I'll stick with MBK going forward.

Launched from MBK, straight to the halibut sands. I caught zero Halibut, crossed paths with a fellow who immediately caught a 40 incher, within seconds of when my bait passed….awesome fish, so cool to see him catch and land.  He was using a big smelt he'd sabiki'd up.

I started fishing the sabiki, caught a rocky of course - freed him.  Caught a few smelts, and began fishing them.

I ended up catching two RF and keeping one…though I'm not sure why I did, after that I was limited to 1 pole, so I could not fish for bait and Halibut at same time.  Not that it mattered in the end.  I think I just needed re-assurance that I could actually catch a fish, and lunch too.

Sunday Morning, the wind came up early, and I packed up and headed home.  It was a fun weekend, though still frustrated to skunk for my target species. 

Things I need to change, 1. get a stiffer rod, 2. get a new squid jig from FW - I think my (Amazon) jig may have some issues - possibly not sharp enough?

Thanks for making your skunk so entertaining. You'll get that hali next time.

Thanks for the Halibut scouting report and pictures Brian.

Great report!  A good skunk trip makes one appreciate the good days all the more… 🤙

Some guys have all the luck and some times a dog gets thrown a bone, but a fun skunk report is still a good report in my book. Thanks for sharing! 

... I get to the hotel area just in time for the skunks to do back strokes across the ocean ...

I'm going to have a hard time getting that image out of my head...

Thanks for the entertaining report!

In reality I only got 5 squid that day. It was really slow. But I did get a triple on 1 drop and perhaps the view of 3 squids playing “water sports” with me gave Brian the impression that I was showered with squid. Also that nice blue rockfish equals no skunk. I think sometimes we take rockfish for granted but we should be grateful for the fishery.

Great report!  A good skunk trip makes one appreciate the good days all the more… 🤙

You must be skunking a lot cuz your good day added up to a big sumpin' sumpin'...

It was a fun read, thanks for sharing!

Fun report.

I've never landed a single squid yet w/my amazon-purchased squid jigs.

I was chatting w/one of the MBK guys and he said he personally still uses sabikis, he just loses too many w/the squid jigs. So I gave that a try recently. Finally got my first two squid! I didn't parlay them into fish, but I was thrilled anyway, after so many trips trying.

That said, after those first two, I realized why squid jigs are so popular. I started pulling up every damn thing in the sea...  jacksmelt, mackrel, sand dabs, and just loads of gobies, baby rockfish, croakers (I think... tiny things - just a couple inches long). Gave up on squid and started using some of these for bait for halibut.

I managed to two hali close to the boat (using jacksmelt/mackrel for bait) but lost both. Still have yet to catch a single halibut while kayaking but hopefully it'll come lol.

I only recently started using sabikis in that area and while I really appreciate the ease of catching smelt, I swear at least the last couple times I went they are all monsters in that area. Like I get the whole "bigger bait bigger fish" concept, but all these jacksmelt are so big I feel like they're too big for targetting anything but ling haha.

after that I was limited to 1 pole