The La Jolla Triangle (2019-11-03)

[BenCantrell]

Did a solo trip in La Jolla yesterday.  I showed up later than most, which made for tough parking, but unloading gear without a headlamp was nice.  The surf was less than a foot which made for a super easy launch.



I finally figured out how to turn contour lines on my fish finder map, which meant I could actually plan out where I wanted to go.  My plan was to bottom fish in 300 ft to try to get a squarespot rockfish for my lifelist, so I dropped a waypoint a few miles away and started paddling.



Unsurprisingly, the bottom there didn't have any structure, but it was more of a proof of concept than anything, so I dropped pieces of squid down to see if I could pull something up.  Right away I had small savage bites, and I started pulling up sanddabs.  The first one was a longfin, which is a new species for me!



Proof of my 300 ft sanddab fishing:



I caught a few that were big enough to keep and stashed them in a walmart bag in the shade.



While I was out there I had some juvenile fish use my kayak for shelter.  Pretty sure they were halfmoons. They enjoyed chopped up squid tentacles.





A few dink rockfish were mixed in as well. Here's a halfbanded and a blue.





For the remainder of the day I paddled over to the 150 ft to 75 ft deep area near the kelp where most of the boats fish.  I had a genuine shot at a mako that was finning near me, but I whiffed and missed my chance.  Caught some more variety from the bottom including copper rockfish, gopher rockfish, kelp rockfish, scorpionfish, whitefish, and mackerel.





This guy ate both my baits:



Here's the the route for the day.



miles: 10.09
hours: 6:51

And the fish that came home:





I take a lot of pictures. 

[Latimeria]

Hell of a yak journey Ben!  You missed some great piles though after seeing your journey. 

Great bunch of fish and even better looking bags of groceries! 

[BenCantrell]

Hell of a yak journey Ben!  You missed some great piles though after seeing your journey. 

I can definitely plan out a more strategic route for the next trip.  Google maps satellite view shows some interesting spots that might hold fish.

[vdisney]

Very cool indeed, awesome photography..........