Posted on April 4, 2020

I woke up at 4, had a quick double espresso and a scone and was on my way. Not exactly the breakfast of champions but what are you going to eat in the middle of the night anyways? To make up for it I placed two bananas on the passenger seat. More calories and precious minerals for a long day in the kayak.

On the way south on I-5 near Patterson I passed a long procession of FedEx trucks. There were at least 12 huge big rigs, one after the next, and all towing another huge trailer. Road trains. FedEx must be running a brisk business in these times of COVID-19.

Jason was waiting for me at the launch site. He couldn't sleep and arrived extra early. We rigged up in respectful distance to one another and paddled out at the break of dawn and under the eyes of a colony of Pelagic Cormorants.

I admire these cormorants every time I paddle out. They are so elegant and on top of that they are formidable fishermen who can dive up to 138 feet deep to catch a fish.

Conditions were as calm as you will ever see at Moss Landing and even the sun came out for a short stint. My Petrale Sole spot laid seven miles due SW. Along the way we spotted clusters on our sounders that looked like bait balls. I tried to pick up some live bait with a mackerel sized sabiki but had no luck. Perhaps these objects weren't fish at all or they were just too small.

At the spot I immediately hooked two Sanddabs on the first drop. Soon after that both Jason and I landed a Petrale Sole each. This was a big deal. I had never gotten into Petrales so early in the season and targeting a particular species with success is rather satisfying.

We kept fishing, landed more Sanddabs, another Petrale on either side, and then the unthinkable happened: Jason hooked into a big salmon!

Jason's rig consisted of a leader with two dropper loops and an 8 oz sinker at the bottom. To each dropper loop he had tied a barbless circle hook with a pice of squid on the top hook and a chunk of herring at the bottom. The rig was sitting on the sea floor, 300 feet below us, when the salmon went for the cut herring.

At first it wasn't clear at all that it was a salmon, let alone a big one, as the rig plus fish came up vertically without much resistance. I believe Jason was initially convinced that he was reeling in another Petrale. Only when the line went sideways as the rig approached the surface Jason knew this was something different and soon he yelled out SALMON!!! GoPro time, I thought, and began filming with my handheld camera.

Today was supposed to be the first day of the 2020 salmon season here in Monterey. However, due to the Coronavirus crisis, CDFW had decided to close salmon fishing for April and to reassess the situation later on. This was most unfortuante as Jason was about to land his very first kayak salmon ever and it changed the course of action. Instead of going for the kill Jason carefully played the salmon until he could lift it out of the water by hand, remove the hook, and get a quick trophy picture before releasing the salmon back to the depths of the Monterey Canyon.

Later I learned that I also owned a share of the salmon closure misfortune as Jason would have given me half of the fish. Even later my kids also felt the pain when I told them that they 'almost' would have eaten salmon for dinner. My kids are usually not too interested in the fish I bring home with the exception of salmon of course.

The danger of fishing this part of the Monterey Bay from a kayak, the proverbial nutshell surrounded by big water, lies in a sudden change in conditions. You're far offshore and it takes hours to paddle back to port under the best circumstances. We knew that a weather front was coming and soon after the salmon catch started our paddle home. We took one more video but after the conditions were so rough that I wasn't in the mood to take my camera out.

Despite heavy chop we managed to change rigs and troll for halibut along the beaches on the way home. Jason trolled in 40 to 50 feet while I was a bit closer to the shore break and trolled in about 25 to 30 feet. The water temperature was at 57F, the bottom contour looked promising, but neither I nor Jason had a single bite. After 45 minutes I was exhausted, trolling is always a high energy affair on a sea kayak, and I called it.

It was a long day in the saddle but the salmon adrenaline made it easy.

Distance: 16.8 miles
Duration: 8 hours 15 minutes

Fun fact: All Pacific Sanddabs are left-eyed while all Petrale Sole are right-eyed. And California Halibut, flexible as they are, can be either left- (60%) or right-eyed (40%) while the Pacific Halibut is a very large species of righteye flounder.