ORC fishing report

After reading Zack's suggestion about fishing reports I figured I would let you guys know how I did on event day.

Pre fished a little on Friday the 25th. Found limited success with the usual baits. Mainly stayed in the boundary zone to see if we could find fish but the rocks were scattered and I could only manage 1 keeper ling and 2 undersized fish. We did find a pocket where there seemed to be fish holding right in front of the condos.

Saturday morning had most everyone up early and at the launch by 3:45ish. Inspections and checks went fairly quickly with 28 guys so that was good. I launched in the second wave of kayaks through the hole at about 5:15. The water was glassy flat and I caught my first fish on the first clump of kelp I came to on the edge of the North reef. I opted to hang fish from lip grips on the side of my kayak till I had 3 or 4 so that I only had to take a few videos with multiple fish for the entry. I hoped this would cut down on the fumbles and hassle of doing a vid for each fish. This plan worked well but did come back to bite me in the ass. Kristie caught a fish just after me in the morning and did a vid right then while I waited and ended up with a later time stamp for my first fish.

Taking a video of the release wasn't terrible. I did have trouble unlocking my phone with slimy fingers and the water being so nice helped a lot. I imagine it would have been much more of a rodeo in rough conditions and terrible if not impossible in a downpour.

We headed back to that pocket of fish in front of the condos and immediately started picking up fish of all species. We drifted that same area pretty much all day and caught fish constantly. I had my best numbers day ever at Depoe but still couldn't find a third cab. We stayed in 30 -50fow and all of the action came on 1oz metal jigs fished very slow and smaller Lancer jigs 2oz or less. Darker colors worked well and the Copper Waterdog was my best producer for the Lancers.

I submitted 13 fish. 3 lings-60pts, 3 blacks-30pts, 3 greenling-45pts, 2 cabs-40pts, and 2 china's-20pts for 195 points.

The top 10 placers qualify to go to the National qualifier either this year or in 2026.

Here is the complete list of anglers per the ORC FB page

1st. Kristie Cronin - 195
2nd. Jed Rivera - 195
3rd. Steve Hatler - 185
4th. Joe Kacker - 185
5th. Tony Thilavanh - 180
6th. Nicholas Piatek - 180
7th. Chris Williams - 165
8th. Hong Long - 155
9th. James Reeher - 145
10th. Mark Veary - 140
11th. Keith Matiskella - 135
12th. Juan Cervantes - 130
13th. David Mason - 110
14th. John Rich - 110
15th. Matthew Burdick - 90
16th. Eric Timmermans - 90
17th. Daniel Fernandez - 70
18th. Dana Hilden - 70
19th. Jeff Rice - 30
20th. John Coon
21st. Gena Ogay
22nd. Anthony Stickle
23rd. James Tonick
24th. Brandon Zimmerman
25th. Raymond Zimmerman
26th. Elijah Kean
27th. Marga Timmermans
28th. Paul Walker

Those are some very impressive catches!  Nice work Jed!  2 China's is cool and pretty hard to come by- nice work.

How did people feel about releasing all of the fish?

Those are some very impressive catches!  Nice work Jed!  2 China's is cool and pretty hard to come by- nice work.

How did people feel about releasing all of the fish?

Thanks Zack, I was surprised with the China's especially in the shallower water. I fished next to Kristie all day and she also got 2 China's as well as a Quillback. One of here China rockfish videos didn't show the release well and was rejected as an entry, otherwise she would have won out right. Most people did not want to release fish.