Monastery Beach 8/16

Blooddbath, Native, RocketMan, SlowMo and TallPaul paddled out together North side of the beach around 7am. Water Calm and the olives hittin right off the back. Good start to a great day on the water. Everyone got their share of rock fish and paddling around before the wind picked up at around 11am.
Check this out, i'm reeling a small black and i have a tag along halibut! The hali comes close enough for me to get a positive identification (legal and really happening), but not close enough for me to gaff him onto the boat. He had taken the tail right off the black. What the heck, I drop the tail-less black back down and the hali comes back for seconds, but this time takes the fish right off the line. Good action today!
Thanks to Native for posting and getting everyone together today, first time i fished with any of these guys. Good times and can't wait to to it again. Everyone was solid out there, no worries.

Cool deal! That is the first I have heard of a hitch hiker hali, pretty cool.

sweet!  just the sight of the hitchhiking hai would have been worth the price of admission.

can't wait to get back there.

Thanks for the report.  I was feeling sorry for myself that chose not to go and conditions looked so good from Santa Cruz. Glad that someone was enjoying it.
   Please post if you go again - I'd like some help on just where the reserve boundaries are and I don't know if my simple gps is capable of keeping me legal.

Yup.... early is best bet. Winds not a problem if we're on the water @
6:15 ... Good to hear report of Halibut being in... Thanks

B.

I got on the water a little late, around 9, because I forgot my license at home and had to drive back to Marina to get it. Then got stuck in the stupid Concorse traffic! I have seen this happen to others but this is the first time I've ever forgot my license (did forget paddles once though). That sucked.
I actually considered just going in to work because it was so late. But, then again, I hardly ever launch before 8 and I always kill it regardless. Especially when rockfishing, launching super-early doesn't really increase your chances, IMO. Although it is generally a good idea (to launch early) if the wind is forecasted to increase in the afternoon.

Launched from the south side of the beach around 9 and paddled straight out to my honey hole. Gave a couple shout-outs on the VHF. Then proceeded to catch a few nice rockies. It was difficult to stay over my reef and had to continually re-position myself. Lucky for me, the wind died around noon and it was the flattest I've ever seen at that spot. The sun even came out.
I would just set up over the reef (marked by a huge school of fish on my FF) and get 3 or 4 drops before re-positioning again. Every drop resulted in a fish and I had to have caught over 30 rockfish including blues, olives, reds, starries, coppers, gophers, canaries, bocaccios. The Kalins 6" Magumbo grub in glow color seemed to get the most fish but the 6" rootbeer Scampi produced the most quality fish. Got one underling of about 23.8 inches on a 4oz leadhead with a big fat sanddab on it. Also caught a huge starry on the same dab. Then I lost a huge fish (probably a big ling) on a different sanddab. It was only on my line for like 20 seconds but, Man, that had my adrenaline going for about 10 minutes! I had visions of huge lings and giant seabass dancing through my head…pushing me to stay out longer than anticipated. All fish were released unharmed (except one floater gopher).

I fished until 1:30, ending the day with a halibut attempt. No dice. But I was pretty stoked to hear the story about the hitchhiking halibut! That is a pretty special event. Hopefully you get em next time! 

The weird thing about the wind was that I saw a bunch of huge whitecaps off Del Monte beach on my way home. Guess I was semi-protected by Pt Lobos there, as opposed to the open ocean which looked very windy from HWY 1.

I saw a bunch of other kayakers out there today. Talked briefly to Steve and Paul as they were heading in. That’s the first time I have ever seen anybody  launch+land in that little cove on the north side of the beach. If the swell were to increase, that could potentially be a very dangerous spot. Plus, its kind of a long way to carry the kayaks+gear. The south side if generally better.

Almost forgot to mention that there was an interesting commercial boat working the canyon about a mile off the beach. Looked like a salmon boat. And I ALMOST rigged up some trolling gear to give it a try…but the rockies were calling my name. Some day I want to launch at Stillwater and troll across the bay for salmon, landing at Monastery (where the other truck will be parked).

PK

Thanks for the report.  I may fish there tomorrow if locations South of Carmel are not good for launching.  That Halibut has to still be hungry if he is around.

Patrick (sin coast), thank you for the detailed report on how the day finished up, your willingness to share and help is really appreciated. I was glad to connect with you on the water and a little sad that you were just settling in as we were leaving. Had to have been a frustrating morning for you getting to the water. Anyway, I could tell you were a lock on that place in just the short time we talked and I would love to have stuck around and fished with you. Everyone else at that point was heading in or on the beach and as it was in addition to a fishing day for me and SlowMo, my wife and daughter had come along to paddle and make a "family day" of it. While we fished they had made a pretty nice paddle south around Point Lobos and back, and Gloria had even then paddled north with Tom (probably talking his ear off), so in a move to preserve the WAF I figured the good move was to head in. Another time for sure! I know you were cursing the concourse traffic, but as we were loading up the cars were heading back to Carmel from a run down the coast and we were treated to rolling car show- pretty cool.
SlowMo and I have plans to fish 2-3 times between now and Wed. before I'm due back to start teaching for the new school year so maybe we can still connect and hopefully some of the others and anyone else. I will post something in the hookups.
Steve