Bean Hollow Sun 9/28

Met up with tallpaul shortly after 7, and after surveying vis (400-500' maybe), and Paul with VHF, me with GPS and WAAS tracking 8 satellites just fine, we decided the flat conditions were worth going for.  Took our time launching by around 8, paddled south to ride the north drift over structure, fog was patchy dense but cleared to typical coastal fog by around 10. 

Action came in flurries - Paul was first with a nice ling almost to the boat, but unfortunately it had other plans for the morning and went home.  After picking up a nice 18" black, I was next with the ling, and after a solid 5 minute fight, this one did find its way onto my game clip, 36" and chunky ~20 lbs. 

About 15 minutes later, I had a hookup with what I thought was another ling.  It was taking drag, running and fighting like heck.  But much to my surprise it ended up a rather huge black hooked on my shrimp fly.  It actually bent the hook to an "L shape," then shook the fly but I managed to trap it between my thighs and carefully maneuvered to force it into submission with my heavy bat.  Uh..  Anyway, it was just shy of 23" (if its mouth wasn't stuck open) and 5 lbs.  My biggest black, for sure.

The rest of the day we mostly spent dealing with a rather aggressive, lone bird (cormorant?) that would jump onto our yaks, lunge for, chase, divebomb, and otherwise attack our lures nonstop.  A fair amount of trickery was required to drop our lines without getting involved in a tug-of-war with it.  While no harm came to the bird, we had to physically push and slap it away at times.  It followed us just about everywhere.

Like we had the only bait in the ocean?  Paul thought it might have been a rescued bird, hand fed, spoiled rotten, then released to terrorize yakfishermen.

It was a fun day overall, the fog got better, and there was great company OTW; Paul is cool to fish with, even as his day was mostly C&R and most busy with a grumpy, mean panhandling bird.

WTG Guys,

Those are some huge blacks and good to see that the lings are making a show.  Maybe we'll see a BH butt sometime in the near future.

What's up with the birds.  We had pelicans and seagulls following us recently and now a cormorant?

I was wondering if there was going to be another BH surf contest but I'm sure you guys weren't disappointed to see flat conditions.

Thanks for the report.

Gary

holy crappers, very big blacks!  way to get at em.  ive only fish BH once this year and nothing near your grab bag of quality goodies.  awesome

Craig's definitely got the Bean Mojo!  Great work and fine report and photos.   

Very nice Craig and Paul. The black is more impressive than the ling? 

Thanks for the great read this morning cafecraig. WTG on the ling and
the black fish.

Jedmo

23 INCH BLACK .  NICE LING AS WELL.  FEELIN THE ITCH TO HIT THE BEAN SOON.

That Black, WOW!! We C&R soooooo many blacks this weekend at LK trying to get to the bottom I was not holding them in high regard, but then again, they were all small. Yours is a different fish all together.

I was headed to La Honda to help some friends move and stopped by BH to see if anyone was out....  I almost crapped my pants when I saw Craig struggling at the top of the trail with what looked like 30lbs of fish on his clip... the ling was so fat it made the black look almost normal, but that thing was a BEAST!  Biggest of either I've ever seen.

Ya gotta give props to Craig for a fine stringer Yesterday, he had the Bean dialed in. You might miss the size of that ling because of the blacks along side, but it was a monster...I caught a fourteen pounder there a few weeks back, and Craig's fish was WAY bigger. He broke his net hoisting that fish onto the boat, and I kept trying to divert his attention back to the fact that he just caught a kick ass fish!

On my part, I released half a dozen rockfish and a couple cabbies, and missed my one big fish of the day: A good size ling, probably ten or twelve pounds, three strong runs, felt like he was ON, then came to color vertical, looked at me and my gaff, and ever so sloooooowly opened his mouth, spit the swimbait,  and sank back down into the depths. I wanted to dive after him with my gaff and get him! Worked the rest of the day for another opportunity, but it wasn't to be.

Funny, that cormorant was a psycho bird. I brought up a three pound cabbie, and he dove on that thing and tried to chew on it as I brought it to the boat. Feisty little bastard, totally fearless.

Tight lines!

and then Eric calls me up to tell me what he saw
Craig? did you get those from "your" far north spot you shared with my GPS?
..way to hunt 'em down!

Paul~ I've had that happen to me three time early this season...at least you know IT's still there.
Idon'tTHINKweNEEDtoBEsettingHOOKS...DO WE!? 

thanks for the monday envy shots w/report.

Craig - you are the biggest stringer at BH in this season so far. Is it 1st report from you this season? I have not seen your fishing for a while. Congrats!

that is one chunky 36" ling. wow!

when you say normal coastal fog, you mean the overhead kind, the kind that you can see under?

could you see the shore?

John

Beautiful quality of fish!

That ling is the same length as the one I got a few weeks ago, but looks much better fed!

That long black sure makes that ling look short.  Nice