Santa Cruz Friday

Got launched at a civilized 7:30 AM from the harbor, into very calm conditions and clear skies. What a beautiful day.

I paddled out to the mile buoy, and watched a few guys in a PB land a few fish, including a ling they were whooping about and a couple decent rockfish. I spent an hour there for nada but micro rockfish (good ling bait, but no love) I'm thinking they may have been fishing live bait...or do I just suck as a fisherman?

So I paddled over towards the lighthouse and spent a couple hours there for a couple underlings and one I stretched and called a keeper. He was about twenty four and a sixteenth. A rootbeer scampi seemed to be the ticket, but I still had to work hard for my fish. I chatted with Ganoderma out there, who asked me, "are you jigging it, or bouncing the bottom, or casting and retrieving?"

So the answer is all of the above, depending on where you are relative to the kelp. I like to find those tennis court sized openings in the kelp and fan cast around, letting the jig sink and retrieving it deep. But over the smaller holes, I let the wind blow me over the kelp and drop into little pockets and jig vertically.

I think that fishing has been really off thus far, but there are some good signs that things are changing: temps are warming up, there's bait in the water, and the wind stayed calm until afternoon today. Very fishable.

I'm hoping to explore some kelp beds North/West of town soon, around Four Mile, because I think they get less pressure, and kayaks are perfect for getting in there. PM me if interested. May be a bit of a walk with the kayaks, but I have to do a bit of scouting of some of the farm roads up that way for good launch locations. Gotta be some bigger lings out there!

yeah, i've been wanting to try out some of those untapped beaches near Dimeo Ln along HW1. looking at google maps, there's parking along HW1 and a hike down about 1/4 to the beaches. only thing is whether we can cross through the farms... what do you think?

james

I think I'll explore a bit on my mountain bike, and see which of those roads lead to launchable beaches, and how easy the trails are which drop down to the beaches. They are also accessible if we launch from Mitchell's cove, but I'm thinking shorter paddles are very possible. You're thinking of the same area I am, though- and I think it's promising.

Paul

Good fishing with you out there, Paul. Yeah, the conditions were really perfect today. Nice ling you caught, too!

I got skunked, but I didn't mind. I only had an hour or so, and I didn't want to miss out on those paddling conditions. Effortless paddling all the way to West Cliff.

I think we'll see better fishing when more anchovies show up. Should be soon.

thanks for the report paul! any civilized launch with a ling and some underlings is a good
day of fishing and paddling.

J

   As for the area being less pressured, Ive seen as many as 20 harbor seals at a time in the kelp up there and they looked well fed. If a west wind comes up as usual you can catch a nice drift back to the harbor and usually score a few rockfish if you don't mind  wind waves in your lap and almost dumping etc. The area from natural bridges to four mile  becomes a mpa no take out to 200' from shore when the thing goes into effect in August or whenever. There's also gps line involved, so check the dfg web site.There's that  change at Longs where essentially the normal coast ends (depth wise) and the bay begins, somehow thats got to worth something. So far I've not done well  there, tho there are often a number of PB's in the area.Caught my first halibut ( August) from the beach near four mile.