7/2 lower mendo coast

Another report from the mendo coast. Peteb & I managed to get out on Thursday. Somewhere near Gualala, not sure exactly - I have a bad habit of not paying very close attention when I'm not driving. All I know is there was a campground and a launch spot!

Beautiful day - overcast skies, minimal swell & wind. Action was fairly slow but consistent. No prize fish but we got some rockies for dinner and both caught nice hefty canaries, that we had to send back down, of course. Actually, the bite was not so slow but light - for the amount of hits we got, we brought in disproportionately few fish. We tried lots of different lures/jigs with the same results and I experimented with some homemades. Anyway, it was a nice long day on the water.

A few pics. Not too many otw as I don't have a waterproof cam yet, so taking pics is a bit of a pain.

peteb otw


where's yer kayak?


don't laugh - the fish loved it


big black


3 I kept


pete's haul in the right basin


pete's fillet skills are photo-worthy

peteB is definitely the master fillet person. I have watched him fillet his stringer of
fish at Shelter Cove. He made it looked so easy. I would be wasting meat if I had
done it fast like he did. Congrats Aaron on the blackies. They are pretty big.
Thanks for the report and pictures.

Jedmo

Nice catches.  Thanks for the report and pictures Aaron.

Way to get out on a quality hookup, Guys. 

You're cool, Aaron, but PeteB is actually one of my heroes.   

Nice haul of rockies and interesting jig.  What is the green material?

Nice haul of rockies and interesting jig.  What is the green material?

It's a 2 oz lead ball with a little glow squid glued to the bottom. The green stuff is rubber (probably silicone) from a toy I found at Walgreen's. It was a stringy ball thing - I took it apart & it was just strips of these skirts.

too cool!!  WTHookEm!  nice pics!!

Great report! Was that fish cleaning station in the campground? Looks like A cool area.

Nice catch guys! Those China's sure are tasty but I like to steam them whole because they usually have such small fillets.


-Eliot

Thanks for the report Aaron!
Things I garnered from this report:
-maybe I should check out new spots instead of just thinking about them. If that cleaning sink and trees are in the campground... I need to go there.
-ugly homemade lures also get rockie love.
- I have the waterproof cam and need to take more pics.
- I got to try steaming a rockie. It sounds good.

Thanks, guys. Can't wait to fish with you all again, or for first time as the case may be.

Pete has some Japanese friends who are renting a house up the coast & they cooked the fish 3 different ways - it was awesome. The cleaning station was also there.

A fine outing which we should do again with a bigger group.  Did you mention the people who pulled up in a Zodiac and said they just caught a 30-lb salmon on a shrimp jig?! Whoa.  (Released to attempt to spawn in a culvert somewhere...)

I thought I could fillet until I saw Ariel take that huge Pacific hali at SCIII and turn it into four massive snow-white slabs and a pile of little bones.  The four fillets weighed more than the original fish!  Now that's something.