Stillwater N 8-19

I brought 4 family and friends up to stillwater cove, including my wife, dad, co-worker Jack and friend Alan.  Jack just got a pro-explorer from Sean and after a few river runs was up for a ocean adventure.  We got on the water around 7 and I caught a 26" ling in 2 minutes at the mouth of the cove while waiting for everyone else to catch up - released on the confident assumption I'd catch more.  We fished the offshore reefs for about 3 hours with what I felt was mediocre results for this area - 3.1 lings for me, 1 for Jack and 0.1 for my dad (long.short), and about 50 rockfish between us, mostly gophers and small blues, about 2/3 were released and floaters retained.  Alan caught a huge red and I caught a decent copper, but not the best showing for this area.  Several PBs and a partyboat were about so maybe the pressure has been up lately.

Since this was Jack's first trip I took him shopping for the right gear and helped him set up, including tying several rigs for him with shrimp fly droppers.  I tied the rest of the rigs on my gear at the beach before launching, and stuck with single lead-heads.  Jack literally caught half the fish, demonstrating the  power of adding a dropper, and I nearly monopolized the lingcod with the magic touch of an experienced fisherman.   

At 11 we went in and switched to abalone gear.  I reconoitered and found a very protected area to the south of the cove that was ringed with rocks and kelp, mostly 10-20' deep inside, and told the guys I'd found them a kiddie pool to dive in.  However, once in the water I found the place was TOO protected.  4' fan kelp covered the entire bottom and made finding abalone considerably more challenging.  The vis was good at 10-12' though.  I poked around with my camera and speargun, passing up 14" blues, then checked in and found that the others hadn't even seen an abalone.  So I laid my iron next to one in 16' water and told alan to follow the floatline and pop it.  He tried a couple times and said it had clamped down, so I went back and got it.  I repeated that for Jack in about 14' water, and he also gave up after a few tries so I got that one as well.  I decided we should try a different spot, but everyone else wanted to give up so we started packing.  Jack's anchor was stuck, so I swam down to get it and found it was stuck in a crack with an ab, so I surfaced and asked for his iron, dove back down and got the anchor and ab on the same dive.

On the way in a shorediver told alan he'd gotten his limit off the washrock in the middle of the mouth of the cove, Alan bucked up and got two abs there before returning to the beach.  I need to recon that area to find a better spot before returning with newbies. 

Yo, sweet report, way to put some people on some fish. 

Glad to hear the Pro-E made it out there.  Great report.

Is abbing anywhere in the sanctuary legal? My surf buddy is the head of the DFG, and I told him about abbing once, and he freaked out on me! Told me about $20,000 fines, jail, castration.......
Or, was he saving the abbies for himself?
Feedback?
Thanx

Which sanctuary?  I'm unaware of any at Stillwater Cove (Sonoma County).   The nearest no take reserves are Grestle Cove at Salt Point about 5 miles to the north and Bodega Marine Reserve about 30 miles to the south.

Now Stillwater Cove (Monterey County) is below the Golden Gate Bridge where all abalone harvesting is illegal.  Whether that would lead to $20,000 fines, jail and castration, I'm not willing to find out.

Brian

Right after I posted, I thought, "there's another Stillwater Cove in CA".
I see blacks all the time, and I thought I had missed some sort of ban lifting.

A couple beers short a sixer today..............