Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Fall Run AR Salmon

Because of work I haven't been able to so as much salmon fishing as I've wanted to and been pretty lazy on writing reports for the few times I've gone so here it all is in a nut shell. The AR has a good amount of fish moving through it every day. As fishing is some days are better then others. Fish have been a decent mix of silver fish and more seasoned fish. Mostly more on the colored side. Made a couple trips out with Garrett doing the beading thing getting our slay on.

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I tried getting some video's of the action, but I'm having issues with uploading them. Will work on that in the future.

A friend of mine from the Sac State Marching band asked me about salmon fishing when I brought some smoked salmon to share with the band. Told him whenever he and I were free I would be more then happy to take him. Our first morning out he hooks into one about 0550 before the sun even comes up.

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Big ol' gnarly buck and a heck of a first ever salmon.

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Second time out we skunked, with a few lost. Third time we both got on some fish though.

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Fish are still out there for the taking and its a blast getting out there still while I can. This year has been odd, we will have some good looking fish pushing through all the way until the closer I know, figure why not keep fishing for em while I can.

Doug's first limit.

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My keeper of the day

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Hopefully you'll see a few more salon reports from me. This rain has got m excited, a trip out before work in the morning might be in order, we'll see.

Till Next Time guys
Mark

Young and Dumb, Bodega Bay 11/17

After my first trip this season out there two weekends ago, Ethan and I were dying for more. Woke up Deni grabbed our friend Jazzy, met up with Ethan and we were on the road just before 0500. Dropped the boat in at Doran just a little before 0800 and Ethan and I were off to drop pots and rings while the girls went to work the jetty. Made a lot of improvements to my pots and I was ready to see how they performed. Had a nice spread outside of the jetty, was hoping for deeper water, but my finder was on the fritz today so I had to guess we were working only maybe 30-50ft of water. Worked the rings for about two hours for only 3 keepers. Our last trip out the rings got 75% of our catch so we were a little down thinking that crabbing was gonna be tough today. Went to check our pots though and this is that we came to see.

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Not full, but some pretty nice hauls in each pot. We averaged about 3-5 keepers in each pot of the 4 we had. Dropped em back in and went to work the rings for another hour and a half before checking em again. About 11 we decided to pull all the rings and check the pots and head in. One new thing I learned today is especially in a small boat like mine, GPS is a wonderful thing. Because my FF was down I couldn't mark any way points of where my pots were and we spent a lot of time searching for pots.

By our second pot though Ethan and I had our limits. We were swapping for some better commercial grade crab, double checking each crab, double counting every one. We saw DFW at the ramp when we launched so we were taking no chances. Lets triple check just to be safe. After we pulled our third pot we were super freaking excited to have the problem of too many keepers on board. Finished swapping crab out and organizing everything around. We put all of our keepers in a pot and I stacked it next to me on the side of the boat where I was sitting. At this point we have all 5 of our rings on board, 3 of our pots that probably now weigh about 15lbs each or more, one of which has two limits of crab in it, plus Ethan and myself who are not the lightest guys in the world. Yea my boat is pretty weighed down at the moment and yes we are very cramped on space in my little 12fter. I make a sharp turn to go and get our last pot, then it happened.

My boat leaned to the side too far because I put the pot with all of the crab in it on the side and we were taking on water over the side of the boat. The worst part is I didn't even notice because I had so much gear in my line of view of it. Ethan started yelling at me and when I felt the water rushing in past my feet . . . . yea its safe to say I was maybe a little more then lightweight terrified. Ethan says "Start bailing!!!" I am reaching for the cup I use to bail the water out of my since my boat leaks a little already, and in the process I'm rocking the hell out of this boat sloshing the 10+ INCHES!!! of water that's in my boat side to side threatening to tips us over. Not one word came out of my mouth when all of this went down, but Ethan saw my face and he knew I was about to have a panic attack, so he finally yelled at me "MARK STOP MOVING AND SIT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BOAT!!!" I sat down got a hold of myself looked up at the open ocean and of course saw not one single other boat around us, and I have never felt so small in my entire life. Ethan grabbed a 5 gallon bucket and started bailing us out. Seeing that and just taking a deep breath allowed me to regain my composure and I got my bottle and we bailed for the next 30 mins to get stable again.

I have to take this moment to give a huge thanks to my deck hand and one of my best friends Ethan for keeping his cool and helping me when I lost mine. If it would have been anyone else out there with me. It might have turned out very differently.

We grabbed our last pot. Did another count on all of our crab just to make sure and we got the hell out of there. Boat back on the trailer by 1300. With that we pulled limits!!! Still super happy about that. A huge lesson was learned and I would have to say I hope to never drop the First Impression in the salt again. I will if I don't have any other option, but Ethan and I got plans for something bigger and better.

Grabbed the girls and went into town for lunch. Last time we came out we found this little mama pop shop that is awesome.

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Did I mention it was small?

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These guys have delicious food and great prices. Highly reccomend it!

For me though, my Bodega trips never end there. I always have to make it out at low tide to fish for rock fish and poke pole. Back to Doran we go. Came out to the rocks and Ethan and I started tossing texas rigged tubes with a good amount of success.

First blood

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The only non gopher we caught all day

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Besides this short little cabby

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Giving some love

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The poke pole queen showing off her skills

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I still can't get over how trippy looking these guys are

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After Ethan and I had about a limit of rockies in the box we took off in search of some clams. Took us forever, but we finally found one. Brought the clam tube today to make life easier on us.

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The clam came out in a jiffy, but the tube . . . . that's another story. First time using this tube, and when Ethan and I tried to pull that thing out and it would not budge. We were working in a sand/clay/muddy area and I'm sure that didn't help. We spent nearly 45 mins trying to dig it out and even managed to get water in and around it to try and get it out of the ground. We tried until the handle broke off and we had to leave it. There was no way we were getting that thing out of there that night. Hopefully someone will find it and it will make their day, if they are willing to spend 2-3 hours digging it out.

With a little bit of light left, we tried for more rockfish while we could.

Fishing during sunset, a beautiful sight.

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Our average size was getting smaller by the minute though

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We were still killing em though

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Ethan managed to drop one in the rocks

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Finished the night off there. Probably landed 20+ rockfish between Ethan and I keeping 8 the were of size. Deni and Jazzy also brought in several eels out of the rocks. Headed home around 1730.

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Bye Bodega I'll be back soon.

Made it home and was up until 0100 cooking and cleaning crab, fish, and taking care of the boat. All worth it though.

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Happy man.

Ethan and I are getting my 17.5ft spectrum together and hopefully it will be running by next week so we'll have this to take out instead of my 12fter.

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We got a new lower unit on its way that will hopefully put this thing back on the water.

This one has seen better days

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The paint job for the name isn't done yet, but I did name it Da Shark Jon.

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Big Thanks to Deni for her Great art work.

Hopefully my next Bodega report will be from me taking this thing out.

Till Next Time Guys!
Mark