Shelter Cove - 4/25/26

Steve contacted me a couple of years ago, looking for details on an offshore run for rockfish and lingcod.  Timing and life details didn't quite line up for us to get out then, but this season Steve was determined to make it happen.  Recently he let me know that he was looking to sign up for Gimme Shelter, and he wanted to get a Cove trip in prior to the event.  With the earlier rockfish opening this season (April 1) I've been stoked to get in a few more springtime trips than usual, and being down at the Cove this early in the year brings back really fond memories from when salmon season would open down there on the second Saturday in February - man those were good days, and we didn't know how good we had it, to be trolling for salmon from February to November every year.

Of course, salmon wouldn't be open yet for Steve and I this month, but the Cove is a very special place even without the Blessings of the Chrome.

I got back to Steve last week and told him that forecasted conditions on Saturday the 25th looked very good, so we inked that in as our day.  Even though my guest has lived in Humboldt for many years and fished out of Trinidad on two different kayaks, he hadn't been to the Cove more than just one brief visit, prior to getting into kayak fishing.  When I told him that we will need to start early, Steve decided to get a room at the Oceanfront Inn for the night before our outing.  He'd reacquaint himself with the launch, the landscape and the community down there, get a good night's sleep and be ready for a full one on one day where it looked like the wind and swell would allow us as many hours on the water as we could handle.

I'd asked Steve to text me Friday evening, once he was settled at the Inn.  He did that and told me that he'd seen breaching Humpbacks right out in front of the hotels and close in!  He'd also checked out the launch and told me that he might be spoiled on Trinidad's easy ocean access at Launch Beach and that this would be his first time launching through the surf.  I responded that I think the Cove is easier than Trinidad, unless there's a south swell...  Well, there was a south swell in the forecast - a 2' @ 14 second call that I had been quite dismissive of as I looked through my various pages leading up to our date.  Usually a swell of two feet or less won't come through, and 14 seconds isn't a super long period like 17 to 20, where you watch for a big buildup on nearshore reef, but with a south swell you never know.  Sometimes a 3 @ 17 will end up sending double-overhead breakers in to the launch, and something rare and beefy like a 5 @ 20 could be one of  the roughest days you've ever seen - even through the moorings or out at the Bell pinnacles.  One day, years ago, there was a call like that, and launching was dicey.  Then, out by the Bell, there was an occasional breaker developing on a high pinnacle nearly a mile from launch!  This was on an otherwise flat day, so a long period south swell is nothing to mess with.

Anyway, as is my custom, I ended up stressing a bit on how that 2' @ 14 might be fouling up the launch - why else would my guy describe what he'd seen as a "surf launch"?...  If you've read many of my trip reports over the years, you know that my analysis of and consternation over the forecast leading up to my trips can be a rollercoaster.  The usual story plays out during the summer, with the National Weather Service calling for 15 to 25 knots with gusts to 30 or 35 from the north or NW, a small craft advisory, and Windy.com showing horrific wind speeds bearing down on even the sheltered nearshore area east of launch first thing in the morning.  I end up losing sleep and considering cancelling the trip, and then I show up down there - after seeing fresh fir boughs all over the road up on the ridge above the Cove at 5AM - and it turns out to be not just fishable, but beautiful - often even all day!

What we have here, in Shelter Cove, is an obviously aptly named location!  Looking deeper, with the wild expanses of the Lost Coast surrounding Point Delgada for many miles in all directions, and the sheer land mass of Punta Gorda to the northwest, the unique escarpment that defines the character of Shelter Cove is a kayak fishing paradise, tucked into a small community where even after more than a hundred years of constant fishing, the bounty of the ocean is still readily available to those who seek it.  We are so fortunate, indeed.

So I'm making my way down 101 in the dark yesterday, anticipating how a 2 @ 14 might present a challenge for our launch and landing.  I roll through tribs of the South Fork Eel and over the upper Mattole, and of course there were some fresh fir boughs on the pavement and a drizzly, foggy breeze up on the cap of Paradise Ridge.  The story was coming together much as it always does.  As I passed the big fir tree that's right along the south side of Shelter Cove Road, I said good morning to my Gampa, my Dad, my brother Kevin, uncle Gene and a list of other now-departed relatives and loved ones - as I always do.  I thought about our times together at Shelter Cove, and I used that ritual to focus in on how I'd approach the day if that kinda-long period swell was showing up or the south wind was unexpectedly raspy.  As I pictured my forebears while I said their names in my customary Good Morning, I felt a calm come over me, and the seed of my smile was firmly planted, fertilized with the love and support of my family and watered with the confidence of so many years of beating the path between the lower Eel Valley and Delgada in the pre-dawn hours. 

