Egg Rock 8-6

I've been wanting to dive/fish this place for a couple of years now and today finally did it! As usual with my outings, no fish but lots of adventure. 
I started from Linda Mar at about 7 AM; no sign of Mike so I trolled through bait schools for 1 mackeral (saved for bait). Still no bait so I did some warm-up dives in the bay.
Mike showed about 9 on the water and we headed around the corner and south through the cut; a little wash but no sweat generally.
We stopped half-way to Egg, right below the newly opened Devil's Slide. Mike burned a tank and I freedove; no signs of life.
Moved on to Egg Rock; my first visit. It is really a pretty spot, I expected it to be much more imposing and scary. The cliffs at the base of the slide are really beautiful.
We fished for a while to the tune of one decent china cod (woo-hoo!)

I managed to break my rod on a snag. So much for my philosophy of cheaper=better.

So rodlessness gave me an excuse to do what I really wanted to do, which was of course dive.
The currents were really wild; I anchored on the inside of the rock and as soon as I jumped in I was swept toward shore. Tried diving up against the rock and surrounding pinnacles; what I found was that there is not much reef there. The pinnacles are nearly vertical or even overhung and go straight down to sand 40-50 feet below. It was a bit freaky and my ear medicine had mostly worn off so I didn't hit the bottom there. Instead I swam toward shore and dove the cove and along the cliffs; it's all basically sand with rocks, but no fish. Maybe a few stripers or big mackeral, I'm not sure what they were.
We finally called it a day and started the 3 mile paddle back to LM. The water at the cut was a bit sportier this time. I waited for Mike to catch up so I could tell him we had to go around, but then it seemed to calm down when he arrived. Seemed.
I went through first and got really lucky. The following wave put my bow literally on a bare rock with the boat at a 45 degree angle above it. When it looked like I was going over, the wave filled in and shot me through like a freight train. No need to paddle hard to get through; you don't have a choice.
Mike didn't fare so well. With 2 tanks, fishing and freedive gear aboard his scupper pro, his wave turned him sideways and he got buried. I paddled back half-way through and beached my boat and jumped in to help. Mike had been pinned under the boat and wrapped up in paddle cord or something, but he managed to get unstuck and back to the surface. We swam his almost competely capsized boat to the rocks and pulled it up to drain it. A beautiful but dangerous place to bivouac.



MIke lost an anchor and his fish finder probably went for it's final swim, but otherwise it was just another day at the office for him.

Adventure is right.  I was out of town most of this week and was wondering what was going on our here.  Looks like the fishing hasn't improved much. Great report and pics.  Glad mike is ok and didn't lose too much gear.

Jason

Sounds like you guys ought to be wearing helmets

Where the heck are the salmon? I'm wondering if it'd be worth doing a little scouting offshore from LM or HMB since they're getting a few straight out from SF

looks like it was a great day anyhow

Where the heck are the salmon? I'm wondering if it'd be worth doing a little scouting offshore from LM or HMB since they're getting a few straight out from SF

There were a few pb's trying a few miles offshore from LM in the AM; I don't know if they were catching. There was a lot of bird action in the bay in the afternoon.

I also fished on sunday it was by far the most action this year for me. i got on top of some schools of blacks and could not keep them of my hook.I kept 5 nice ones and one big cab.I released 30 plus fish including one under ling and two nice cabs.I stopped fishing because it got to easy and tried to pick up a halibut on a few diffs. The water was flat and beautiful.

Awesome report!  The rock strata where you guys bailed out is intense.  WTG on surviving!   

I was there later in the afternoon - I had puppy sitting duties this weekend so I was landlocked. I did see a small aluminum boat come in to the surf. They had a few rockfish on board but no salmon. They said the bait was thick but no one was home 

The water temp is 59 that's just to hot for salmon.

59 is warm for salmon but I can't believe how scarce they are. Last year I remember a lot of reports of shakers.  Rich if I am not mistaked you did ok considering it was a tough season.  I hope we are in the down end of a cycle and not in a trend that stays around for a long time. 

Jason

Most adventurous! And they say the wild frontier has been tamed.

59 is warm for salmon

My dive watch showed 61 degrees in the bay, 59 off the slide. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but those temperatures seem normal for this time of year? Didn't stop the salmon other years...
Mikem, good job on the fish. I could have used some today. I think I replaced about 10,000 calories!

In 2004 and 2001 the best resent salmon fishing years that i could remember there was a 3 to 4 week of the water temp was 55 to 57 and it seemed to hold the fish.Last year it was 57 to 60 and i landed around 8 or so.It was hit or Miss because the salmon are just swimming threw.there are many factors like bait,wind,luck.That's just my theory i could be 100% wrong.I started to keep a diary last year to keep data.

Mike, thanks for the temperature history. That's just what I was hoping someone could provide.
So... is it time for a global warming discussion?

Thanks alot Rich for coming back & helping me out of that jam I was in.  I guess I just got over
confident about shooting thru that gap carring all the weight I had on board.  I wish now that I had remembered to stow away my fishfinder and to untie my paddle cord before attempting the shortcut back to LM.  That cut is always trickier and rougher going south to north.  But I still had a good time, and the dive was fun, and the bottom terrain certainly was halibut country with sand and rocks, but nobody was home.

Crazy... I agree on the helmet comment. 

Looks like a sick spot though.