Pacific City 5-28

I hit the beach early, rolling in at about 6am and met up with Zach, Brenden, Onefish and a few other guys.  The tide was the lowest I had ever seen at PC, and the rocks at the launch were fully exposed, but gave us a nice slot to shoot out of while the Dory guys jockeyed for position.

I headed out to drop a crab pot and then started fishing on the south side of the rock.  The black rocks were pretty hot after I located several schools.  I love to fight them on lite tackle.

We moved out west of the rock into deeper water, and we started getting into lings.  I caught my first ling which was 24, and kept it, wanting to get at least one for fish tacos tonight, knowing I would hold out for a bigger one as  my second keeper.  The next drop, I reeled in a chunky 26 inch blue ling and decided to keep it as well.  A few minutes before that fish, I heard Captain Redbeard on the radio giving us all a warning from the beach, saying that the surf is gnarly.  I thought this might be a quick fishing day, so I kept the second ling.  Little did I know, I would have to release 28 and 30 inchers 45 minutes later.  I will get them next time.

I still needed two more rocks to tag out, so I switched up to a two small swim bait rig and kept fishing west of the rock.  My rod went down, I set the hook and thought I had bottom, because the rod wasn't pulling back.  Then the bottom took off, peeling off line.  I thought I had two big black rocks on or two lings, because line was flying off the reel.  As I continued to fight this fish and watch the line counter, I could finally make out the huge cabbie coming up from the deep.  I brought a second gopro on a pole with me, and took some underwater video as the fish came up.  I got it to the boat, took a quick pick, and let her go.  See you in July.

I managed to keep 6 nice black rocks, and the two lings.  I also released several smaller black rocks.  All in all, a good day, and made some new friends.

On the way in, the surf was huge, and there were many surfers and paddle boarders way out from the beach.  I watched the surf for a good 15 minutes before picking my path to the beach.  The direction the waves were coming in were pushing away from the point, and I figured I could hug the point and stay protected.  It was a good choice, as I was able to paddle in unscathed, and have the press conference on the beach with all of the tourists.  My favorite question when they see my stringer in the back of the kayak, and me coming out of the water, "did you catch those?" 

Video is in the works. 

Nice write up Cosmo!

-Mark-

Excellent day, congratulations!

Way to go Cos! 

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Nice fishing Cosmo!  I hear ya on the ling thing: it's always a gamble keeping a couple of mid-grade fish early on, only to end up catching larger ones later in the day.  Also hear ya on the beach conference, as I was swarmed with people at Fogarty Beach asking a million questions.

Me Mike and Jhun were out there too! Rough going out but we came in later and the surf Mellowed out with the tide being higher.

Great report - looking forward to the video.

Not to steal anyone's thunder, but I caught the first ling of the day (sub legal) on a custom made wrench jig.  lol.

And this guy jumped in the back of my yak.  (no, really, I freaked at first thinking I was getting seal swarmed).  Still not sure if that counts as my catch, or even if its legal, as it wasn't ever technically "landed" except by itself, and the regs don't really cover voluntary fish.

And this guy jumped in the back of my yak.  (no, really, I freaked at first thinking I was getting seal swarmed).  Still not sure if that counts as my catch, or even if its legal, as it wasn't ever technically "landed" except by itself, and the regs don't really cover voluntary fish.

Makes you wonder what it was running from....

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Your report is making me wish I would've fished PC instead of Tillamucky for the elusive unicorn springer.

Nice job cosmo. I ended up with a limit of rocks and one 30 inch ling. There were lots of large ones caught out there. Juhn caught one of the largest I have ever seen. Hoping he will post a picture soon.

I went out Monday.  The ocean was nice.  I caught too many rockfish to count.  Usually I won't keep them unless they were over 16 inches.  But, ndogg in his brilliance suggested keeping smaller ones so they would not be so wormy.  He was right.  I kept those between 14- 16 inches and had few worms.  The two that were around 20 inches I hooked deep and were bleeding were very wormy. One i tossed because its flesh was probably 30 % worms. Yuck.

I almost signed up for the AOTY while on the water.    It would have been a good day. I had a big greenling. With the AOTY open mouth stretch and tail twist, it would have been darn near 200 points.  That and one of the rockfish would have had me off and running. I swear the lings were all clones or, I think I caught the same little 24 inch ling multiple times in multiple locations.  Luckily, I was able to find a couple bigger ones to take home.

Ndogg caught a ton of rockfish with the fly rod. When he got tired out, he let me give it a shot.  That is soooooo much more fun fighting them than with a jigging rod. Sadly I forgot a camera. He has some photos though.

Craig, we're y'all just stripping clousers near the surface?  I got some footage of a school of rocks teeming at the surface and was really wishing I had brought a fly rod with me.  Next time!

From a fun perspective I think the fly rod gives the barbie rod a run for the money, but I need to find a way to get a fly down 40 ft. 
We were trolling clousers with a sink tip.  I also learned that with a long leader and light hook, it is really easy to hook yourself.