Pacific City Fishing Report 8/11/19

Three of our crew (Brandon, Don, and Raul) launched at first light. I was a bit behind them as I was taking my girlfriend, Mary, out offshore kayak fishing for the first time. We hit the water right around 6AM and sped out past the rock to catch up with the other three. Mary dropped 11 pulls in about 120 FOW and in less than a minute was on her first coho. So much for all the "putting in your time" speeches I gave her beforehand. It was a solid hatchery fish and went in the bag. A few minutes later she hooked into a jack. Brandon and Don landed hatchery fish as well, and a couple of wild fish were released (all coho). Somewhere in that flurry I pulled my brand spanking new Sony mirrorless camera to take some sweet pics since I wasn't getting any bites. Go figure as soon as I get everything setup BOOM! Fish on. Landed a football of a hatchery coho, bonked and in the bag.
The bite slowed down some after that and we turned around to head back for shallower water around 9:30-10:00AM. On the way back in we got into some insanely thick jellyfish as the clouds burnt off and the sun started hitting the water. They must have been spawning as they were absolutely everywhere stacked on top of each other. We all dropped our lines to deeper water between 30-40 feet. One of our crew hooked up in the mix of the jellies, but lost his fish right at the boat. We eventually came out of the jellyfish and started heading for our bottom fishing spot. I pulled my line back up to 15 feet and immediately got a hard hit which stripped my bait. I rebaited and within a few more minutes had a hit bury the rod into my lap, again with 15 feet of line out, but the hit didn't stick. Mary got a hit around the same time, but her fish didn't connect either.
Don headed in to pack up camp, and then there were four. The rest of us continued for the bottom fishing spot. No more salmon hits on the way there. While it was still very calm, the wind picked up noticeably around this time and created a little chop, and there was some serious current that kept taking us north as well. As soon as we arrived Mary landed a monster Yelloweye, which was of course sent back to swim another day. The rest of the day was a flurry of countless cabezon, ling ranging from big to absolutely monstrous (including one that was undoubtedly the largest I've ever seen), and quillback. I caught one black rockfish, which was the only one caught by our group.
I finished the day with one salmon, two ling, a cabezon and a black rock. Mary finished with a salmon and a cabezon (she threw back a quillback and the yelloweye, not bad at all for a first day in the ocean). Our other two teammates finished up with massive lingcod limits, one salmon, a cabezon each and some quillback.
A soft landing on the beach just after 2:00PM with some close up visits from a gray whale by the cape made for a great way to cap off the day.
I carted my kayak up to the car and when I started heading back down to get Mary's boat I heard sirens. I looked down to the launch and saw what looked like Brandon (a rather unmistakable seagrass Hobie Outback with sidekick Amas and a big dude with a yellow drysuit in it) pedaling back in pulling something huge and half submerged behind his kayak. "That's weird, Brandon already landed," I thought. Further back a younger guy in a wetsuit was paddling in his hybrid SUP pulling a Pelican sit on top behind it. Brandon landed on the beach and jumped out and large group of men ran over, pulling the huge object behind his kayak up. At this point four more emergency vehicles had come flying onto the beach and stopped by the launch. The object came into shape as it was lifted by the group, revealing a large elderly man. Further inquiry revealed that the young man on the hybrid SUP was his grandson. They had gone out paddling and the elderly man had fainted just out past the surf, falling out of his kayak unconscious. Brandon rushed out in his kayak from the beach, and by the time he got to the man he had somewhat regained consciousness. Brandon told him to grab onto the handle on his stern, and he pedaled him back into shore.
There is no doubt in my mind that Brandon saved that mans life; the first responders on site had no watercraft with them, and therefore would have had no means to get the victim out of the water until the coast guard arrived with a boat. Additionally, the man was not wearing a PFD, and would likely not have lasted long out there without rescue. It's also unlikely that his grandson in his 9 foot hybrid sup yak would have been able to pull his half-conscious grandfather (who was much larger than him) back to shore within a reasonable amount of time.
Every day I'm proud to be part of the Pacific Northwest kayak fishing community, but today I'm proud beyond words to be part of a community that has used our craft to save a life out on the water.
In every way, this was a day for the books.
Cheers!

just outstanding, start to finish.  great report. 

having proper gear (and being on a boat appropriate for the location), wearing your immersion kit, knowing your boat and what you can do on (and off it) isn't just about self recovery, it might just be what lets you help someone else when time is precious.   full marks.

