Posted on July 30, 2022

Much of California was under a heat wave when I made my way up the coast. I picked up a coffee in Garberville as I needed a boast to take on the final 25 miles across King Range, and I thought that my tires were melting into the asphalt. 104℉, just get me out of here!

An hour later I pulled into the Shelter Cove campground and it seemed that I was on a different planet. The temperatures had dropped to the low 60s and I was freezing. My plan was to meet up with Mike, to relax and fish a little, but when I arrived a party of the saltiest of kayak fishermen was in full swing. This was Mike's circle. I knew just one or two faces but had heard about most of them along the way. I made camp and soon found myself in the middle of a three day birthday bash for Mike's friend Kiet. Kiet doesn't appear in any of my pictures but I can attest that he's a real person.

Loleta Eric, the best kayak fishing guide on the northern coast, came by our camp after a long session on the water. We had a chance to catch up, talked about gear and fishing techniques, and I showed him my new 40C rig. Eric took a close look, thought that it was pretty cool and definitely legal for any species in the book and blessed it. I knew right then and there that this would be a great trip. Just about every time I cross paths with Eric I feel a rush of extra motivation and catch something special the next day. Sunrise couldn't come soon enough.

Day 1

Based on what I had heard and seen the salmon were not here but ocean conditions were some of the best yet this year and I decided to go offshore, troll for salmon and also drop for sole and anything else that might be lurking in the deep. On the way out I had a few takedowns but each time it turned out to be large rockfish on the hunt in midwater.

A couple of hours later I found myself about 4 miles offshore in 240 feet of water. This was an interesting place, an area with a slightly steeper gradient and a confluence of different depths all converging in this particular corner. I dropped a herring to the seafloor and immediately hooked a large petrale sole. This is great, the spot is alive and I definitely need to mark it. A few minutes later I had a second petrale and then a third. I could have continued to fish here but I was dangerously low on bait and still had salmon on my mind.

I started to troll again and for the next couple of hours not much happened. But then, on the eastern edge of the reef, I had a screaming takedown. For a brief moment I felt the weight of a stout salmon but almost immediately lost contact as the fish was gunning for my boat. Soon I saw the salmon coming straight into port side, with the flasher in tow and clearly hooked. I kept reeling like crazy and just needed to catch up so that I could put pressure on the fish. The salmon dove under my kayak and re-emerged on the starboard side and to my horror the hook had come out. I was stunned, the salmon looked bewildered and paused for a moment. I now had a good look at it and thought that it was a 30 incher give or take a couple of inches, but it was over. With a flick of the tail the salmon disappeared into the depths of the ocean. I kept trolling across that area several more times but this was it, no further takedowns occurred.

Day 2

I hadn't given up on salmon quite yet and decided to troll for at least four or five miles, but eventually I would revisit the zone I had fished the day before. The petrale sole bite had been solid and there might be other kinds of fish down there. Out of intuition I had inquired about Pacific Halibut. I was out of internet range but The Innkeeper had assured me that Pacific Halibut was still open.

After a mile of trolling I had a nice takedown and a bright-red vermilion rockfish emerged from the dark waters of the early morning. This was a great start but things went very quiet. I kept working for another four miles but nothing was happening on the end of my line. I was approaching the target zone and looked forward to change things up and drop a herring to the bottom. Deep trolling is how I call this technique. I'm still moving the boat and still control line angle, but rather slowly so that the weight section stays in touch with the seafloor. A few minutes later I had a taker and reeled up a rather large petrale.

Petrale sole are amongst my favorite table fare and it would be a great day if I could load up the boat. On the second drop I repeated my deep trolling technique. Suddenly I had a screaming takedown, the line was flying off the reel. That must be a big fish as it went on a powerful run. The seconds after such a takedown might be the most exciting moments in fishing. What have I got? How big is it? Can I bring it in or will I get spooled? It is super tempting to slam the break and try to turn the fish by force just to find out what you're dealing with but it could lead to a broken leader and a lost opportunity. Patience. I let the fish run and after a minute the run suddenly stopped. What was this? I ran through my mental checklist. A big salmon would have kept moving with sudden changes in direction, there were some headshakes but nothing like a California Halibut. Perhaps another Wolf Eel? I was clearly out of lingcod range but I've caught big lings over sandy bottom before. Whatever this was, it favored the depths and didn't want to come off the seafloor. I now convince myself that I had a shark. Perhaps a thresher had followed the baited herring all the way down, or perhaps a different kind of shark. There are so many candidates with more than 30 different shark species in the Pacific Ocean. Fortunately, after applying some more pressure the fish started to come up. I had to be careful, this was a 25-pound leader and a heavy handed approach would easily break it. 200 feet to go, the fish now was clearly in open water. 150 feet, still heavy, still working hard. This was not a large bocaccio rockfish nor was it a lingcod but something different. Turn by turn the fish came up and then I saw a diamond shaped outline. PACIFIC. I had never caught one but it was immediately clear that this was a Pacific Halibut. I grabbed my gaff and took it before it would break the surface.