As I down-geared the truck and made my way down from Telegraph Ridge, I could see the ocean, and my teeth started showing.  And as I turned onto Upper Pacific and gently rolled down the final few hundred meters of my beloved morning commute, my grin bloomed hard when I saw the launch in all its glory - flat calm, no fog on the deck, and the buoys looking close-in and easy.  I was Home.

It's been different down at the Cove, without salmon season.  I get there well after dawn, and I'm the only one there until a couple of beach walkers show up.  Then the tractor starts bringing boats down the hill.  It's nothing like the persistent scenes from so many past years, where eager and dedicated anglers of all stripes would be getting on the water as early as possible, trying to hook a salmon before the fish got pushed down by the sun and the boat activity.  In salmon fishing, you don't have the luxury of launching after breakfast and figuring to just fish until the afternoon - instead, it's a dedication station, where sometimes only the first ones on the water get the bites.

When I'm at the launch alone, setting up the gear for the day, I keep those Salmon Days fresh in my mind, always ready to rekindle that passion and unleash that energy again.  It's coming for us in mid June, and I admit that I'm very excited to enter that reality again, where the most special catch on the coast (for many of us) will once more attain a mystical quality.  Even when you don't catch one, pursuing salmon is just next level compared to other fisheries.  What I'm describing is especially true from a kayak, and if you haven't experienced it or you're solely a powerboat fisher, I'll tell you this:  just being around a wild salmon on the ocean, on a kayak is one of the biggest thrills in life.

Steve showed up early, and I was almost ready to have my breakfast and put my wetsuit on.  He made quick work of setting up his own kit - he's riding a really nice Oldtown e-PDL, and he has all the other vital parts and pieces that qualify him as a well-outfitted offshore kayak angler.  We shared a warm greeting time, having finally met each other in person after corresponding for the past couple of seasons, and soon we were ready to get on the water.  A minor set or two had come in as we prepped to launch, but that 2 @ 14 wouldn't be amounting to any kind of trouble for us.

Before long we were out on the reef, enjoying the usual encounters with the lingcod and rockfish that make up our main targets.  There were multiple areas to the west of us where birds were working hard, and we avoided them like the plague!  For all of my obsessive pursuits of salmon in the past, I am well armed to do my best to avoid them using basic strategies of common sense when they are off limits to anglers.

Steve and I enjoyed a great bite and spent much of our session getting to know each other while also exercising the overarching focus of the trip in the conveyance of information about the Cove, the reef, the buoys, the forecasts, safety, the fleet, VHF channel 68, and, of course, the fishing.  At one point, as we fished a 45' hump between the Bell and Whistle, I saw one of those breaching humpbacks out past the red can.  I alerted Steve, and we both got to see another breach and a couple of big fluke shots!  Even from about a mile away, the whale show was outstanding, and that gift pushed our senses even further into a mode of deep gratitude and contentment for the trip we were on.

We ended up spending 7 hours on the water.  The catching had been excellent, with quality that would've won AOTD at Gimme Shelter in a 35.5 inch lingcod and a 21 inch vermillion, but the length of the fish, it turns out, would matter about as little as the period of that 2 foot swell.  We were there to nourish our hearts while fulfilling an offshore aspiration, and that's exactly what we'd accomplished.

At the end of the day, with Steve's cooler full of the freshest fillets on the planet and the Tailgate Fillet Station still dripping cold salt water, we finalized our transaction and parted ways.  Steve rolled up the hill with a honk, a wave and a smile, and I milked my time at the ramp for all I could get of that end-of-another-great-day-at-the-Cove feeling.  A quick dip in the 55 degree water at the ramp, a fresh set of clothes, and I was ready to roll up the hill too.  The PM part of the commute, hot dinner waiting for me at home, and cleaning gear until just after sunset don't feel like burdens or chores at that point, because all of it - the entire day, as well as the entire focus of my guiding - is an exercise in gratitude.

Thank you for being a part of it.  I'll see you at the Cove.   

That's greek yoag, almonds, macadamians and wild blackberries, just prior to applying a solid coating of granola.  Boom!

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Excellent report!  Well worth the read…

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Excellent report!  Well worth the read…

Thank you, bro.   

Great catching report!  Thats a great place to fish.

Thanks for the great report Eric.  I love that "magical" place and can't wait to be there next month.

Great report. Thank you.

Thanks for the write up. Ahhh man , fresh fish !   

Primo conditions for sure!

Looks like another magical Shelter Cove experience. Excited about GSXX next month!