A couple of buddies invited me up to fish out of Newport Beach on Saturday. The launch was easy from inside the harbor. Water temp was 58 in the morning and warmed up to 59 in the afternoon.
We assembled out past the jetty and made bait. My 3/4 oz hot pink Megabait was on fire. I know you can only catch one mack at a time, but they go nuts over that thing. I don't bother with sabikis when I'm kayaking. Mike had his new Stealth Fusion 480 out for the first time, and it was looking sexy.
Anthony and I made the mistake of paddling north to a spot 2.7 miles away assuming the wind would die down (it did not). We fished deep, between 200 and 400 ft. We caught a few small fish but nothing noteworthy.
The wind was blowing us off our spots too quickly, so we decided to head back towards the jetty in case it got any worse. Anthony's Trident 15 and my 13 did fine in the swell and chop. It was slow going though. We could only do 1.5 mph for most of the trip back.
Once we got past the 2 piers, the wind died down a bit, so we decided we could fish a bit more. Anthony headed south to meet up with the other guys, and I went west to fish the shelf drop-off at around 400 ft. I was looking for new species, and my decision paid off. I caught two new ones for the list, stripetail rockfish and Pacific hake.
This was my first time seeing hake, and I actually got 2 of them on the one drop.
I wasn't looking to bring fish home, so that was a successful day for me. I headed back in and caught Anthony and Mike loading up their kayaks to leave. Here's another shot of Mike's new Stealth.
