This is a report that's a bit of a read, mostly because I'm putting together a lot of information I've gathered, and finally trialing an "offshore" pursuit on my kayak. I've avoided open water on a kayak because I can't seem to handle more than a 1ft swell without getting woozy, I figure from being so low to the water. But I finally pushed myself, and found the right time and place to try.
I wanted to test a couple things.
A: my sea legs
B: my fish finder
C: my ability to successfully drift fish
I've had a fish finder for about 6 months and I've only used it on rental boats in lakes, particularly for stripers. Recently I found a set of rock piles on google earth 2 miles out of SB harbor to survey as a Plan A, and if I got woozy, I could stay in the harbor for halibut. 0.5 foot swell, 5mph wind, and a decent tide swing had me feeling like it would be a good a time as any to trial this. A little mist to the morning but manageable.
So I got to the harbor at 7:30, launched by 8. Almost no swell but a bumpy little wind chop the first mile. Then I got out of the protection of the point and a 1-2ft swell came from the west, which made for some confused swell at times.
Arrived at my spot at 9. Well, I fell about 100 yards short of my waypoint, but for good reason. I was metering a few small schools on the way over along the bottom that seemed worth dropping for, but I told myself I could go back later if I wanted, and Plan A should be at least as good.
And that was the mantra, until I came up on a school that was 50 feet off the bottom and all the way down, and thick. Immediately decided this would be Baby's 1st Waypoint on-the-water. Judging by my experience on cattle boats, blue rockfish and whitefish tend to stack high like that, or so the captain would say. As soon as I hit the bottom with the dropper loop, I was bit. Sure enough, pull it up and it's a whitefish. Then another. Reset the drift, another and another. 10-16" or so. 1 drift was enough for 2 drops, sometimes 3. I figure I was drifting 3/4mph west, which was counter-intuitive, considering the wind came from the south and the primary swell was coming from the west. Still figuring this all out.
Anywho, I must have caught a dozen whitefish in an hour before I felt my wooziness coming on. Having my head down constantly unhooking fish (good problem to have) and checking the fish finder/GPS got to me. I kept 2 fish for lunch and started back. 1/2 mile outside the harbor there was another decent school on the bottom in 50ft, so I dropped down and nabbed a nice mackerel that will be shark bait. Lost track of that school so headed the rest of the way in. Off the water by 11:30.
Being that my goal was to drift fish and use the fish finder to catch fish, and I did that, I'm content with the day. I want to improve my sea legs, so doing this more often will be key for that. A bigger boat would also help, maybe something I could actually stand in and have my head a little higher relative to the swells. A motor would be nice too, 5 miles later and the lactic acid is burning me up 6 hours after! Still, the kayak is, by a landslide, the most affordable way to become more proficient in captaining fish boats, me thinks.
I could do another session or two of drifting SB piles for rockfish and new misc species, but eventually I hope to transfer the skills over to other species and places.
