Posted on August 10, 2019

About a year ago I hatched a plan so that I could stay closer to the fishing grounds during the summer while I was working. That should increase my chances to finally bring home the chrome. I rallied my family and we rented a house on N. Harrison Street in Fort Bragg from early July until early August. A full month right on the beautiful Mendocino coast should amount to something.

My kayaking time was split between rolling, paddling the surf at the mouth of Big River and fishing.

Hard at work right next to me was a guy by the name of Benson. "Hurry up, they're coming (not herring but people), soon all of San Francisco will be here!". Benson was practically a local and quite surprised how I got here all the way from the Central Valley. Benson was super welcoming, offered drinks and a wider bucket to empty my net without spill-overs.

For the first fishing trip I launched from the crystal clear waters of Caspar beach. Weather was amazing but after fishing the reefs for several hours I still had to find a bite. There was no sign of rockfish, not bait schools and definitely no salmon. Petrale sole, I thought, and paddled a few miles further out until I got into 200, 300 and even 350 feet of water. My luck didn't change, there weren't any Petrales either. On the way back I met a fellow kayaker right at the mouth of a canyon. He was smoking a fat cigar but otherwise also didn't see any action. We fished together for a while and both of us landed one large Vermilion, a bright red rockfish often mistaken for Red Snappers at the fish market. That was about it. No further fish took the bait and we paddled back in.

Caspar is great but soon I missed the familiar waters of Albion. My next six or seven times would take me there.

On my first visit to Albion I met a bunch of grown men giggling like teanage boys at the campground. I had planned to go for rockfish but there was salmon fever in the air. We paddled out together and the group of four or five kayaks began to troll for chrome while I went for bottom fish and immeditaly pulled in several large Vermilion. It was an eerie day, heavy fog hanging low over the ocean's surface, visibility was just a few feet, and it was good to know that a few other kayaers were in the area even though for the most time I couldn't see them. One of my new friends radioed that he had connected with a Coho salmon (the kind we're not allowed to keep here in California). Other than that nothing really happened for either of them.

A few days later I went back to Albion, this time with trolling gear. It was early on a weekday and there was nobody else around. I trolled for less than 20 minutes before I felt my line flying off the reel. This was a first for me and I was in complete disbelief. After a 5 minute fight (which felt like 5 hours) I gaffed a beautiful Chinook salmon (a king, the right kind which we can definitely keep). I fished a bit longer but was so stoked about this one fish that I wanted to take it back to shore before anything went drastically wrong (too many predators out there). This was easily my best day in fishing so far. In the previous year I had landed two Cohos out of Shelter Cove (which had to be returned as they are a protected species) and felt the power of what must have been a large Chinook for a while before it broke off, but this was the first time I managed to take home a salmon.

Triple Crown Challenge completed with salmon #1 for 2019 after catching Lingcod and Halibut earlier in the year.

Over the past four years I've paddled well over two hundred miles through wind and weather trying to catch a salmon. Earlier this year I paddled 20+ miles trying to find a salmon out of Moss Landing; as often I was so exhausted that I didn't take a single picture. I certainly had paid my tuition money and finally graduated from salmon catching school.

Salmon are majestic fish and I face a strange dichotomy of feelings when killing an animal of this statue. On one hand I'm in awe of salmon, on the other they are a precious food source. The only way to justify catching and killing salmon and other living creatures for that matter, and I fully realize that humans have unlimited capacity to justify almost anything, is to do it in strict adherence and full support of conservation efforts. Most salmon fishermen I know are also fierce defenders of the fragile ecosystem that is necessary to support a significant salmon population.

Now that I knew that salmon were in the area I went back to Albion the very next day and landed two more. My first salmon limit from a kayak and salmon #2 and #3 of the year. Now that I repeated my feat from the previous day plus one I suddenly felt like an accomplished California kayak fisherman!

Over the course of the next several trips to Albion I caught many more fish including salmon #4 and #5.

On the last day before our return I wanted to sleep in a bit to be fresh for the long drive home. Instead of Albion I decided to hit Van Damme around noon. Van Damme offers free parking and I wanted to paddle this area, known for sea caves and dramatic reefs, for the longest time. In the parking lot I noticed a familiar car and on the way out, crossed paths with Mike Kowalsky, kayaking coach and person who taught me my first roll at the Richmond plunge. He had just led a group of kayakers on a cave exploration tour. We had a happy and cheerful hello and then I went off to explore the waters outside of Van Damme.

There were many reef formations and very little fishing pressure as far as I could tell and I immeditely hooked up with a rather large Vermilion from about 100 feet down. My second fish was a really big ling, somewhere between 35 and 40 inches in total. I wasn't trying to fill up the boat since we had to travel back home and so I stopped fishing at this point. Instead I went for a paddle circling back to the launch spot while trolling a salmon lure.

Completely out of the blue I connected with yet another king salmon, keeper salmon #6 for the year.

What a trip this has been. I will never forget my time on the Mendociono coast which has become my favorite playground anywhere in the world. And I will never forget how it felt to catch a king salmon from a kayak.