Kayak & Hoop Netting 3-15-11

First daylight savings time kayak trip so it seemed early and rather dark when we hit the water. The overcast and slightly foggy weather contributed to the dark feeling.

William and I were first to leave the harbor. Tim, Warren, Jack and a couple others followed.  The water was 58 degrees and absolutely filthy - muddy looking with lots of debris on the surface including wood sticks and small logs. This was very discouraging.

We headed out for a mile or so to 85 feet of water with only slightly better water, however, we metered bait but no fish out there. Plenty of bait everywhere including big clouds of bait from surface to the bottom showing up on the meters. Birds and seals chasing bait today but the porpoise were absent. Interesting seeing so much bait out here but finding none in the receiver (the bait rolled over due to the Tsunami). Fortunately we still had frozen squid for bait.

I fished the reverse dropper loop with 30 lb. fluorocarbon connected to 20 lb. Spiderwire Ultra Cast, and a 6/0 Mustad circle hook. I covered 6 miles in my travels along the pipeline for mostly nothing this day.

I worked my way back in to 60 feet of water and connected with a small thresher shark. This 5 footer spun me around in my kayak three times then raced off a hundred feet or so on the surface then back to spin me again. We continued this process a few more times while I called in Tim to help with the release. I brought the pretty little shark to the surface and Tim released him for me. We thought about a photo but only after the fish had been released. Oh well.

I pulled my kayak out of the water at noon - earlier than usual. I cleaned it up and raced home to pack for another fishing event - hoop netting for lobster.

I packed up my lobster gear, made a run to Trader Joe's for the night's picnic dinner on board Jason's Trophy skiff, and drove to San Diego. I parked at Fisherman's Landing where the skiff was tied up to the dock next to the Excel. We loaded my gear and the food and drinks on the boat then baited the nets - 10 total. We used sardines and some bonito that Bob Hoose had given us.  A messy affair at best – shoving dead bait into bait tubes.

Once the nets were baited and loaded on the boat, we headed to the harbor area in front of the Hilton Hotel.

Rudy and Brandon joined us. Around 5:30 pm we set the nets then spent the next hour eating dinner and fishing (we fished in between each pull of the nets).

Using our bass gear, we fished plastics, Gulps, dead sardines and squid (leftover from my kayak fishing). The lizard fish were on the chew! We all caught them. I caught a small halibut (released), Jason caught a nice spotty and Brandon got a nice sculpin but mostly lizard fish.

 

We began pulling nets just before dark and made a pull every 30 to 45 minutes until midnight for a total of 7 pulls. I pulled the nets first then we rotated between Jason, Brandon and me. We brought up blue crabs, an octopus, sting rays, big sculpin and one lobster for the entire evening.  That’s fishing.

At least it was a nice night on the water and we had fun.