Humboldt Bay Offshore - 5/18/22

Saw a decent forecast coming - 5 to 10 knots off of Eureka with 5' swells every 10 seconds.  They switched it up and called for 5' every 5 seconds, which would be kind of a mess, but the buoys this morning had 5 @ 10.  I got up late and ended up getting on the water right after the low tide - an extreme minus, at more than 2 feet negative.  Launched at Gil's and saw people clamming as I rounded the corner toward the entrance channel.  As I'm cruising in like 3' of clear water right off the clamming area I see a big Dungeness on the bottom, so I stop and put my paddle down there to lift it out of the water.  Second try I had it - easily legal, but I didn't have a measure and didn't want to leave it on my yak all day.  That was cool! 

So I continue on, and as I'm nearing the end of the clamming area I am right next to the mud flat still, looking down into that unusually clear water for a minus tide, and right in between the Eel Grass I see a halibut swimming along about a foot under the water!  I'm like, "HOLY SHIT!"  Reached back for my net and by the time I brought it out in front of me the hali had bailed.  Beautiful fish - easily 30 inch plus.  OK, this feels like a good sign for my day!

I head for the Jaws knowing that the tide is about to start coming in against me.  It's two miles to the outside from King Salmon, and the super glassy conditions were just starting to get a breeze showing.  Undeterred, I paddled northwest toward the open ocean.  By just after 10AM I was leaving the bay.  The ocean was nice, and a regular stream of boats was heading out.  I'd surmised from the radio talk that the bite wasn't red hot, and the boats were still out in more than 200' of water like last week.  With about 5 hours before high tide, I could paddle offshore to try to get to 200 (it's 3.3 miles out), and once there I could determine how much time I had to fish before getting back - re-entering the bay with the tide coming in is the way it needs to be done.

An hour or so later I was a ways past the Whistle, and when I dropped my weight to the bottom I thought I was in near 200'...  I'd worked my way toward a couple of boats out there, but I couldn't see the fleet - they were way too far out.  So I'm considering what my next move is when the glassy conditions go right to breezy with chop.  OK - time to go back.  I fire up my GPS to mark where I was, and I see that in the time it took me to haul my line in and look at the GPS, I've drifted like 100 yards to the south.  This isn't just the breeze - it's a strong current.  And I wasn't in anywhere close to 200 feet of water - the current had my line.

For the next hour and a half I paddled hard to the north and east, but my line on the GPS just said east.  It was sufficient to get me back to the entrance, and I had plenty in reserve if I'd needed to push it.  Today was a good reminder though of how wide open the ocean is outside of Humboldt Bay.  The currents out there can be brutal and unforgiving, and there's nowhere to bail out and land - just open beach for many miles.

I towed around the same anchovy all morning and into the afternoon.  On the way in I was just about to the Bell Buoy, which is just outside the South Jetty a couple hundred yards, and a couple of the charters were heading in.  One called to the other on the VHF - "watch out for the kayaker near the Bell".  Good looking out, fellas.  They talked me up a bite it turns out!  I was on a pumper after all those miles.  I worked the fish to me quickly, knowing that I was now flying along in the current to the south.  Once I had it to the boat I could see that it was a nice 10 pounder and appeared to be hooked well.  With confidence in my fresh leader and the need to get the job done and get paddling again, I got my salmon in the net, bled it out, put it on my stringer and under burlap, and got going again.  The adrenalin of the moment had me trying another pass right by the Bell where I'd hooked up, but there was nothing doing - it was time to head in.

Made my way up the channel in the 'tractor beam' of the incoming tide, and my day outside the bay was wrapping up.  What great fortune to have found that fish at the end of a hard few hours of paddling.  I grew up fishing outside of Humboldt Bay in my dad's dories, and I've caught lots of salmon paddling out there too.  We call it HBO - Humboldt Bay Offshore.  It's a unique and exhilarating adventure out there for sure.

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Always enjoy ur reports Eric!!!

Gonna try that BBQ’d carcass

Nice one Abs i envy you bigtime Looks like that fish ate some krill

My very first ocean experience I was 8 or 10 years old steering a 16’ boat over glassy HBO mountains

I remember looking back at my uncle(RIP) who was on his knees prepping the salmon gear and pointing at the mountain in front of us asking him how big is that? and then him looking up and saying “Oh, twenty…twenty five feet”

That’s a good day!

Great job! I always hate to see the filleted salmon carcasses thrown away and not eaten in some fashion. Salmon are so hard to come by and tasty. I grew up with my folks steaking any salmon we got and we dealt with the bones, but yet using the entire fish. Whatever wasn't eaten was composted in the garden.

Love the close up Eric!!!