# California rockfishing 10/25-10/27 2015



## Desperado (Mar 12, 2007)

Went rockfishing a couple of times this past week. And indeed caught a lot of rocks in the process. Must have lost at least a dozen rigs and a couple of jigs in the rocks. But did manage to catch fish as well.

10/25 - went on a 10 hour trip out of Virg's Landing in Morro Bay and fished around the San Simeon area near Hearst Castle. Fishing was good. Caught fish on just about every drop, all day. Didn't get a bag full of big reds, but a decent mix of rockfish anyway. Kept my limit of 10 rockfish plus 2 keeper lingcod. I was using a shrimp fly rig, basically a top/bottom rig with feathers and a little flash tied to the hooks, and 1 lb sinker. Bait was cut squid. Pretty standard rig for rockfishing. Some guys fished jigs & swim baits and seem to catch a lot more lingcod like that.

10/27 - Booked a 6 hour half day trip on the Endeavor out of Morro Bay. But that boat didn't go out. Too bad, because I usually catch a lot of nice fish with that particular captain. So they offered me the Patriot out of Port San Luis in Avila Beach instead. Haven't fished on that boat before, but seemed like a good deal because its a 10 hour trip, and offering the same price as the 6 hour trip.

So the boat ran a couple of hours south to fish around the Pt. Sal area. Fishing was slow at first. No bites on the 1st few drops. When we started to catch fish they were on the small side. After trying several different spots, finally catching some decent if not huge rockfish. Though most of the fish were average size at best, it was kind of interesting because I was catching species that you dont see as often a little farther north. Like tree fish, china cod, black& yellow cod. Saw others catch kelp greenling, and red & white banded rockfish, very cool looking fish, even saw some mackeral & bonita caught. Here & there a lot of nice ling cod were caught by others. I wasn't so lucky on the ling cod this day.

Thought I finally caught my 1st ling cod when i hooked onto something pulling very hard. Definitely my best fish of the day so far. Get it up until I can start to see color. Looks pretty big, call for the gaff. Get it up closer, and had to look twice. Thought I was bringing in a nice ling, but no, now I can see it's a nice halibut! Very cool. And unusual for halibut to be in such a rocky area. A while later hooked onto another big fish. Pulling very hard. So I think ok, finally got my big ling. Again, start to see color, can see that it is huge. Call for gaff. Get it up closer and not a ling cod, but a wolf eel! Maybe 6, 7, feet long. Apparently the crew doesn't like to deal with these things. They didn't even bring it on the boat. Didnt think to take a pic before they released it. Overall very fun and interesting trip. 

Morro Bay 10/25:















Patriot (Avila Beach) 10/27:

china cod


tree fish:




halibut:


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