Ethan and I took off on the water around 0730 while the girls went to try off of the jetty. Ethan and I dropped 5 rings and 4 pots and worked them all morning. The sea was very nice first thing in the AM. Kind of an interesting feeling going over the top of some 10ft rollers, but nothing was breaking and the wind was non existent at the time conditions were great. The worst part was just hitting wakes from bigger boats. After dropping the pots we worked the rings. With them being spread out about 150-200 yards from ring number 1 to number 5 we would just pick em up one at a time the run back and do it again. We managed to get 1-2 keepers every go around. Which was great seeing as everyone we were talking to only had 2-6 keepers at all. Ethan was enjoying the heck out of pulling the gear and seeing the crab come up, which was fine with me. I got to drive the boat and let Ethan do the hard work. Pulled gear until about 1400 to finish with 13 keepers up to 8+ inches!!! We didn't pull limits, but the average size for us was huge!!! And that is perfectly ok with me. I really only wanted 3-4 for myself anyways.
The wind started kicking up pretty good by then, nothing ever that concerned me or too much that my boat could handle, but we did take on a couple of waves that drenched us pretty good. While we were out there we saw a kayaker flip and fall into the 51 degree water. Thank god we saw him and he had a wetsuit and a life jacket on. We got to him in less then 30 seconds of him tipping. He grabbed the side of my boat we grabbed his kayak and dragged him back 300+ yards back to shore. Took a long time and there was no way we could get him back on his yak or pull him into the boat without flipping us. After maybe a 20 minute crawl to shore we got him in shallow water and he made it to shore safe and sound and I was able to get in and out of there before I got too close for the waves to crash over and into my boat. So glad we were there. He had a buddy on a kayak out there, but I don't know how much he could have done for him and there were no other boats around to help him. With that we pulled all of our gear and got out of there cause the wind was only getting worse.
Grabbed the girls and had lunch before the tide went out to hit our low tide rocks. Got there around 1500 and Ethan and I started trying for rock fish while the Deni and Shelby did the poke pole thing. I bang a quick 3 out pulling a nice black, gopher, and a brown out of the kelp. Ethan follows up with and decent gopher too. The tide wasn't completely out yet though and with that windy howling like crazy it made it really tough to cast, hit bottom, and even feel a bite while punching through the kelp. With rock fishing being kind of tough I told Ethan I would show him the clam thing so off we went. I told Ethan its hard dirty work and I hope he knew what he was getting into. I spot one pretty quick and Showed Ethan it was no joke when I was laying down on my belly full arm length into the sand to grab this Gaper out of the ground. I got him though and put the first one in the bucket. After that Ethan was all about trying for em and he was quick to get his hands down and dirty in the sand. I of course forgot my tube that Mike gave me a while back so we had to give up on a few that we found that were 4+ft down in the sand. Just too deep to retrieve with just a couple of shovels.
Scanned the beach for a little more then an hour and managed to get 4 clams to take home. After that the sun was down and it was time to go home. For a pretty rough day I would say we still had a hell of a haul. 13 legal dungies, a few reds, 4 decent rockfish, 4 Gapers, and Deni got a nice MF eel too.
My share of the catch
 | This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1024x768. |
And Ethan's
| This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1024x768. |
I tell you these guys were big?
| This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 768x1024. |
Every boat/yak we talked to either called it because conditions were too rough, or they got 2-6 at best so I thought we did great. Had a freaking blast out there, loved being out on the boat working the crab gear. Way more productive and easier then throwing snares off of the Jetty. Next time if conditions allow I'll try to put some rockies and lings in the boat while I'm out there.
Till Then Guys
Mark
P.S. sorry for not a lot of pictures, it was cold and wet the whole day, didn't want to bring the phone out plus it died pretty early in the day haha.
No comments:
Post a Comment