Bean Hollow Sat 8/26

Thanks to Eugene (Paddlefish) for getting the ball rolling and letting us know that we would have company for today's adventures.

Cast of Characters: Eugene and his Dad on a tandem, Ark, Henry (dolphin) and myself.  GTO19 and a friend showed up later in the day.  Nice meeting the new and old guys.  We'll have to do this again.

Conditions: waves were breaking in 4 to 5 boomers and then there was a good lull (about 30 Secs) before the next wave set came in.  Off shore the water was choppy with a decent swell to make things interesting.  Coming in GTO19 and his friend landed on the beach directly in front of the parking lot because the waves didn't break at all in that part of the cove.  The rest of us parked further north by the footpath from the highway so we wanted to  land as close as possible to minimize the loading effort.  All yaks made it in safely although Eugene and his Dad had a little spill just as they jumped off their yak.

There was no fog or drizzle. The sun came out at about 11:00 but it never got too hot or too cold.  The wind did pick up at lunch though.  This created a fast drift at the end of the day.

Fishing: it wasn't nearly as good as it was last Sunday.  I suspect with us rookies there will be lower fish counts because we're not fine tuned fishing machines yet.  We were also hoping that someone would show up with a GPS with the coordinates.  I tried to remember which spots were good from last week but the area all looked the same to me.  I saw that Eugene and his Dad had a good number of rockies.  Ark caught a rockfish and a legal Ling.  Henry caught a few rockfish.  I caught a ling, cabbie and lots of rockies (only took 3 home).  We all threw back a number of underlings and a bunch of small rockies.

Everybody was using different bait/lures; shrimp flies w/squid, soft plastics, .  I was using a Bill custom poured swim bait donated to me by JTF (Thanks John) until the tail got chewed off.  I kept using store purchased swim baits and was pleased with the action I got.

Good luck to the folks going there on Sunday.  The fish are still there, we find the big ones today. 

Gary

It was a great outing and got to meet some really cool people. Thanks Gary for helping everyone with their yaks and with their landings.
We drifted quite far to find the fish. Fished areas with craggy bottoms and found some gophers, chinas and even blues. Most fish were small except a few. I caught and released a lot of small rockfish but kept a ling in the end.
The ling bit a whole squid that I was fishing using a double hooked sliding sinker rig.
The water could've been a bit smoother though it wasn't unpleasant. Nothing like the glassy pictures from last weekends outing on the board.
Lots of fun and slept like a log afterward.

sounds like you guys had a great outting regardless.  I myself was playing tour guide in the city all day yesterday.  So Ahmer, what do ya think of your new hobbie, addicting isn't it???  Your welcome for the swimbait Gary, that color I gave you is good for overcast days and cabbies.  With swimbaits I always try to match the color of the prey that the fish eat in the area I'm going after....  JTF..

Nice report. Do you have some pictures to share? I will do a Sunday report soon, so you know how we did.

sounds like you guys had a great outting regardless.  I myself was playing tour guide in the city all day yesterday.  So Ahmer, what do ya think of your new hobbie, addicting isn't it???  Your welcome for the swimbait Gary, that color I gave you is good for overcast days and cabbies.  With swimbaits I always try to match the color of the prey that the fish eat in the area I'm going after....  JTF..

Hi JTF. Kayakfishing is great and a lot of fun but the preparation both before and after being on the water is a biatch. Which is why I can only do it once a week. 
I actually have a fishndive though I might get a Marauder in the months to come.

Hi JTF. Kayakfishing is great and a lot of fun but the preparation both before and after being on the water is a biatch. Which is why I can only do it once a week. 

For sure, kayak fishing isn't for the faint of heart. There's a ton of work to do and that's even before you get out on the ocean. Put in some ocean conditions and you have the making for a serious day of exercise. Definitely no huge beer belly kayak fishermen. Or not for long .But when you get home and have a full stringer you feel pretty damn good! Plus all your friends think you're burly for fishing out of such a little boat. 

me and my buddy(1CRZYINDIAN) luanched into crazy ass waves around 9 am,barely made it.fishing was slow for me.caught about 30 little guys(kept 3 for a great dinner).james did very well for his first time out doing beach luanch and all.he nailed  one of the biggest reds ive seen around here and came out with a sweet stringer.drift was very fast which sucked.we met the others,great to meet you guys.we landed on the south side and it got a little crazy as we almost nailed the cliff.ive never seen james eyes get so big and glassy as he seen the wave behind catching up to us.but we made it in safely

also had a encounter of somthing that scared the you know what out of us.ill try to post the pic when i learn how .i shit my pants and i think james did to

