Depoe Bay jealousy

Here is a current photo of 9 kayaks fishing out in front of my room at the Worldmark in Depoe Bay. Totally jealous!

I am betting that Lingbanger and Clayman are among them.

I tried to tell them there is a huge raft of birds a couple hundred yards from one of them.

Was close to the birds. Was trolling for salmon with Clayman. Stopped to get some dinner in the way in

Excellent.  not jealous, not at all...

Yup, I saw those birds!  I trolled around them for a bit, but they didn't seem to be feeding.  Just sitting on the surface cooing that soothing murr call  .  Marked a few small and scattered bait balls here and there, but for the most part, the ocean was a vast expanse of varying shades of green.  I didn't stick any salmon today, but Nomas found a few  .

I eventually stowed the salmon gear and hit the rocks for lings.  Decent bite on them, I released four small ones before keeping a 27 incher.  Next fish came up like a brick, and went nuts in the net, but I held onto her.  36 incher was a great way to fill the limit!

Now I just feel bad for killing those minnows looking at a real fish  Nice job! Unlike some, I have a ton of salmon still and NO Lingcod, so next time I am going to spend a day and hunt for some big ones.

Good to meet you beer_run. Like clayman said, trolled for a few hours but only small coho to be found. One was just about legal size and was fin clipped, so good omen for the summer.

I eventually stowed the salmon gear and hit the rocks for lings.  Decent bite on them, I released four small ones before keeping a 27 incher.  Next fish came up like a brick, and went nuts in the net, but I held onto her.  36 incher was a great way to fill the limit!

OK, just a little jealous...lol

Nice job on the lings!

Good stuff, everyone! Thanks for the reports!

Totally jealous and stoked!

Keep it up!

-Mark-

I caught lots of ling cod,  but struggled getting my bass. Only got 2. The ling cod kept getting bigger after I kept 2, but I'm sure I wouldn't have caught more of if I hadn't kept them.  Enjoyed meeting some new folks.

I hear you brother. I struggled to keep #2 but when I did, I headed in so I didn’t have to let a Biggie like Clayman’s go. Lesson learned I guess

Especially in the spring months, I can almost always wrangle out a pair of lings from the local reef between 28-32 inches as long as I'm willing to put in the time.  Usually takes a couple hours of trying, but sometimes it can happen quickly.  This becomes a tougher proposition later into the summer as the reef gets more pressure.

As for the rockfish, I like to have both plastics and metal jigging spoons on hand.  If they aren't interested in one, they'll usually bite the other.  I felt rockfish whacking my sinker several times while I fished for lings, so it seemed like it would be a "metal" kind of day for them as supported by Deptrai's report.  I only drop down for rockfish when my depthfinder lights up with a school of them, and if they're not chomping within a few minutes, I move on.  Some of those schools can consist of tiny blue rockfish that won't grab your gear, so it pays to move from school to school until you find the size grade of blacks you want.