Carmel Bay 5/19

We had a crew of 6 who launched from Monastery Beach this morning.  While it was clear on the Monterey Bay side of Monterey it was foggy on the Carmel Bay side.  The launch was cake and we paddled out to the edge of the kelp and beyond around the reserve being careful to stay outside.  I immediately hooked up with several smallish blues and olives which I released.  I had a few under lings and then we headed to deeper water.  There the production increased with steady fishing but lots of Canaries.  I must have caught and released a limit of Canaries from 6 inches to 13 or so.  Each time I moved to a new location and soon enough I caught another one.  I went from deep water outside Whalers Cove to Near Moss Cove out to deeper water and across to the reefs on the other side still the Canaries where everywhere.  Are we sure they are endangered?  The fish variety was impressive.  We had blues, vermillions, Canaries, Olives, Lings, Starrys, Coppers, Gophers, Greenlings, and maybe a few others.  I ended up keeping six, two Vermillions, one Blue, two Olives and one Greenling. 

The wind basically kicked us off the water about 11:30.  We made radio contact with Pat and Randy but never saw them as they were around the corner at the Pinnacles.  I can't wait to see your report.  Are we fishing on Tuesday?

Here are my photos.

   

 

Nice id on the canaries!  Hope Ark enjoyed his new ride...looks like a good time.

Looks like a good crew.I'll have to hit that spot one of these days for a variety pack 

Such a cute baby canary!  Yep, Carmel is rich in variety.  Sorry we didn't meet up with y'all.  Tuesday isn't looking good on the forecast...........

It was really nice meeting Marmite, Alien, Sackyak and the others. Nice day on the water in the morning with hardly any wind to speak of. Though it seems that during the late afternoon the wind really did pick up since driving back I could see whitecaps on the water everywhere.
Fishing was great. Lots of fish to be caught there. I caught an underling and various rockfish including a fairly large copper. No real bait, just a 5" swimbait...though I had to replace 3 since they were getting torn up by the fish.
Its amazing that the water reaches 300+ feet in Carmel Bay just a few hundred yards from the beach. Perhaps that had something to do with the good variety of fish there.
The Marauder worked pretty well. I did have a slight mishap going out as my leash got stuck and I couldn't paddle to straighten the boat. No biggie. Launched again and I was off. It does seem so much easier to paddle since there was much more drag with the F'nD.

Such a cute baby canary!  Yep, Carmel is rich in variety.  Sorry we didn't meet up with y'all.  Tuesday isn't looking good on the forecast...........

I thought we were looking at a heat wave and that Tuesday would beat the predicted south swell.  Am I missing something?

Saturday was a pretty good day for me and Jeff. We got there around 7:30 and launched into pond-like conditions. Unfortunately neither of us had a VHF so we just paddled out blindly, fishing as we looked for the crew. Didn't catch up with sackyak, ark, alien, and marmite until later. We paddled north toward Carmel Point. Turns out everybody else was around the corner at Pt Lobos. All good though as everyone seemed to have a good time "catching."

I caught around 25-30 rockfish of various species. No lings or cabs though. But it wasn't for lack of trying because I started the day with a 9.5 inch Kalins scampi on a 8oz leadhead. I had a shrimp fly teaser above it and kept hooking smaller rockfish...and got tired of cranking that heavy thing up from 150-200 feet every time a little guy grabbed the fly. I was successful with a 4oz leadhead and 6 inch Kalins Magumbo glow grub. Also scored with a 6 inch fishtrap swimbait. But the most productive lure proved to be a custom made shrimp fly teaser with a 3 inch fishtrap swimbait trailer. The 4oz megabait w/hoochie trailer did pretty good too; and gave me a big fat red. Jeff did best with a 6 inch white scampi on a 4oz leadhead.

That reef we found was really productive for reds, big starries, coppers, and canaries...very cool to find a spot that was 100 ft surrounded by 160-250 ft of water. Side note: I discovered that if I slightly punctured the air bladder, most of the fish made it back down to the bottom without struggling on the surface (I always feel bad about floaters.)
It became difficult to stay on the reef once the wind came up so we called it a day and paddled in around 11:30.

I had a great time guys! Lets do it again. But next time we need to go to lunch afterwards to swap fish stories...maybe go to the Hula Hut in Carmel. Or RG Burgers!

Sorry for the poor quality pics. I was using a disposable waterproof camera that sat in my fishing bag for a couple months! Unfortunately, the viewfinder seemed to be slightly off because the top of most my pics got cropped! Ha! Oh well.

See ya,
PK

Had a great time getting out and catching some quality fish to stock up the freezer! Thanks to sackyack, doing his home work,we avoided the for bidden zone of  Point Lobs. Fish and Game was out doing there job!

Just north of the sanctuary I  and found a nice hole that dropped from 80ft to 200ft and full of fish. My screen on my fish finder was populated with fish markings across the board from 140ft to the bottom of 200ft +. I thought i was having sonar problems because i couldn't believe that there were fish under neath me for over a hundred yard of drifting before i lost them. So i decided I to paddle back and sure   enough i got the same readdigs...Fish on!!! ended up wit a 25" ling, a 15" red and a assortment of other keeper rock cod. Definitely have to go back soon!

Nice to meet you  sincoast and Jeff. Sorry i only could take pics at home so here is a pic of the bunch I caught

OMG, you guys really scored! I'm going hungry trolling for trout--maybe I should be fishing the coast instead! However, NCKA camaraderie in any locale is equally as important as the catch...isn't it? Please agree with me!

Janice aka "Big J"

I'm going hungry trolling for trout--maybe I should be fishing the coast instead!

You've got to try it out Big J. Fishing for rockies is a blast and they're tasty fish.

Z