January sablefish

[BenCantrell]

Hey guys, hope everyone's having a good start to the year. I wanted to share some unusual catches from the kayak last month. Rockfish and other federal groundfish are closed Jan and Feb, so like previous years I shift my focus to deep dropping for miscellaneous flatfish that do not have a depth limit or other weird fish that aren't in the regs. I ended up catching a pair of sablefish, which are unfortunately in the list of federal groundfish, so back down to the bottom they went with a descending device. The first one came from 1100 ft, and the second one from 1150 ft, both from the center of La Jolla Canyon. Bait was sardine chunks, and I also used a green strobe light and chum cage packed with chopped up sardines to attract fish.





There were tons of dolphins out. Usually they're just passing through and ignore me, but this time a few of them stuck around to play underneath my kayak.

[jrodda]

Cool report as usual. When you're dropping that deep, are rockfish just not that deep, or are you fishing away from structure? Though without any structure I think there would be a lot of down time between bites. I wanna try this, maybe next time I head out.

[skrilla]

I'm dreading getting to fish 600ft and here you are at 1100+!

[BenCantrell]

Cool report as usual. When you're dropping that deep, are rockfish just not that deep, or are you fishing away from structure? Though without any structure I think there would be a lot of down time between bites. I wanna try this, maybe next time I head out.

Thanks! I stick to the center of the canyon to avoid rockfish, and so far it's worked. And yeah it's a lot of time sitting out there with no bites. 

[vdisney]

And yeah it's a lot of time sitting out there with no bites. 

At that kind of depth, it must be a lot of 'winding' when you do get bit   

[Latimeria]

Jeez, that's a lot of reeling!  My old arms would need an electric reel!

Super cool catches Ben.  One year there was a bunch of fang tooth showing up and rat fish were common catches back in the day.  I can't wait to see what you pull up next.

[BenCantrell]

Haha thanks, yeah it's a ton of reeling, but it's what keeps me interested in fishing. I love the idea of pulling something new up.

Ratfish become more common as you go north, especially up by Seattle. But fangtooth? Wow, I had no idea people caught those! Escolar get caught occasionally when people fish big baits for swordfish in the canyons.

Sadly I think I'm about done with my time in CA. I'm getting ready to move soon. I'll post when I have my plans figured out.

[Latimeria]

Moving?!?!  Like somewhere new or back in your old neck of the woods?

[BenCantrell]

Looking at the east coast of Florida... 

[SevengillTheVC]

Interesting, so can sablefish regulate the gas in their bladder to avoid decompression? Always a treat seeing all the pokemon you catch!

[BenCantrell]

Interesting, so can sablefish regulate the gas in their bladder to avoid decompression? Always a treat seeing all the pokemon you catch!

Yeah I didn't see any signs of barotrauma.