Veterans Day at Bodega Bay

Had the holiday off from school which gave me the opportunity to finally get out to Bodega Bay for some crabbing with my dad. I brought my friend Steven along as well to help haul crab gear as well, cause I didn't feel like pulling up pots all day. Took DaShark out to Doran, first time going out on the salt on this thing very excited to see how well it handled. Launched right around 1100, got very lucky to get a

parking spot just as a few people were leaving. Ran just outside of the jetty and set the pots in close in about 60ft of water. Right after we got all of the pots set we starting rigging up our rods for a little bit of rock fishing. Right as we finished though my buddy Steven said he had enough and was about to lose his lunch. We're not far so we ran back in real quick and dropped him off to let him sleep it off. First time on the big blue for him, definitely a very brand new experience. Came back out, and searched for fish. DaShark is still a smaller boat for the ocean so I'm not planning on going too far in the search for rockfish.

We stayed inside the bay running around looking for fish on the graph.

Bodega Rock

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Sun shine trying to come through

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Never saw any fish on the graph, but I knew we were over some rocks so we decided to drop the gear and see what comes up. Never got into any hot action, but we did get bit. My dad drew first blood with what I'm pretty sure is a greenling, on a 2 ounce blade runner spoon he had tied on for salmon.

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I know they are common around here, but I have never seen one is person so this was a pretty cool catch.

Shortly after I caught a short greenling and my dad had a fish come up really easy about half way up to the boat then his rod doubled over on him and he had a fish run him down into the rocks and break him off. I'm assuming a hitch hiker came up and grabbed his fish and took that thing down. Sucked not seeing what that was. We talked to a guy at the ramp who showed us a 32lb ling he caught, makes you wonder. Kept drifting getting a bite here and missing a couple bites there, then my dad bust a legal ling on his shrimp fly. I gaffed it for him and he took a picture. He didn't want any more pictures of himself.

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Sweet deal getting on a few nice fish so close to the harbor. About 3 hours had passed, time to check the pots. Pulled all four pots for 12 legal dungies of mixed grade from just legal to 7+ inches. Dropped em back down for another soak and tried chasing some more rockfish. Stayed closer this time cause the sun was going down and we weren't planning on staying much longer. My dad caught a nice gopher, and we missed a few more hits. After an hour I gave Steven a call to see if he was feeling better so he could come back out and pull pots with us so he can get his limit of crab, but he didn't answer so we went to pick up the pots to head in for the day.

After the shorter soak our crab total ended up being 27. We kept our 20 plus a few nice reds and headed for home. We had more crab in the pots with the shorter soak time, my dad said he read the crabbing is better during slack tide which is when this soak was so maybe that is true. Will have to pay attention to that from now on. Got the boat back on the trailer with our bounty and headed for home.

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Sat in commute traffic for a while which made the track home about 4 hours long. Very long, but wonderful day. Glad I got to spend a wonderful day on the water with my dad and coming home with a limit of crab just makes it that much better. Felt bad that Steven got sick and couldn't stick it out with us, could have gotten him close to his limit too, but we made sure he went home with something good for dinner too. Most other boaters we talked to at the ramp barely got their limits or came short, so for the guys that stuck close to home it definitely didn't seem like it was on fire by any means, but there are plenty of crabs out there to be had and I can't wait to get back out to do it again.

Till Next Time
Mark

P.S. Boat ran and handled the water great, but I will continue to stay inside of the bay with it. I'm not taking this thing way up north to the river or Fort Ross.