Monterey Thursday June 1st halibut search

The halibut search continues. Paul/Nomad and I headed out of MB kayaks towards the hotel to look for halibut around 600. No luck with the halibut but man was there a ton of bait. Paul was marking for what seemed like miles of solid bait off the hotel from 80ft inwards. The largest patch turned out to be squid which we caught a few of and used for live bait. Later the jack smelt showed up boiling at the surface from some unknown predator or for some unknown prey. I caught 5 of these guys and used some for live bait. I got one that was larger than any mackerel or smelt I'd ever seen. Must have been a foot but he managed to jump over my halibut line and tangle himself up and get loose. The sealions were out in force both harassing me and getting their fill of fish. Birds were scattered but constantly diving. About 815 the fog came back with a strong wind that started whitecapping and we decided it might be time to head in. About 10 minutes into our paddle it cleared and the wind died again. The fog has been rolling in and burning off repeatedly the last few days. We spent our last 2 hours moseying on back through some rockfish areas as we couldnt seem to find sand. We caught quite a few which of course we released. Complete lack of swell made for an easy landing and pushoff. No halibut but we know what to do come July 1st.

Aaron,

How deep were you fishing. And did you get any red-cod as bycatch.

Have any pic's to make me jelous

The pics are on a disposable camera but I want to get them developed tomorrow. I did catch one real nice vermillion/red/whatever. We fished from 80ft inwards. I think the shallowest we did was about 60ft. We probably could have worked a little shallower but we turned around from the quick cell that blew over us. The drifts at first were blowing us out to sea so it was a little different than normal because we were starting deep and going shallow.

Hope to head out with you soon. I'll be getting a kayak that I can keep up with you on this Monday!

Good try, guys

With all that squid in the area I would think the halibut and seabass shouldn't be far behind. 
Dave

I look forward to heading down to MB and fishing this summer. Hopefully we can hook up.
See you Monday
Jason

Here's some pics

Paul getting a nice vermillion rocky off his line.


A nice-sized vermillion?


And the squid that snagged itself on my frozen squid's stinger when I trolled through the school.