Fort Ross adventure on Saturday

Met with my buddies John, Ron and Mackie at Fort Ross.

Launched on calm seas (no wind) but with big swells. As the day progressed in fact the swells looked really ominous. We felt like we were riding up and down mountains of water. We were about 1 mile out from the north point of the coveWe sank our regular rock-cod rigs with some early bites: a couple of greenlings which we threw back.
John fighting a red.
We then tried deeper water (~200 ft). We only had rare bites there but after a while things started happening for John. A beautiful vermillion bent his rod over. What a beautiful fish! He caught it on a butterfly jig.

I switched to a squid like lure and also got a bite. A small vermillion! My first! I never caught a vermillion before so I was pretty happy.
Alain (fish'n'dive)
My catch
Ron came over and caught a shark (he said it was a blue shark) he threw it back.
After that we did not catch much at all, China and Gopher and that was it but the scenery was so beautiful it was worth it. For me it was the first productive fishing outing since I have done more fishing than spearfishing. I could never get vermillions free-diving, they are a little too deep for me.
Ron and Mackie
Ron had brought his hoops and he actually got 2 legal dungies! Way to go Ron! We should have brought our hoops.
Alain (fish'n'dive)

Cool pics. 

Thanks for sharing.

Nice report, and nice pics.  In need to hit it a time or two before it closes.

We then tried deeper water (~200 ft).

FYI-its not legal to fish over 120 ft for rockies.  Based on your pics though, I doubt it was really that deep. 

Where was the launch point ( name of the beach)? Is it easy to launch? Thanks for the beautiful pics.

Thanks Scawfish....I did not know about the specific depth range, can you point me to the reg itself?
Thanks.
Eyeatbay, the launch is at the cove all the way down the dirt road from the main Fort Ross parking lot.
On this picture, it's all the way down to the right.
http://www.californiacoastline.org/cgi-bin/image.cgi?image=12379&mode=sequential&flags=0&year=2002

Alain (fish'n'dive)

http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mrd/mapregs3.html
These are the regs for the sonoma coast region.  I highly reccomend that you study them because the law enforcement personel will check you carefully.  I even laminated some of the rockfish ID sheets and carry them with me to cover my ass. 

Thanks Travis.
Alain