Humboldt odyssey, reports from last week

I did some fishing in Humboldt county last week, I'll keep my description as brief as I can since I think most of this has been reported on already.
Started out with a setback, came out to load my truck on the morning of July 3rd and discovered that my catalytic converter had been stolen during the night so I spent the morning at the muffler shop instead of on the road as I would have preferred. Got on the road at mid day and headed for shelter cove. The campground there was a pretty wild spot on the night of the 3rd, but we heard the next morning that some people had been evicted, 1 or 2 may have been arrested, and things were more pleasant after that. The illegal fireworks show was absolutely amazing. Fishing conditions were excellent. I fished on the 4th and the 5th, met Sin Coast and AbKing on the 4th and unexpectedly met Domenic on the 5th. I caught a big red, a hefty cab, a mini ling and many blacks including some large ones on the 4th (kept the cab and the red) and another nice red (weighed at 6 1/2 lbs by the DFG surveyor) and a bunch of blacks on the 5th (kept the red and 3 or 4 medium blacks). It was great fishing with you guys, terrific conditions and plenty of fish, what a weekend. Moved our base of operations to Arcata after that. Took Monday off from fishing, then went to Trinidad on Tuesday morning for a solo mission. Forgot my camera this day so no pictures of the great scenery at Trinidad. Started off slow, but eventually caught some fish, all blacks, smallest was 6", largest was about 17", brought home 6 for dinner. The next two days were spent fishing for halibut in Humboldt bay. Wednesday we rented a boat for Kristin from Humboats and did an 8 1/2 mile loop around Indian island, caught nothing but had a fine time on the water. We rode on the tide for most of the way so the distance was no hardship. Thursday I launched from the public ramp and spent the day in the channel between woodley and Indian islands, and met up with AbKing when he arrived. Did not manage to catch any live bait either day, so used frozen anchovies on a three way rig with a swim bait as the sinker. On thursday I had a bite on the tail of the swim bait that left it torn up and later hooked a fish on the anchovy that I got up to where I could see it and then lost him while trying to net him. Looked like it would have been around 28". Anyhow I was disappointed but had never even hooked a halibut from my yak before so I view it as progress. All in all a very full week, a lot of great fishing and many excellent fish dinners (1. sauteed in butter with lime and cilantro, 2. fried with panko crumbs, 3. baked with lemon, dill, capers and green onions. Leftovers were made into sandwiches one day and into tacos another day). It was great meeting AbKing a second time in a week, I think the abking philosophy is rubbing off one me to some extent. The pictures are from Shelter cove except for the one of Kristin on Humboldt bay.

Nice catches!  Thank you for your "brief" report  and pictures.

Its a holiday u described!!! fishing fishing and some more fishing!!! WTG

And not to mention the beautiful drive up north...

Right on, Mike.  It was good to meet up with you and Kristin again.  Be sure to let me know when you two are headed this way.   

Nice report, glad you managed to overcome the crappy start to the trip with some good fishing!

-beenfishin

Those look like some quality fishes and sounds like quality fishing. Fresh fish, can't beat that.

Nice grade-O-Fish.

It was a pleasure to fish + chill w/you Mike. Definitely look me up next time fish near Monterey.