Just a brief text conditions report because I know there's interest. I'll get some pix up soon enough.
Unfortunately it blew. The wind limited us by restricting places we could safely launch the skiffs. Generally kayaks can get dropped off in lumpier conditions, while the heavier skiffs need pretty flat water to launch.
We were relegated to Big Boat fishing at San Agustin on Isla Cedros for 15#-20# yellows in 25-30kt wind. To the E, the Morro Redondo area was fishable by yaks/skiffs, but it was cold, and relatively slow w/o current. Around the corner, and up to the N on the lee there was 2 stretches of coast that were fishable on the little boats. Separating these stretches was nasty wind lines that were coming from over the island and ripping out the canyons on the "lee" of the island. To top it off, the wind lines were almost opposed to each other. In the S, the wind bent to the N and in the N, the wind bent to the S. There was almost always some wind against a current that --I think-- really shut down currents.
So with this all in mind, we made the best of what we had. My bass numbers were certainly in the 100's for the trip, with a slow 4-hour period being ~20 bass, and a fast flurry being ~20 bass in a half hour. I spent a lot of time fishing sand patches and got 8 hali's for the trip and only 1 was over 22". It jumped out of my boat after being very cooperative with some pix. I took home 3 yellows, and had a couple releases. I got 1 sheep for the trip and a few scorpionfish.
Bigfish for the trip was a 38# 'but with a couple yellows right behind at 35#.
Compare/contrast:
Water temps were down 4-7F generally, and near 10F down from last year. We got various reports from other boats snooping around and it wasn't good. Excel tried Chester and found 4-5' windswell, dirty cold water and NFF. We took off Thursday eve to look at Benitos for a few hours. It was 55FFD! I stuck my hand in the baitwell and said no thank you. On the way home we stopped at San Martin and that was nice looking. There was clouds of krill out over the pinnacles and lots of birds in clean blueish water.
There was y/t popping around on the lee of Cedros and they were the bigger models, but the water was cold and they were not in full feed mode...yet.
It was another adventure and certainly worth my while. My only complaints are with the weather, but again, sometimes you pick a date, sometimes the date picks you. We just had a week of gale, and hid the best we could.
Z