Gualala dive report

I met my friend, Tommy, at Gualala today.  We paddled out the lagoon, pulls our yaks over the bar and headed south.  A good day.  I only wanted one ab, but I made it a good one - about 10.25". We ran into a great pile of black rock cod - really some of the biggest I've ever seen.   I needed to stock up, so I shot eight.  One of them was around 7-8lbs.  Nice clean fish.

The best part of the trip was not the diving, however.  The Gualala estuary was blocked, but the recent rains had filled it to capacity, beautiful clear water - and deep.  In the morning when we were paddling out through this incredibly scenic spot, Tommy starts seeing "Vs" in the shallows all along the willow thickets and the sandbar itself.

At first we thought they we otters or something, but after a closer look we realized they were steelhead - and there were literally hundreds of them.  They were in schools and appeared to differentiate by size.  Each school contained maybe 50 - 100 fish and each school grouped by size.  Some schools had 3 - 5 lb fish, others 7 - 10 lb fish, and, finally, schools of 10 -15 pound fish.

They were all running around in the shallows in many times less than 6" of water, so they were real easy to see.  At first we couldn't figure it out, but then we realized that these were all downstream steelhead trapped by the bar, which we found out later has just closed last week.  As we were getting ready to beach at the bar, Tommy yells over to me "dude, you have to see this."  I paddle over and he's sitting next to a 12-15 lb steelhead that's beached itself in like an inch of water.  Once it saw me, it spooked and finned back out again - just a gorgeous fish.  We realized that it was trying to find a way past the bar - amazing.  Tommy and I believe we saw 3 -400 steelhead.

If anyone gets the chance to get up to Gualala before the bar breaks on the river, its super well worth the price of admission.  We were floored.  Wish i could of gotten pics of that.

Also, that's a 10" gauge on that ab.

Dave

Very cool! 

WOW!!    thats an impressive harvest.

Great day, Dave!  Way to go on the 10.  Those blacks are huge.  For what's available to harvest at this time you just pulled one of the nicest hauls on the west coast!   

Nice haul Dave! Those pics make my trigger finger itch....

Man I was stoked seeing one 4lbs steelhead while paddling the estuary at Navarro.  I am blown away by your report, really cool.  I would love to jump in and take some stills and footage of all those fish stacked up in there. Nice ab(very nice) and fish also.

What a great day and great report Dave!  I'm envious!  I haven't been diving since going out with you and John at Caspar.  I sure enjoyed that and would love to go again, anytime, if you'd like my company.

I got the maintenance job at at Van Damme, at least until Labor Day, so will be working weekends, so maybe our schedules won't mesh.  I'm not sure when my two days off per week will be, but maybe we can meet up at Pudding Creek again sometime.  I sure enjoy watching you guys work.    Anything going on at the Dam there these days?

Thanks again for the report.  That's one fine ab and those blacks are huge.  And that's great news about the steelhead.   Gualala is gorgeous.

-Matt

Great report Dave,

It sounds like you had a day to remember. Ab, Blacks, and hundreds of Steelhead.....Wow!

Thanks for the report,


S.

Very cool on the steelies. Nice to hear so many downsteamers, means lots of fish fornicating this winter  Nice ocean haul too.

GREAT haul!!!
Used to fish Gualala steelies a lot. I just hope a furbag doesn't make it's way into the lagoon.

Awesome catch! 

Nice catch, did you use a sling or a gun on those? How far out did you go for those, of the kayak or off the beach for the swim?
Mike

Nice catch, did you use a sling or a gun on those? How far out did you go for those, of the kayak or off the beach for the swim?
Mike

Hey Mike,

I bring a sling as backup, but I generally use one of my guns - more reach.  You would have done OK there with a sling.  We dove off the yaks and it wasn't that far from the shore. Other than that, I'm not going to give out the location over the web.

Send me a PM if you're headed there and I'll go dive with you.