Sorry, no pics to share...no one brought a camera.  Speaking for myself, I've brought the family camera on all my yak fishing adventures except when I've had to deal with the surf.  After listening to the wave/swell reports I wasn't sure if I was going to stick the landing on Sat.  Looking at today's pics from the Sunday, 4/27 Happy Hollow trip, we didn't have the nice conditions you guys had.  The wave crests would block out boats about 50 yards away when you were in the trench of the swell.  There was a number of 3 to 4 foot wave sets with an occasional 5 foot wave at about 2:00 when we landed.

Newbie mistake: I had caught enough fish to eat and my butt was sore so I decided to head in.  I saw a beach due east and paddled in.  I stuck the landing but when I jumped off, my feet landed in pebbles.  I was so focused on the landing that I didn't realize that the drift took us due north and I landed on Pebble Beach about 3/4 mile north of Bean Hollow.  I launched again without any problems and stuck the landing at Bean Hollow.  So with all this good surf practice I'll probably bring my camera on my next trip out.  This also makes a good excuse for a gps.

On my paddle to Bean Hollow I passed a couple of harbor porpoises heading north.  At first I thought I heard a loud sneeze and then I saw the dorsal fin arcing out the water.  I saw a second one so I knew that it was friendly and not sharky.

JTF, you did a great job picking the swim bait and it got hit a bunch of times.  I had to add a stinger near the tail for a couple of reasons.  The tail was hanging on by a small chunk of plastic and the stinger kept the tail from completely falling off.  The rock fish would get hooked on the stinger but the cabbie and 3 lings I caught took the whole bait and got stuck on the main hook.  Finally a rock fish got a mouthful of plastic because after that the swim bait was tail-less.  I then used a purple and silver swim bait but all I got was rock fish after that.

Yep, it was a great day to be out and we all had fish to bring home.  I think we were smiling mainly because after we landed and were standing there resting, some big boomers hit the shore.  All we could do was laugh nervously and count our blessings...those waves would have crushed us.  John, you could have body surfed those except they would have slammed you into the sand once they hit the beach.

What I meant to say in the last sentence on the original 8/26 post was that "we didn't find the big ones today".  Looks like the Sunday guys found some of the big ones we didn't catch.  That halibut is very impressive.

Gary

Way to ATTACK IT with numbers! Gary,you landed at the wrong beach,then had to re-launch? That must have been a FUN-realization but you handled it like a Vet!Thanks for the report and see ya' somewhere out there!

Gary

Sounds like you guys had a good time.  I noticed last Sunday when the sets came in, they were pretty big.  I wouldn't want to get caught in one of those.  I'm going to try for next Sunday if the swell comes down.

GTO -- what did you see?

John

I'm gonna guess he saw a porpoise and thought is was a shark fin at first.

I remember surfing for the first time in San Diego.  I learned to surf when I was at UC Santa Cruz and when I went south my first time out I saw a dolphin and equated the fin with a shark and freaked temporarily.  Kind of funny in retrospect as the two dorsal fins look pretty different between a shark and a dolphin.

MolBasser

you tell me?

A harmless mola mola is my guess.  Freddie saw one right next to him yesterday at Bean Hollow.

They do get quite big as this one below...

Eric,

As I recall the waters in Bean Hollow were fairly clear so you should have seen the body of this beast.  That's how we were able to be amused by the expressions of the Cabbies as we reeled they up.  However, if I thought it was a shark I don't think I would be sticking my nose over it either.

I have ask why you're still fishing and don't have a club or a paddle in your hand ready to fight this "monster".  I also wonder why James is cruising around with a camera when he should be your wingman and watch your back.  Does he get the GTO if anything happens to you?  LOL  Hopefully you were able to figure out that this was a harmless fish and just wanted it to go away.

Good picture though...

Questions; Did you guys park in the lot?  Was it easy to get your yaks to the beach?  Do they charge to park?  Its not fun to have cars/trucks going by us at 60 mph while we're parked next to the highway.

Gary

Yeah, I guess mola too.

If it was a shark, it was teensy.

MolBasser