Awesome report and great rescue from Brandon!!

Congrats on all the fish!

I was out with my wife yesterday and saw the ambulance on the beach, wondering what was going on.
As it was her first time kayaking out on the ocean we did not go beyond the Rock and only fished for rockfish (and caught plenty). We also had some close-up visits of a whale, making it a special trip.

 

Quite the day!

Wow! Memorable indeed!

I think all the luck was due to the matching fingernail polish and drysuit

I think all the luck was due to the matching fingernail polish and drysuit

& a good candidate for picture of the month.

Great report!! 

Great report Seth and way to go crew!

Now maybe I can talk my wife into joining me on an ocean trip if she sees Mary's pics.

What a great report - thanks for sharing Seth!  And congrats to Mary for getting out there and catching some great looking fish! 

-Sam

Great report. Good thing for the guy that Brandon was where he was.

I was out on Saturday and didn’t do nearly as well.

This has inspired me to get my wife and or daughter out.

Great report! Glad you were able to get into several species with size! Awesome!

Fred "True" Trujillo

Great write-up and report. My wife and I were off the water and eating lunch when we saw the emergency vehicles go by - it's good to know what happened. Awesome work saving a life and getting the fish too! Great shots of the fish. I didn't see any salmon on the beach, maybe I just missed them, but I think you guys did pretty well.

This is quite the HERO post.  Way to go, all around.

We had another great day in PC on Sunday as well. I was a bit lazy and didn’t make it on the water until around 8:00am with my friend Andrew. We ran into Don and company on the way out. They were also bumping lots of jellyfish at that time. Don and a couple others had a coho each at that time. The coho Don had was a bit heavier than the ones we caught a couple weeks ago, that made me pretty excited for the day. Andrew and me trolled all the way west to 180 feet then headed in towards the North reef. On the way in towards the reef Andrew caught one lone coho. It was very slow for us. There were no slicks, no birds, just slow fishing. Around noon Andrew was ready to head back in to go clamming with his family. At the same time Zach was just arriving on the beach ready to launch. So we trolled back to the rock. Andrew went in to the beach and Zach met me at the rock. While waiting for Zach to drop his crab trap I picked up a small ling. Then we trolled around the south end of the rock and headed towards the north reef thinking we would have to resort to bottom fishing. As soon as we hit 80 fow on the west side of the rock I landed a nice keeper coho. Then it began. We saw a nice trash line that wasn’t there before. We followed it towards the reef and it wasn’t long after there were birds all over, beautiful currents coming together and we both got bit at the same time! Zach then said “oh shoot I forgot my net! He’s barely hooked too!” I then tried yarding in my fish and lost it at the net. I totally blame Zach😉 I start trolling again and right away another nice coho! Zach still had his fish in my net! I attempted to just yard the fish on board and lost it too! Still blaming Zach!😀 I got my net back then quickly nailed my second fish. Only minutes after we both had our limits!
This next part is the best part of the whole story. We are working our way back in and we see a fin. I told Zach “it’s just a sun fish”. He almost got over to it and I then said “oh shoot maybe not”, because I was suddenly unsure. Zach pedals over it and accidentally pulls his line over the fish with the fin. So he backs up to get his line back and when he looked down he let out the loudest most horrified yell and it looked like he saw a ghost! It startled me at first! Then told me to come to him!😂 Something about a little adrenaline and hearing Zach scream caused me to laugh uncontrollably. I’m about to fall off my kayak from laughing so hard. I told Zach he’d better come to me, I’ll wait. We were already pretty close together. Zach made fun of me for not coming to him and we laughed off and on most of the way in. I still can’t stop belly laughing every single time this replays in my head. I know, I’m a bad person. The wife already told me. 😊
Don’t worry, Zach! I’m not going to tell anyone else!