You guys went south...

I went north!  With the amazing forecast for Saturday I knew I would be driving somewhere to go rockfishing.  I had agreed to take someone striper fishing the Friday night, so I couldn't leave the night before.  I soon realized that making the 5-6 hour drive to Limekiln wasn't happening unless I decided to not sleep at all.  

After thinking about it I decided to shoot Abking (Eric) a PM to see if he was going out up north.  I have attempting to fish or dive with Eric for quite a while but the stars had just never aligned.  This time though it was on since Eric and a few of his buddies were already going out.

Although the drive was still pretty long at 3.5 hours, it was doable from Ukiah.  The drive was like memory lane from my years at HSU, but I realized I was starting to lose my memory....I had to ask locals for directions several time along the way.  When I finally got there I could see a few yaks a ways out offshore.  Me and Chris scrambled to get ready as it seemed like forever since we got to go rockfishing.  

As we launched I could see it wasn't quite as glassy as I had hoped.  It was easily doable, but since this was Chris' first offshore trip I was hoping for glass.  As we launched a yak came in to greet us.  Well not really, it turned out one of Erics buddies had already gotten sea-sick from the small but messy seas.

We paddled out to a nice reception from Eric and his friends, one of which was a super-nice, cute, SINGLE woman in a camo Picasso spearsuit.   (If you guys let her stay single you need to have your heads checked!)  After hello's we got to fishing.  1st drop and it was fish on!  We released a few small blacks, gophers, and some giant greenlings hoping we'd hit a school of better fish.  The wait took at least 5 minutes.  Bam! Nice vermillion in the boat...



We fished for the next few hours and continued to catch fish after fish, letting nice but smaller grade fish go, and slowly high-grading our way to a nice limit.  We kept 10 rockfish between the two of us, and left the rest for the future.  I also foul-hooked a 29 inch ling that was a great fight.  Unfortunately Chris also got a little green so I didn't get a lot of pics as I was tending to junior.

Back at the beach we got a few more shots.  Chris with a toad of a vermillion he whacked...



Here's a shot of the ling...



Look at the ridiculous quality of this limit. Dwarfing my fullsize ice chest.  I had never seen such consistently large blacks...



Back on the beach the northern hospitality continued.  We shot the breeze as the super-nice, cute, SINGLE woman in a camo Picasso spearsuit busted out fresh fruit, homemade cookies and BEER       .   After a little food, drink, and more bs we headed home.  Major thanks to Eric's and his crew for sharing their amazing resource with us.  

BTW-if you have any doubts about Abking's screen name...forget about it.

Nice report, Sean.  My fishing partners enjoyed meeting and had a great time hanging out with you and Chris.  

I've got to say this to the board:  if you've been paying attention to his reports at all you probably already know it, but Sean is a great guy!  Aside from the appreciated obvious respect he paid to our resources up here (that we're very protective of), his friendly and accomodating attitude, and his openess with fishing and boating gear and knowledge, he did such a great job with Chris out on the open water--it made me proud!  Special kudos to him because I know he wouldn't have had it any other way, but IF he wasn't being Dad on the water yesterday he would probably be showing off his giant ling photos!!  You could tell he was totally stoked to be getting Chris involved and the opportunity cost of not being able to fully target the area's fish rolled off of him (of course it helped to catch those nice blacks and reds!).  Way to go, Daddio!

 

Abking fishing report for the day:  Caught 10 blues, 8 blacks, 2 lings.  Kept 1 10# lingcod and a black.  Grabbed a nice baloney.  

Eric:

Thanks man, we had a great time.  Chris slept all the way home and late into the am.  Pushing the eXtreme around kicked his poor little booty.  He needs a lighter open water boat!

Wow... Sean... those are some BIG reds.  Props to you and Chris .... but I'm very disappointed that you didn't get any photos of the hot babe in the camo Picasso

Sean..

One again awesome report.  That's a big day for chris and he's probably still tired today (although these young kids bounce back quick)

BTW - Single, pretty, Yak Woman ---- Sign me up!!!

You'll have to see if Eric can get you hooked up with Brandi.  Keep in mind she's no bay area mall twinkie...this is a REAL woman.  You need to be comfortable enough with your scene to be cool if she gets a bigger ab or shows you a better way to fillet that big ling she just shot.  To me that is heaven, which is why I love my wife!

Hey Sean, thanks for the pics and the story. I really want to go up there with you and meet da Abking and get some Abs!. BTW, could this be Ms. Easter you might be refering to? If it is, she's very well known among the freedivers as well as  the shop I baught my Picasso at (STAN'S in Cambel). I'm guessing that she is one of the top five women spearos in the world(if this is the same Brandi). If you would like to see her(once again, IF it's the same Brandi) picture with 3 HUGE abs or some onos, you can go to www.picassousa.com . Her picture pops up randomly(click throughout the site). I beleive she is sponsored by Roger. Or you could look through a couple of HAWAII SKIN DIVER mags(she's in about every other) Anyways, congrates to you, Chris, and Abking on yet another great trip. I very jealous!  -Lee

Is this her?

That is her   She is a total stud-ette!

wow.. she is a cutey

maybe she can make the derby!

yeah, seriously...
kinda reminds me of the Brazilian girl who stole my heart late last summer. Met her out on the east side of the Sierras, and she came up from LA to visit me in Santa Cruz. She said she was way into fishing, so I took her out to search for the halibut. Her second drop she caught a twenty lber.
That got me pretty hard. Meeting a hot girl that likes fishing is rare.