# First saltwater trip of the season, got some fish and pics..5-3-2010 to 5-6-2010



## Team Bloody Waters (Feb 24, 2009)

<span style="font-weight: bold;"> Well to start out I had to leave Pensacola right when fishing was getting hot about a month ago to come out here(Northern California) to work collecting fish for contamination studies for the state. I'll be out here for at least the summer maybe longer since there is not much as far as jobs in Pensacola right now.
We left Monterey bay area at 5:30 am heading up to Cresent City about 9 hr drive with a boat, right at the state line to Oregon. When we got there a front just moved thru and it was blowing hard out of the NW and there was snow on the mountains. Conditions were bad to say the least. The forecast for Mon.-Wed. called for 20-25kts out of the NW, 5-7 ft wind waves on top of a 7ft swell. Needless to say we didn't make it out very far. We are fishing a 20' Boston Whaler Guardian wich is a sweet boat but there is a reason center consoles aren't popular out here(FREAKIN too COLD). But we had our foul weather gear and managed to pick a few fish off of some closer rocks. Thursday called for wind 5-10kts, wind waves 3 ft or less with a 6 ft swell at 9 secs. Beautifull!!
As soon as our jigs hit the bottom on our first drift FISH ON!








This is a gopher rockfish, one of 3 we caught








You can kinda see some snow on the mountains








Most of the week we had to tuck in behind some rocks to get out of the wind and waves.








Its alot diff. than Pensacola up there.









This lingcod was barely legal(24")








This one was a little better.








This is one of 4 nice cabezon we caught, pretty cool looking fish.








The belly and the mouth on these fish have a blue color to them and so does the meat.
















This is a kelp greenling.








This is one of about 30 black rockfish we caught.








This is a nice copper rockfish. We caught almost all of the fish on a 6oz. leadhead jig/soft plastic tipped with a little squid in 50' to 100'.








One of 3 quillback rockfish we caught.








Another lingcod.
The final total:
30+ black rockfish
7 blue rockfish
4 legal lingcod(probably 20 undersized fish)
1 greenling
4 Cabezon
3 quillback rockfish
1 copper rockfish
3 gopher rock fish

I forgot to mention we tried setting some fish traps on some of the reefs and probably caught 100+ dungenous crabs and only a couple fish in them.

I think thats it. Not bad considering we only had one day of decent conditions to fish and most fish were caught on Thursday.
We are heading back up there Mon. morning to get some more fish, hopefully conditions will be better. I'll be taking more pics and some video now that my camera is out of the shop. They do get some pacific halibut up there wich are way bigger than the california halibut I'm used to catching.
I just want to say thanks for reading my post and good luck to everyone being affected by the spill, I just hope the beaches are still white when I come home and that this doesn't turn out as bad as I fear it will be. Thanks!


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## lobsterman (Sep 30, 2007)

Hey maybe by the end of summer you can get a job testing the contaminants in fish here too. Glad you made it out to catch some table fare.


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## Team Bloody Waters (Feb 24, 2009)

<span style="font-family: Impact;"><h4>Yeah I was thinking that too, I've been doing this for almost 4 yrs off and on. I think the state of FL needs to do more monitoring of coastal fish species that are regularly consumed, especially the nonmigratory species. One of the main projects we are working on covers the entire coast of CA, all the bays, and all the major rivers and lakes, testing for mercury and pcbs mainly, and its all to inform the public of contamination levels in the most consumed fish species. It will be a few years before all the data is collected and analyzed but it will be posted on the fish and game website.
</h4>


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## lobsterman (Sep 30, 2007)

That sure beats a 9 to 5 at the salt mines that you hate huh?


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## Jason (Oct 2, 2007)

Man that is a heck-uv-a variety there!!! Wicked looking fishies, GREAT report and good luck on work....:toast


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## JoeyWelch (Sep 25, 2009)

Nice pics BloodyWaters and thanks. Hope you make it back here to the warm weather.


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