salmon at Dux 4/24

Jonathan and I hit the water at 6:45 and paddled for two hours, trolling half of it, to get the boats at "the Powerlines", North of the Dux buoy. Long story short, I landed a 32 incher      (we guessed 18 pounds) ((measured end to end)) and lost one at the net. Jonathan  had a biter while mooching but it didn't stick. The landed fish was caught on a pink lady with 220 pulls (yes, I got a little carried away and no, I have no idea what the depth was, using a herring and an FBR.) The second fish was mooching with a chovie. There were about a dozen boats in the area, some got limits and left, others were frustrated and stayed all day. The most exciting thing was when I hooked a down rigger on a PB and thought it was 200 pound salmon. I called on the radio for Jonathan to help me land it, but alas my line broke. I was in complete denial that I was attached to someone's downrigger, until they politely gave back my tackle a couple hours later.  If I can figure out how to post my fish, I will tomorrow.  This was my first Kayak salmon over 19 inches, a historic day!  (Oh, yeah, my wife wants me to post that I got major WAF for bringing her salmon for dinner).

congrats!

what does this mean for salmon movements, etc, catching fish up by Dux already?

Is that normal?

blue, you sticking to your home grounds for a while?

WTG, Gabekap!  Nice score.    

JohnM:  I too have been wondering about the historical trends of where the fish are at what time of year, how big, how deep...etc.  I wonder if an accurate tracking of salmon in the ocean will be achieved in our lifetimes...  Or, here's a good one, how about steelhead?!!   

Sounds like a great trip!  I'll have to figure out where this Dux place is that I keep hearing about - and how many hours or days earlier I'd have to get up!  Last year I snagged a PB that I thought was a half mile away - you really can let a lot of line out trolling.

where did you launch from?

Congrats Gabe.
 I also heard that SteveS also did well at Dux on his friend's PB.

Hmmm... Dux doing better than Moss this early in the season.  Is it normal?

Nice job Gabe.  Glad you and jonathan both had some action.

Stuart

Way to go Gabe! 

good job Gabe. The first is exciting!  I am still waiting for my second

Jason

WHoo Hoo!

we saw you guys out at the towers- two yellow prowlers right?

We ended up getting 4 for 4 to about 19lbs-- with 4 NICE fish farmed at the boat, and 4 more shakers, plus a number of "long distance releases".

all our fish came at 60-80 feet- most on either red croc or a rainbox trout apex.  we found that slowing the troll nearly always resulted in a hook-up. Good amounts of bait, but most fish came in an area with a tiny tiny bait ball

Nice work guys!! Maybe this first batch of fish is passing up Moss or coming straight in from offshore??

I think they are here from offshore- half of our fish were deep red -from krill - that usually tells me offshore. The others were simply plugged with 4-5" herring and/or anchovies.
I'm on WAF management this weekend, but if these fish are still around next weekend...i'm going out

Hey SteveS, I'm sure you saw us because we were the only kayakers out there on Monday. I have a yellow boat, same model as yours (Necky Dolphin). We launched from Bolinas, not the beach side next to the harbour, but the other end of the beach, at the end of the road with the Post Office and the Surf Shop. It's slightly closer to the Towers and the put-in is  much easier. There is a long reef that extends almost a mile out and you have to paddle around it if it's breaking, but if not you can paddle through it (depending on tides and swell). It's a considerable short cut to paddle through it, and its pretty evident if you can make it; either there are intimidating waves or it's close to flat. Its a pretty serious paddle out to the Towers, two hours if the wind is light and the water is flat. I recommend not trolling on the way out, it slows you down a lot and we had no action on the way there or the the way back. The pic on the bottom is Jonathan expressing his feelings towards me after he didn't land a salmon and someone stole his shoes.

What a beautiful fish.  Congrats!!!

We were out there Sunday in our PB(24' homemade epoxy/ply Tolman alaska skiff) and got two salmon. Came in and dove a wreck off Agate Beach and guessing at the surf on the beach inshore of us I think you could launch there. We used to paddle off that beach with paddleboards to dive the wreck in '84-'85. But I'm dating myself. Bit of a hump down a short steep trail but we were younger then. Can't give you directions but just search for 'Agate State Beach' in your search engine. Much shorter paddle than from inside Bolinas as long as the swell is down IMO. Bob