Bodega Bay 4/8/11

Today I decided to take Deni out to Bodega Bay for some eel and some crab. Woke up early to make it in time time for low tide at 0900. We get in the water near the coast guard station at 0930. I set up Deni first with a size 1 octopus

hook tied on with an egg loop knot to help hold on to the squid, just for good measures. I showed her how to poke pole here and she went on her way. I got myself with the same set up and walked over to the rocks and in my first hole I tried I got a nice eel.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Wasn't till later I remembered that it was bad luck to get a fish on your first cast.

Were both walking a long trying to get more eels. We get a few bites here and there, but we can tell the majority of the bites we were getting were just eels that were too small to get the hook in their mouth. We keep going and Deni gets her first monkey faced eel.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Small little guy, but an eel none the less. We keep trying, looking for something a bit bigger.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Even after getting her first eel, because Deni has never done this before she is kinda confused on the concept, but she got the hang of it fast. Not too long she got another eel, and a good sized one too.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Deni went on to get one more eel bigger then this one and after that I sized her down to a size 6 hook and then she went on to catch over a half dozen small 6 inch eels. I myself on the other hand couldn't get anything else besides small bites from eels too small for the size 1 hook. Instead of trying for more eels with Deni I decided to put a white curly tailed grub, texas rigged to try for some rock fish. I tossed it a long the outside edge of the rocks and manage 4 bites and one Brown Rock Fish on it. I got a fish on a lure! that made me pretty happy.

Shortly after that we decided to ditch this area and walk out to the Jetty and get on some crab. We both throw snares for a while and to keep it short and sweet over the next 7 hours we managed 2 legal dungies, 2 legal red crab, 2 legal rock crab, and probably 30 or more short dungies. The short females were in thick today. I had several times where I would pull in the snare with 2 shorties on it. One time I had 3. Damn thing weighed a ton when I was trying to reel it in.

We did walk to the end of the Jetty at the top of high tide around 1500 to try for rock fish. I threw the grub, swimbaits, and did a drop shot with some squid. Deni just kept trying for crab. We tried there for an hour and didn't get a bite from any fish nor did we get any legal crabs so we went back to our crabbing spot.

We called it quits at 1800, and began the long car ride home. Got home and photographed the catch in the sink.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I filleted the eels and my rock fish, battered and fried em up and this is what I got.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

And a great dinner it was. I've got the crab on ice for 2maro night. Love these trips to Bodega. Lots of fun and I get great seafood out of it! Today was an awesome day, Beautiful weather, got to spend the whole day fishing with my girl friend, couldn't ask for more.

Till Next Time Guys
Mark

P.S. Deni Says Hi to everyone!