Much better than working

[Northwoods]

I took off this past weekend to go fishing on the Washington coast.  I camped, and fished, at Makah Bay which is on the open ocean side of the NW tip of CONUS.  Met up with a few other guys from the kayak fishing forum I'm on.

Drove out Friday morning.  Got to the campground a little before 11:00.  Took my time getting everything set up but still got yak in the water by 1:20 or so.  Paddled out to one set of rocks.  Didn't catch much there.  Around 2:30 the third guy to show met us on the water and convinced us to head out to Strawberry Roks.  That was maybe another mile or a bit more from where we were.  Hooked into a barely legal length ling cod.  Later I hit 3 black rock fish in a row, but lost one overboard before I get it on the game clip.  Back to camp around 6PM. 

Saturday we decided to head north from the bay.  Paddled out to the rocks at the exit of the bay and bounced gigs for a while.  Not much luck there so we started to go north.  Along the way a hooked into a big Cabezon.  It took me for at least 3 good runs back to the bottom.  When I got on the yak it measured 24.25".  No scale but probably 9lbs or so.

Sunday we hit the water a bit earlier, around 7ish.  Paddled right out to Strawberry Rock.  Picked a little bigger ling at 24.5" and a couple China rock fish and a greenling.  Headed in a little before noon to give time to filler and pack up camp and still catch the next to last ferry home.  Just as I was about to start cutting the fish a surfer ran up and told us a kayak was capsized a couple hundred yards off shore.  Turned out to be one of the guys I knew.  I jumped back in my yak, launched through the surf and paddled hard to get to him.  Turns out hit boat had a hole that flooded it.  Anyway after trying with little success to get both him and hit to shore at the same time, one of the other guys I knew came out to help.  I towed the guy into shore, and the other guy got the bat into shore.  He was fine thanks to having proper immersion gear.  He lost a rod/reel and his bilge pump, and some pride, but that was it.  He gave me a bunch of fish as a thank you.  Cost me too much time to make the ferry I wanted, but still made the last one of the day with plenty of time spare (plus I'd made a reservation anyway).

Anyway, a fun weekend with a fai bit of fillets to show for it.

[Northwoods]

Will post pics if I can upload them to photobucket.  The file sizes are too bit to directly attach apparently.

[AJ Dual]

Darn.

I was really hoping you were going to detail some new FSA scam I could get in on something relatively close to the ground floor, and get "grandfathered in" before they clamped down on the eligibility requirements for whatever it was. 

[Northwoods]

Darn.

I was really hoping you were going to detail some new FSA scam I could get in on something relatively close to the ground floor, and get "grandfathered in" before they clamped down on the eligibility requirements for whatever it was. 

Hey - A bad day fishing is still better than a good day at work.

[Northwoods]

Here's a Red Irish Lord I picked up.  A cousin to the cabezon, but far too small to be worth keeping.

 

Here's the glory shot of me with the big Cabezon.  The red on the cabbie is blood from cutting its gills.

 

This is from a shorebreak on Saturday.  At this point we're around 1.5 miles south of Tatoosh Is. which is the most NW piece of CONUS.  Mine is the yellow kayak.


 

[BobR]

I'm jealous. Looks like you had a great time. I really wanted to get over there this year for some bottom fishing, but between school and work I barely have time to sleep, much less play.

bob

[dm1333]

That makes me miss Forks and La Push, until I remember the 120 inches of rain a year!   

[tokugawa]

Yes- I spent a lot of time in that area in the 70's -the winters were wet!  Nice country till it was took over by vampires and such.