Pacific City Fishing Report 8/11/19

Still unsure if it was a large shark or a Mola Mola on its side. But whatever was underneathe me was about 3 ft wide and right below my kayak.

I went out past the tip of Cape Lookout the other night and a good sized fin popped up near me.  I was the ONLY one in the water for miles I am sure.  Made me a little nervous, but it was zig-zagging like a sunfish so I thought I may as well get closer and try filming it so people can know how epic my death was in case it was a shark.  When I got close it dove down and I headed for the Cape. There are a couple small beaches to bleed out on there after the shark spits you out.

What were you doing out there, Craig?🤔 That’s a long hike just for a paddle. People who have made that hike with me in the past typically only do it once, and it’s a tough sell getting anyone else to go there with me.

What were you doing out there, Craig?🤔 That’s a long hike just for a paddle. People who have made that hike with me in the past typically only do it once, and it’s a tough sell getting anyone else to go there with me.

Actually, It was a short hike from the parking lot at Cape Lookout State Park.  I was camping there.  We tried to fish PC in the afternoon, but you could not park anywhere near the beach.  I stuck to the north side out to the tip. But it was almost 8 pm when I got out that far so I headed back. It takes about 45 minutes at coho trolling speeds.  It is not a surf launch I would want to do in the dark.  It nearly was when I landed.

What were you doing out there, Craig?🤔 That’s a long hike just for a paddle. People who have made that hike with me in the past typically only do it once, and it’s a tough sell getting anyone else to go there with me.

Actually, It was a short hike from the parking lot at Cape Lookout State Park.  I was camping there.  We tried to fish PC in the afternoon, but you could not park anywhere near the beach.  I stuck to the north side out to the tip. But it was almost 8 pm when I got out that far so I headed back. It takes about 45 minutes at coho trolling speeds.  It is not a surf launch I would want to do in the dark.  It nearly was when I landed.

I was just heckling you, Craig. There is some beautiful water in that neighborhood. Awesome that you got out on the north side! I’ve looked at it a couple times and just decided it really wasn’t an option. Guess I should look again on a better day. Great pics.

Thanks again for the great trip report! That's what got me started on this site to begin with. It's been a while since I contributed to a thread, so here goes.

We went out Saturday 8/10. Slept in, got on the water about 9:30. It's been way too long since Mrs. Redbeard has gotten a "pond day" out there and we had to make it happen. Also, she needed a cabezon for Angler of the Year, and with it closing we knew we had to give it a shot.

We dropped a crab pot and then started looking for a good drift on the reef. But there was no drifting - it was the calmest current I've ever seen at PC! All day we had to remember to pedal to create our own drift because we'd literally just sit in exactly the same spot indefinitely otherwise. I was dropping straight down and fishing off the bottom easily in 120FOW with 2oz.

There were whales everywhere! Mrs. Redbeard had a great time watching them and even got a close encounter (about 20 feet from her kayak) on video on her phone.

We got some quick action with small rockfish but besides keeping a nice canary there wasn't much going on so we pushed out deeper. I was starting to get a little bummed that things seemed slow and then BAM! she's on with something good! It turns out to be a big healthy vermilion (taped at 23" and the fish checker said it was about 8 and half pounds). The weird thing was when we catch those they're usually quite a bit deeper - this one was in 65FOW. We didn't complain, though! We pounded around the area for a while but nothing else seemed to be around.

After some more prospecting we worked our way out to a spot that's been good to us before a bit farther out and while I got blanked Mrs. Redbeard started getting hammered. She was using a Lancer Jigs 4oz. red, white, and blue special, and IIRC she caught all 3 of her big keepers on that lure, including the vermilion. She also caught a monster yellow-eye, maybe the brother of the one in the original post  The picture doesn't do it justice at all. It was so incredibly broad shouldered and fat I couldn't believe it. It was released unharmed of course.

After I copied exactly what she was doing exactly where she was doing it I managed one decent lingcod which is my best of the year so far. I also caught a smaller yelloweye and it was fun comparing it to my canary. We caught all 3 "red snapper" species in one day, which is something we've never done before.

Our crab pot yielded only 1 crab but lucky for us it was a large male, so we were able to make a couple of crab hand pies with that.

The rest of the meal was tots, veges, chili cheese cornbread, fried lingcod cheeks and of course fried vermilion. I felt like a vermilion-aire eating all that!