Lost Coast - 8/22/24

NCKA bros from way back, Terry and David have been out with me many times over the years.  They're both very experienced fishermen and kayakers who are well tooled and up for any of a number of challenging trips that I might call to propose.  When I saw the right conditions possibly materializing for a Lost Coast fishing run at a remote and usually rough and windy spot, the guys were on-board with only short notice given.

We met at my place at 0630, and David would join me in my truck, as the road isn't very Prius-friendly.  Terry followed behind us in his truck, and the three of us landed south of Cape Mendocino right at low tide.  With no wind and barely any swell, we had our choice of a few different launches.  I made the call to go out of "number one", and we were quickly to work assembling our boats and gear for the day.  The feeling in the air was a pervading sense of joy and celebration - we were staring in the face of what could be an epic morning on the coast!

Once we launched and easily got through the surf zone with abundant exposed rocks and boilers, we saw that the nearshore water was crystal clear - even right after the minus tide.  Soon our first offerings - sent down farther inshore than usual due to the great viz - were getting picked up by a variety of rockfish, and it wasn't long before a lingcod or two came up.

We made our way offshore and chose to explore some new territory since it was so nice out.  Within a couple of hours we were hanging a mile and a half to the west of our trucks, bringing up an impressive inventory of species including blacks, blues, vermillion, greenling, cabezon, copper, canary, grassy, lingcod to 32 inches, and one salmon even showed up - unhooking itself boatside after putting on an awesome display of power and beauty!

The water was calm all morning, with overcast conditions giving way to a little drizzle for a bit, and then varying stages of easy-by-easy lasted into the early afternoon.  A bit of a breeze came up that blew us back toward our usual fishing grounds, and after rounding out our stringers we tore ourselves away from what had been an extremely pleasurable catching session, paddling for the trucks by mid afternoon.

We landed on the high tide beach, gathered up our gear and re-loaded the trucks, got the traditional Stringer Display Photos taken care of, and it was time for the processing of the catch at the Tailgate Fillet Station.

Got Terry's catch all bagged up and on ice, and he hit the road toward 101 South through Honeydew, and David and I stayed for a late fillet session where the weather just got nicer into the evening.
 
My heartfelt thanks to my guests for the day - what an adventure it was!   

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Thanks for the fish porns Eric 

Thank you Eric for an epic enjoyable day on the water.  Your experience and advice on navigating through the low tide launch and the the high tide landing were extremely valuable.  Anyone that is interested in fishing this area should contact you and have you guide them on a lifetime experience.

Overall the fishing was great.  I caught plenty of spieces:  blacks, blues, canaries, verms,  lings and a cab.

Awesone trip guys. Thanks for sharing your experience.

You guys are really living! Thanks for the post!

Nice stringers, boys!

Absolutely incredible. Great pics!! 👏👏

Fine work, gentlemen!

EpicTosches simply stunning trip with incredible pictures awesome guys WTFGS