Elkhorn Slough/moss landing

  I decided to check out Elkhorn Slough based on some reviews here and landed a bat ray....... wait.. wait.. BAT RAY, that's better. I couldn't lift him out of the water but my best measurement was 49"-50" across the wings. Of course as life goes I hooked him on my bass rod with 20# test. Took me an hour just to get him to break the surface.

   I hooked a few more but they all broke my line before I got them in. Some shore based anglers had a pair of nice leopards next to the bridge.

DANG!!

What a beast!!

Nice job and thanks for sharing!!

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Hell yeah mud marlin!!!

Nice Ray

  I'm sure you know this but most of the Slough (up in the slough past the bridge) is a 'No Fishing Zone' all the way to Kirby Park.  As long as you on on the ocean side of the Hwy 1 bridge, you're good to go for fishing.

Pretty sure you can fish about two hundred yards into the slough from the bridge. Looks like where the pic was taken to me.,

Pretty sure you can fish about two hundred yards into the slough from the bridge. Looks like where the pic was taken to me.,

Yeah, it's something like that ... without a GPS it's a little harder to "pinpoint" the exact boundary.

Damn what a beast! Next time make like FM1 and club it on the head and throw it on the grill with some ketchup

BTW ... they are mighty tasty!

   The key to cooking a good one involves these PROVEN steps and you MUST follow them exactly:

1)  Catch & Land it
2)  Whack it over the head ... several times.  Don't worry ..  the grunting noise it makes is normal.
3)  Fillet the 'wings' & cut into 'scallops'.  The key to this lies in the rusty knife & using the dirty parking lot blacktop as a cutting board (we prefer somewhere within the high tide zone'.  No need to rinse them off.  The high tide washes away all the bad stuff from the parking lot 2x a day.
4)  Fire up little charcoal bbq & place the scalops on the grill.
5)  Season with McDonalds ketchup packets to taste & enjoy!

   Thats how you do it A-Hull style.

 

Pretty sure you can fish about two hundred yards into the slough from the bridge. Looks like where the pic was taken to me.,

Yeah, it's something like that ... without a GPS it's a little harder to "pinpoint" the exact boundary.

   I actually talked to some guys that were volunteering for the marine preserve that day, if you go about 1/4-1/3 mile inland from the bridge there are some white buoys marking the beginning of the preserve. I was about 200 yards up from the bridge when I finally landed it (half way to the buoys). There is a post on here with somewhere with a google map with the boundaries laid out on it. The preserve starts at the first major bend.

Hadn't seen the white buoys before but good to know that they added those now.  I'm quite familiar with the area.  Used to fish & bow fish it with my dad back in the day when they hosted 'shark derby' up there.

http://www.dfg.ca.gov/marine/pdfs/mpamaps/elkhornslough_morocojo.pdf

    If you zoom in on it in google earth you can see the center buoy to the right of where the "Elkhorn slough state marine..." pin is dropped. 

BTW ... they are mighty tasty!

   The key to cooking a good one involves these PROVEN steps and you MUST follow them exactly:

1)  Catch & Land it
2)  Whack it over the head ... several times.  Don't worry ..  the grunting noise it makes is normal.
3)  Fillet the 'wings' & cut into 'scallops'.  The key to this lies in the rusty knife & using the dirty parking lot blacktop as a cutting board (we prefer somewhere within the high tide zone'.  No need to rinse them off.  The high tide washes away all the bad stuff from the parking lot 2x a day.
4)  Fire up little charcoal bbq & place the scalops on the grill.
5)  Season with McDonalds ketchup packets to taste & enjoy!

   Thats how you do it A-Hull style.

 

  I'm totally following this recipe till the ketchup

We used what we had at the time!

Nice mud marlin! That's a biggun.


And you can go pretty far inland from the hwy 1 bridge...like a qtr mile, at least.
Here are the MLPA maps: http://www.dfg.ca.gov/marine/mpa/mpa_summary.asp

In the map below, you can't fish in the red zone (Elkhorn Slough SMR) but the blue is ok.

Nice mud marlin! That's a biggun.


And you can go pretty far inland from the hwy 1 bridge...like a qtr mile, at least.
Here are the MLPA maps: http://www.dfg.ca.gov/marine/mpa/mpa_summary.asp

In the map below, you can't fish in the red zone (Elkhorn Slough SMR) but the blue is ok.

   Thanks for posting the map I expect it will help others, There is another thread on here that covers the boundaries fairly well. I did my homework before hand but it was a lot easier when the volunteers (on the dock spotting otters with scopes and raising awareness) pointed out that the border was marked.