The Pacific Halibut looked amazing. It wasn't very big, perhaps 15 pounds, but thick and strong. The gaff had stunned the fish and I worked quickly to push my rope through the gills and out of its mouth. A bowline knot and the fish was securely tethered to the boat. So far everything was under control but I knew that this could change any moment. I decided to leave the gaff in the fish for now, cut the gills and watched the blood pumping out. After a while I opened my center hatch, removed everything that could be weaponized, and shoved the fish into it. I removed the gaff, slammed the hatch shut and strapped it down. All clear. I heard my heart pumping but otherwise things were strangely quiet. Then all hell broke loose as the Pacific went into full zombie mode and threatened to tear the boat apart. I straddled the kayak as if this would help to keep it together and waited it out. The flopping and banging continued for a good while longer and faded. Mental note to myself to not do this again, especially should I catch a bigger specimen: it is better to keep the fish in the water until it fully bleeds out. The kayak is quite strong on the outside but not so much when the forces push from the inside out.

I continued to fish this zone for another hour, caught another couple of large petrale, but then decided to return to hunting for salmon. I trolled along the eastern edge of the reef as I had done the day before but didn't get any further takedowns. It didn't matter as all I could think about was the Pacific Halibut. This was the special catch that I was looking for, I'll get my salmon on another day.

When I returned to the cove I ran into Eric. Really, Eric? Didn't he say that he had the day off? I was excited to show him my catch and again he thought that this was pretty cool. Few Pacific Halibut have been landed this far to the south and even fewer by kayakers. A Pacific Halibut on the Mendocino coast definitely is a special catch.

Back at the campsite the three-day-birthday-bash continued. The rest of the group had returned from a trip to the deep reef and brought in an amazing assortment of large rockfish and lingcod. There may have been twenty vermilion in the mix, as well as some of the most beautiful lingcod you will ever see. We partied into the night and continued the next morning before we shared a lox on bagels breakfast and broke camp. Great trip, fantastic catch plus this amazing group of the best looking kayak fishermen anywhere in California. Let's do it again next year!

40C Rig

For 2022 I designed a new fishing rig. The main motivation was to further simplify my kayak fishing gear (less is more) by creating a single rig that catches everything be it halibut, salmon, petrale sole, rockfish, lingcod or something else. The rig needs to be able to troll & mooch baits of all kinds and to hook fish of different sizes. One rig that does it all, without the need to switch rigs based on target species or fishing style. A rig that enticingly rolls big or small baits when trolling for salmon and a rig that I can drop down deep, perhaps hundreds of feet deep, to fish the bottom of the ocean.

The design I came up with is shown in the picture above. The rig consists of two circle hooks (Gamakatsu 208414, barbs removed) that are spaced within a 4-inch box from the eye of the top hook to the bend of the bottom hook. My leader material of choice is fluorocarbon in 25-pound strength. The total rig length is 60 inches from the bend of the bottom hook to the top of the swivel chain. Above the top hook I tie a short piece of copper wire to the leader line (with a slip knot, of course). The copper wire is my version of a commercial bait head such as Krippled Anchovy or Shelton FBR. While bait heads fit only certain sizes of bait (you need to bring several if you plan to fish different sizes) my copper wire solution pins down bait of all sizes.

I also tie this rig with Gamakatsu 224414 hooks which already come barbless and are inline. Both hooks, 208414 and 224414, are absolutely lethal and don't come out once they are fully set. Circle hooks tend to embed themselves into the jaw of a fish instead of the gills or in the stomach. This is another advantage over the more common J-hooks because it is unlikely that a heavy fish will bite and chafe through the line. Yet another advantage is that circle hooks filter out smaller specimens and that the hook can almost always be removed without pliers as the shank of the hook typically is on the outside of the mouth.

Since I started fishing the 40C rig I hooked & landed 15 salmon in a single session at Pacifica (proof-of-concept), another salmon over at Fort Bragg, and all fish caught on this trip, including the Pacific Halibut, came on this original 40C rig shown above. That's a heck of a lot of fish for such a simple idea.