Kayak Fishing Adventures on Big Water’s Edge

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Word is already out on the Red tide, so we won’t bother to go into that.
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On Wednesday night, the NOAA forecast changed to a 3 foot swell for Thursday diminishing to 2-3 foot for the evening. It wasn’t too bad at the launch. We did get our asses wet as usual, the only real problem being the frequency of the swell at 7-8 seconds, less than that for the waves at the beach that were stacking up. So, we would clear one white water wave, just to be hit by another right away, impossible to not get some water going over the bow of our kayaks. Good thing it’s not the cold of winter.
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We were at the launch, just before 5:00AM, landing at the beach about 8:00PM, dark grey morning light-until-dark grey evening light, 14+ hours on-the-water, at least 10 miles of paddling. As we are way too quickly approaching our mid-50s, currently out of shape, and being only the 2nd trip this year, the other trip being 13 days ago, you might say we pushed the envelope on this kind of endurance trip. It shows, from head-to-toes in most joints and muscles, with sunburn here and there, and numerous sabiki hook and mackerel fin stabbings to the hands. A good friend of ours said, we must really enjoy being on the ocean a whole lot to put ourselves through this kind of physical endurance. Yep, yes indeedy.
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Bait wasn’t too hard to make. Last time it was harder, with mostly Greenback Mackerel, this time it was easier, with mostly Spanish Mackerel. We started the slow troll with a Mackerel on the flyline, and a Mackerel trailing a 2oz. torpedo sinker. We had only 1 hit the entire day on our trolled baits, which occurred when a huge pod of smaller type Dolphin (Porpoises) came streaking through, and all around us, with more young ones than we’d ever seen before. It’s remotely possible, that a young one picked up Aaron’s bait, and ran with it awhile, before Mom/Pop told it to drop it, “We don’t need no stinking baits with lines attached to them”. The marks left on the bait, were not what you’d expect by the teeth of a White Sea Bass, Barracuda, or Bonito, and it wasn’t crushed like a Yellowtail might do.
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It was nice seeing our buddies the Dolphins making a wonderful showing. And while we heard many blowhole noises from some large whale(s), we couldn’t find/see the whale(s) themselves.
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The ocean was relatively flat most of the day, a little swell early on, flatter later on, with some wind waves that kicked up when the wind was peaking. All-in-all a very beautiful day to be on the water, despite the lingering aches and pains. It was well worth it.
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At one point when next to some bull kelp, Aaron dropped down to the bottom with a scrambled egg colored jig, while still fishing his baits. This resulted in our 1st fish of the day, a Johnny Bass, called by some a Yellow Rockfish, among other names. Now, we had one half of a dinner.

We decided with the crappy water to head out to where a ¾ day boat was fishing at the NW corner, hoping to catch some more bottom fish. Every time we’d get within a ½ mile of that damn boat, it would move further out from shore. On our paddle out to this area, the strongest wind of the day occurred right in our faces. It wasn’t much more than 5 knots, not too bad, but we were starting to get a little tired of this chase. Finally, we gave up pursuit of it, when we got on even terms with a couple of Private Boaters that had been fishing near the original spot the Sport boat had been located.
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Julie brought in her 2oz.sinkered bait, still fishing with a flylined Mackerel, while Aaron continued fishing with both of his baits. Then we started dropping our irons to the bottom, her with a blue and white Salas 6X, tipped with a strip of Spanish mackerel, him with the same scrambled egg jig, also tipped with a strip of mackerel. Right away, we both nailed a rockfish, just off the bottom. We kept at it for a while like this, after changing to strips of squid instead, while drifting WSW over different areas. All told we caught 9 good eating fish, with 7 varieties (9, if you want to count the Greenback/Spanish Mackerel), the most varieties we’ve had on a trip. Aaron lost a decent-sized Sand-Dab, when we caught our last fish of the day. Aaron pulled up 13” Sculpin, not wanting to get stuck for the 4th time in his life by this rattlesnake, he tried sliding it onto his fish clip, before unhooking the fish. As he held the open clip over the water to slide the Sculpin onto it, the clip slipped out of his hand into the water, and all 5 fish already on the clip, came off. Only the Sand-Dab was lost, as all 4 of his Rockfish had inflated their bladders, and were quickly retrieved. Really not a bad deal, though, getting a nice Sculpin for a Sand-Dab, a good exchange. Julie had 1st and 2nd place in the jackpot, with a chunky Red probably over 2lbs, and a 15" Sand Bass. Aaron took home the most eats, with 5 to her 3. All told, 2 Red Rockfish, 1 Chucklehead Rockfish, 2 Gopher Rockfish, 1 Yellow Rockfish (or Johnny Bass), 1 nice Sand Bass and 1 Sculpin.

Last night, as late as it was, Aaron quickly filleted and cooked up both of the Reds, Tempura style in a wok for our reward on this hard day’s work/fun. Posted is a pick of the remaining fish we caught, photographed and filleted the following day (Friday), good enough for 2 more meals.

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We sure hope we get some warmer water, and the Red tide vanishes before our next trip in 2 to 4 weeks. It’d be nice to put some fresh Yellowtail, WSB or Thresher shark in the freezer, again.