Bodega in the Rain 3/10/11

I get a day off from work and school and my dad and I had a craving for some crab to we decided to make the run out to Bodega Bay. We leave in the morning at 0530 to catch lowtide at 0830 to do a little bit of poke poling. My dad hasn't done this before and wanted to give it a try. We got on the water around 0820 and I briefly explain the concept of poke poling to my dad and he gets his squid, cast it out 10ft off of the

bank, and puts his pole down. Lazy ass old man. I'm looking for some holes and before I get my first bite my dad reels in to check his bait and yells fish on!!! Sure enough I look over and my dad has drawn first blood with a nice rock fish.



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(My dad being camera shy again)

So this method of really just bait fishing worked for my dad so he just kept doing that. I stuck to the rocks looking for some eels. I had some bites here and there but I couldn't stick anything. Figured it was just a bunch of small fish. At the end of the stretch of the rocks I finally hook into a decent eel.



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Got the skunking off for me.

I go back to my tackel bag to size down hooks since I had a lot of bites but only 1 eel. I go from a 2/0 to a size 4 hook, massive jump down. I immediately started catching small 5 inch long rock fish here and there with a small 6 inch eel here and there in the mix. Further along I come across another nice eel.



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Afterwards the rain starts picking up and my dad runs back for cover. I stick around for a bit hoping to get a few more eels. I did manage to loss two more bigger then the ones I caught. Dang though are they strong. As I'm pulling on them I can see their heads poking out but they hold strong onto those rocks with their tails. I ended up losing those two in the game of tug-o-war. It starts getting to wet for me to stay out there so I went back to the car to get my rain gear on.

I get back to the car and we went to the jetti to try for some crab. I go out solo, my dad didn't want to be in the rain. I find my spot on the jetti I like and throw out the crab snares. Talking to fisherman on the way out most only had 2 or 3 keepers over the whole day. Lots of short females, and man oh man were they right. I must have released over a dozen 5 1/2 inch female dungies before I got my first keeper.

As I'm crabbing I see the warden back in the parking lot checking everyone out. Later I saw him talking to some guys at his truck, someone is in trouble. He came out on the jetti later to talk to me and he said he nailed a couple of guys for keeping 51 dungenous crabs all female and all undersized. He definatly isn't having a good day.

Later on my dad comes out and I teach him how to use the snare and he gets a hang of it and ends up getting a few. He only managed one keeper though. Needless to say though he was tired and kinda bored, so he stayed out on the jetti with me for about an hour then went back to the car for a cat nap.

Later on around 1500 I walk out to the end of the jetti for some rock cod action at the slack tide. I start off throwing a texas rigged white grub for nothing. I switch over to a drop shot with some squid. As I'm reeling in my first cast up to make the next cast my line gets heavy and I set the hook! I feel a head shake and I see the fish. Roughly a 26 or 28inch Lingcod is down there on the end of my line, but right when he broke the surface he spat that hook right out at me. DAMN!!! I know its not legal to keep lings right now but its still pretty freaking awesome to catch one. Would have been my first legal one too.

I didn't catch anymore fish (thought that ling might have scared them all off), and I ended the day around 1730 with 8 legal dungies in the cooler and 1 nice sized red crab. I've got a dinner to look forward to 2maro =)

I'll be back for that Ling soon. I can't let him beat me again.

till next time guys
MarkdaShark19



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