Capi....I mean Santa Cruz Sunday 7/24

Got a lot going on and it was mainly the wife lady's desire for halibut filets that got me a fishing pass for Capitola on Sunday with a plan to skip the slog to SC3 and just work the inside. It was almost a total bust. My father-in-law is in the hospital, so I was a bit wishy washy about going and had less motivation than usual. When the alarm went off, I just went back to sleep but was nudged on my way. Got a late start and when I finally got to Capitola, all roads to the wharf/beach were blocked for the wharf-to-wharf race. So I had to "settle" for Santa Cruz harbor, which has become my favorite launch spot but is not a place where I've developed a solid halibut gameplan like in Capitola. So I wound up heading to the reefs past the lighthouse and got an easy rockfish limit along with a nice ling. Tossed back a lot of babies, mostly gophers. Two boxes of frozen squid did the job as usual. Switched back and forth between whole ones on a trap rig and my shrimp fly rig with a white gulp swimming mullet on the bottom hook and strips or whole squid on the top hook. The 24-inch ling took the tiniest little squid I had that I put on the top shrimp fly hook. The big red was 20 inches on the whole squid/trap rig. I even got double blues on that trap rig a couple of times. It brings home the omega 3s.

Weather was super nice with comfortable swell conditions and some clouds to keep the heat at bay. Had a momentary freakout when a mola popped up next to me at one time and had a thresher jump and land with a nice splash about 50 yards away in the middle of the morning. No whales or birds. When rockfishing, I work my GPS points hard rather than drifting a lot, and in Santa Cruz as in Capitola, I'm frequently surprised to have some very nonsecret fishing real estate practically to myself even with skiff renters and whatnot all around. Must be my glowing personality.

Great report!  Nice fish too!  I really haven't explored that area much, but will do so next time I'm out there.  I'm surprised that all those swimmers didn't get harassed by the landlord 

Nice bag! that’s should make for many great meals. Sorry to hear about your family situation. I hope they have a speedy recovery, and you can get plenty of relief from future fishing excursion.

Now that’s a pile o fish!  Nice work 🤙

Nice mix of fishes 

Btw were you the one that made a comment about catching mother earth near the lighthouse by chance?

Nice!

I was east of the mile buoy on my AI on Sunday. It's great to go on wharf-to-wharf day, as they close the roads before all the powerboaters get to the harbor, so it's fairly quiet early, although it does get busy later...

Nice haul.   Thanks for the report and pictures TG.

That’s a nice Verm. Didn’t know they ran that big in SC.

SICK haul!  Nice job!

Good job!

Bushy

Nice mix of fishes 

Btw were you the one that made a comment about catching mother earth near the lighthouse by chance?

Yeah, that was me trying to be funny. Hope you got your rig back

Nice mix of fishes 

Btw were you the one that made a comment about catching mother earth near the lighthouse by chance?

Yeah, that was me trying to be funny. Hope you got your rig back

Haa yeah it was funny was why I remember