Mendo Coast - 7/4/08

I cashed in a Bunch of WAF and headed out on Friday to fish the Mendo County coast.  Swell was nada and the wind was blowing pretty good but it was completely doable with the drift chute.  Fished from 8:30 to about noon and found some really nice vermillion.

I recently bought a variety of huge soft plastics from a musky shop in Minnesota, as well as the stuff I picked up at Fred Hall this past year and was keen to see how they worked.  The vermillion were pounding them pretty hard. 

Total score:
- 7 jumbo vermillion... all 21 inch range clones.
- 1 jumbo canary... same size as the verms.
- 1 ling about 28 inches.
- Several assorted gophers, china, etc.

Kept three of the big reds... 6 pounds each... and released all the rest.  Seemed the lings were slow to bite, but I was loving the hot school of reds that I got into.  The big canary was really cool looking... would have photographed it but I was concerned about it becoming a floater, so back down it went quickly. 

No pics except the hog trough pic... sorry.  I meant to get a shot with all three of those toads, but spaced it. 

Man... I tell ya... it felt so good to get in the salt again... and kudos to my wife for cutting me loose while she stayed home with our 6 week old and 3 year old.  Glad I picked a good day and had a good bite, because I have a feeling these outings will be rare for me this year.

One of the vermillion became fish tacos tonight... yum yum!

KZ

Strong Work KZ,,,...

 Nice Taco....

NICE!
nothing beats a nice gut feeling when out fishing...
...the tacos look really good at this hour.
d.

Oh yeah!  Solid work.

hey eric, good thing you are out getting "ship shape" before elk.

I'm glad to see you out on a rare and successful outing Erik!

Nice Report Kz! You sure know how to get the old excitement back out. Those  Vermi's looks pretty nice!
can't wait for the Elk,only 28day left

Thanks for the teaser.

That taco's getting me pumped.  Nice fatty red.   

Way to go Eric. Mmmmmmmm...........taco!

CHEERS!

Erik, this year my wife and I left our two offspring alone, wheeled the kayaks down to the harbour and launched.

the rod you made me had the "hot" sabiki on it,  , so I passed it to my wife and she pulled up 5 "jumbo" 'chovies. 

anyways, my point is that I remember those tough days when my youngest was months old, and the oldest was in the 2-3 range. I would not have missed it, but it was not easy for the non-domestically-inclined-manly-fisher-type-men that we are,  .

If you are catching fish like that in the darkest hour of successfully reproducing, you got a happy and bright old age ahead of you!

btw, a "true" fish taco has a corn tortilla, not a flour tortilla (yes you have to eat 12 of them instead of 3!). you have to steam the corn tortillas. but if you like flour tortillas, try the guerrero flour tortillas that come uncooked, you cook them yourself in a pan. heaven!

Verms do seem to like big fish shaped plastics and small squid shaped plastics.

Yes, it must be a corn 'tilla. It's all good though...
Nice reds.

Erik-

Nice score on the fat reds. With Elk about a month away, it's good to get out there and see what's hitting and what's missing.

Freddie

John... I hear ya on the corn tortillas.  My favorite too... but the wife doesn't care for 'em so we go with flour.  Oh well. 

FYI, this wasn't at Elk... I'm only doing that hill once a year.

Nice report.

Outstanding pics.

S.

I hear ya on the corn tortillas.  My favorite too.

I made them once and all I had on hand were flour didn't feel like hitting the store so I used a cornmeal based batter Yummy