I like smelling like fish

[fishnquest]

Living very near the eel river, I have been trying to learn how to catch steelhead. It's a whole new thing. Reservoir fishing; whole new thing, too. Its been fun, but tough. I will keep looking to OFF for help; I'd be lost without you.
I love fishing, but catching is even better. Went out of bodega with my brother-in-law (Tim, my fishing buddy) in his boat for some rockfish; something I'm much more familiar and comfortable with. The swell was small, the drift slow, and the bite slow. We got our limits on rock fish, but no lings. And we lost no gear :dance:.
We went out again the next day. Smaller swell, bigger wind, faster drift, caught the end of the tide. The lings were hungry. We had two legal in the boat right off the bat:dance:. Friends of friends followed us out, got sick in 10 minutes, went back in. We came in a couple hours later, full limits for us both.
We had lots of company at the cleaning station both days; man it was great!
Ok, im bragging, but i sooo needed to throw off that skunk. Now I can go back to the trout hunt.

 

[Fishtopher]

Gotta love the victory beer at the fish cleaning station! Great money pic too!

 

[OnTheFly]

fishnquest, I used to live just north of Santa Barbara and we used to get on the all day boat and go out around Channel Islands and catch fish like that. Tremendously good eating fish those snapper and ling cod. We'd come home with gunnysacks full.

 

[Raincatcher]

Colorful

Colorful

Great post! Very colorful way to toss the old stinker OFF your back. Those are so cool looking. Wish I had gone out to do ocean fishing when I lived down there 35 years ago. All we did was trout,except that I did catch a shark off the Pismo Beach pier once. :shock: Scary fun. Sounds like you guys know how to have a great day on the water. Congrats!

Be safe.
Barb

 

[fishnquest]

fishnquest, I used to live just north of Santa Barbara and we used to get on the all day boat and go out around Channel Islands and catch fish like that. Tremendously good eating fish those snapper and ling cod. We'd come home with gunnysacks full.

Tremendously good is right. I always thought there was nothing better until a couple years ago...I had steelhead for the first time; I had no idea how good that is. Now Im not sure which is my favorite, but I need to get another steelhead to find out:lol:

Gunnysacks; we have to stop at 10 fish now and there are a few we cannot keep at all (+ 2 lings at 24" min).

 

[fishnquest]

Great post! Very colorful way to toss the old stinker OFF your back. Those are so cool looking. Wish I had gone out to do ocean fishing when I lived down there 35 years ago. All we did was trout,except that I did catch a shark off the Pismo Beach pier once. :shock: Scary fun. Sounds like you guys know how to have a great day on the water. Congrats!

Be safe.
Barb

It was a super great couple of days. The best part was making a new friend (with a BIG nice boat) and an invite to GO FISHING!:dance:

 

[osmosis]

Killer! sounds like a great trip/s. I love bottom fishing, something about the "question mark" of what you're gonna pull up next!

 

[OnTheFly]

OK.... well..not full gunnysacks. What ever the limit was back in the late 60's for bottom fish. Probably 10. Still made it a heavy sack though

 

[fishnquest]

OK.... well..not full gunnysacks. What ever the limit was back in the late 60's for bottom fish. Probably 10. Still made it a heavy sack though

Yeah, now that you mention it, 10 good rockfish + 2 lings fills up a gunnysack quite nicely:lol:. We usually use a big old icechest. My new friend has a fishbox, cool!