A few days late. What's it matter anyway, it's still a data point. If you're into that sort of thing.
__Saturday__
9am high tide, so that's when I launched. In my most limited experience, I think I want current when bottom fishing in 100 feet of water, so that's how I planned it. Arrived at Santa Barbara Harbor at about 8:30am to set up. A guy in a Hobie pedal yak was launching at the same time as I and said "oh look a friend!" upon my appearance, which is among the better things I've heard upon arrival to a scene.
I took a dramamine before leaving Newbury Park, but if I had gotten sick this day I would not have a bright future in kayaking. A little ripple in the water on the way out is all I can describe, because the ocean was featureless that day, my friends.
My first goal this day was to catch a limit of whitefish to feed a few friends affected by
the current job market, then afterward see if I can find the rockfish to double my bag.
Now, I have not found a ton of descriptors on the internet on what to look for on your fish finder, so I will be perhaps the first to tell you that whitefish schools come in many forms: hugging the bottom; dense from the bottom to the middle of the water column; spaced out but still bottom to the middle of the water column; single, decent sized mark, a few feet off the bottom? Might be a whitefish!
On my way out, I found a small school hugging the bottom. I dropped a yo-yo tipped with squid and quickly hooked up. Curious on the way up if I found something different, I realized upon color that I did not. Dinky white, back it went. Continued onward I did.
Make no mistake. As mentioned before, I wanted a limit of whitefish. Once I started metering better schools, I dropped my 15# setup on them with dropper looped squid and started hooking up quick. Whitefish are a blast on a light rod! I found myself drifting NW, and being that my destination was almost directly SW, I quickly found that I could simply paddle past the school, pitch my bait off the bow, and hook up 30 seconds later. These 12-14" fish were almost pulling the rod out of my hands on the hook set. Lots of fun.
I found multiple schools during my journey. I didn't need to be too picky about my positioning. I found my first keeper around 0915 and got my limit about 1115.
After hitting my limit, it was time to hunt down another species: rockfish, maybe deep water bass.
I still hadn't hit my destination rock pile, so I made a B line for it.
Now, I don't know what etiquette is for boating, particularly for kayaks, but when I made it to my Final Destination, a private boater rolled up with a family of 3 rolled up to me well within casting range. Papa Bear of the boat nodded to me and I nodded back, giving general consent to the spacing. It's obviously a straight-down fishing spot, so I'm not about to launch a Tady over their hull, but it was tighter than I've personally ever seen in open water.
Then, another private boat comes from further offshore and settles within the same range to complete a triangle. 3 30 yr olds getting their fix. I'm yo-yoing the iron tipped with squid, holding my breath for a not-whitefish.
I hear someone on the Trophy go, "I'm BIT!! bro mark the waypoint!"
20 seconds later,
"aw, it's just a whitefish, never mind..."
I laughed from that and I'm certain they could hear me.
After about 30 minutes of drifting with The Gang, I split back toward the harbor about 1215, because it was obvious I wasn't gonna find anything else to fill out my 20 fish bag, at least in the area, and with my physical stamina.
Arrived at the harbor before 1300, still no wind to speak of. Really satisfying day on the water.
