SLO/Monterey County Trippin'

[jrodda]

Another kinda late and unnecessarily long report, coming in hot:

After the kings robbed me of all happiness and peace of mind for 3 straight days, I felt like I couldn't sit around at home for long. I didn't want to go back to the Sac quite yet, I'll wait for the Late Fall Run chinooks to pile in before I gather my wits and charge 10 hours north once more. I figured I could go on a little loop around Central California for a few days. Using a website I found, I tracked down a couple of free campgrounds and then did some research on the watersheds near them to find some micro-species to add to my list.

I settled on an itinerary looking something like this:

Day 1: Harmony Headlands in Cayucos, CA. Spend the night at Williams Hill CG near Lakewood, CA
Day 2: North to Arroyo Seco River. Then east to camp at Laguna Mountain Recreation Area.
Day 3: Fish the San Benito River, stay at LMRA again.
Day 4: Head north to the ***** River (I'll get to that). From here, make the call to head home or shower at a gym and stay at Hawk CG in Marin County and fish around the Bay Area for a couple days.

Day 1

I left Thousand Oaks at 7am and had a pleasant drive on the 101 N to Pismo Beach, then taking the 1 up past Morro Bay and finally arriving at Harmony Headlands at 10am. It was a free parking lot at a trailhead and a 1.5 mile walk to the fishing grounds. I got the idea to fish here from a guy on YouTube, as I wanted a spot with minimal fishing pressure.

I don't know if I've ever made a 30 minute walk to a fishing spot, not counting walking and casting a beach. The morning marine layer kept me from getting a glimpse at the ocean for a while, but it was worth the wait.



Looked fishy as hell. I went with a 3oz dropper loop rig with a strip of squid and 25# leader.

Within an hour I had busted off 3 sinkers, without a single bite yet. I planned on fishing here for about 4 hours but I was gonna run out of torpedos long before that if the pace kept up.

About an hour in and I finally got what felt like a perch tap. It felt too small for the 2/0 circle, so I added a #14 trailer hook with a single squid tentacle in hopes of nabbing the culprit. I casted back to the spot and got bit again, but no hook-up before it disappeared. And then I broke off the sinker.

It was tough losing a lot of tackle without many bites, but I didn't walk a mile and a half for nothing. I switched coves and kept casting, and losing tackle. Just tried to keep a tough mindset, and thought about how cool it would be to nab a china or quillback.



Finally 3pm rolled around, and with 22oz of lead gone from my backpack with nothing to show for it, it was time to head out and grab a campsite before dark. I arrived at about 5:30pm at Williams Hill, a long dirt road in to a quiet, free campground. It's about 40 minutes from Lake Nacimiento, otherwise not much near this place. Still, a nice place to stop over. I recommend.



When the sun set, I was sitting out in my chair with no fire and watched for shooting stars for a bit, when I noticed a silhoutte dart by my legs. I look and see a cat-like body, but a longer snout. A gray fox! It inspected my campsite for a solid 5 minutes paying no mind to me. When I thought it left, I got up to pee in the bushes, and mid-stream I realized it was about 15 feet in front of me, casually watching. Gross. Super cool experience.

Day 2

Woke up the next day late, around 9:30am, and immediately got on the road. It was about 90 minutes north to my desired access point to the Arroyo Seco River. Unfortunately, I arrived at the public land area to find that the area was closed due to fire danger. I didn't have any cell reception, so I poked around a several mile stretch for an hour, driving up and down the road, looking for an access point and parking. I couldn't find both, so unfortunately I had to scrap the whole plan. The river looked healthy, too. A large creek, but certainly held some fish.

Terrible to scrap a plan like that, but I had to move on. So I started early for my next campsite in the Laguna Mountain Recreation Area, 25 miles east of King City. Yes, most of this report takes place in the middle of nowhere.

Another 90 minute drive. Along the way, in some grassland, I saw a badger cross the road. Never thought I'd see one of those in California!

I arrived at the campground. Another nice, quiet campground.



Being that I arrived at 2pm, I decided to head out and scout the creeks and lake that I'd seen online.

I realized quickly that a couple roads turned out to be private and gated, so that totally eliminated one creek. Then a 10 minute drive later, I discovered that the San Benito River was bone dry.

This really shook up my whole schedule. Not only was the Arroyo Seco a bust, but the next 2 days of plans were out the window as well. I no longer had any reason to be in this remote valley, and it was 3pm. What to do? I was over an hour away from reception, so I couldn't look online to research a new back-up plan. I went back to the campground and smoked a cigar to soothe my overwhelming restlessness. If I packed up and left right then and there, I may not find another campground, and I'd be forced to either get a hotel or go home. I decided to grin and bare the night there, and then head north to my next spot in the morning.

Day 3

Couldn't sleep after 3am, and could not wait to get the f$#k out of there. First light was just barely breaking at 6am and I packed up my tent and left.

I arrived at my next river. I'm being hush-hush about the spot because in my research to find threespine sticklebacks, coastrange sculpin, and tule perch, I never thought to check the regs on the river, because who cares about what I was doing, but I later found that at least a certain section very close to where I fished was closed to fishing. I didn't see any signs explicitly telling me I couldn't fish, though.

Anyway, I quickly got my skunk off. Not my target, and honestly as soon as I caught it I was like "uh oh, people put regulations on these things..."



Shortly after, I caught another clearly-not-a-coastrange-sculpin.



I continued to get tapped by what seemed to be a fish defending a territory or something, as it only hit my bait in a single square yard. Despite switching from a #14 to a #30 hook, I still couldn't hook it. Eventually it stopped biting, and I began running low on energy.

I checked another pool and found some tiny, long-bodied bottom-hugging fish, but I couldn't get them interested in my offering. Finally after a couple hours I called it quits and went back to the car.

I drove to the coast and grabbed a coffee, then settled in to decide the fate of my trip. I checked Hawk Campground and realized that it was not a free site like I thought, and it was booked. Looking at the rest of the campgrounds within 100 miles of the coast, I found I was s#%t out of luck for a place to stay for the night. It was 11am, so I still had time to hit one more spot between there and home. I decided to take the 1 down the coast to Morro Bay, which I'd never done before.

20 minutes into the drive, I thought, wow. This is a really spectacular piece of the coast.



At 30 minutes, I thought, wow. This road will be the death of me.



I decided that I would try just down the road from where I started the trip, a few miles south at Cayucos beach. I arrived an hour before sunset. Another very fishy stretch of coast. Rocky and nice looking water, but throwing a 5" Big Hammer and then c-rig crack, a whole lot of nothing.


So, a 3-5 day trip cut short, and no new species. Can't say I didn't try. It was fun delving into the cracks and crevices of Central Cal, but wow what a break-down of a trip. A solid learning experience, I guess.

[sasquatch]

I dig these road trip reports. Even if there aren't many fish in them.

[skrilla]

Good read good pics once again. Beats staring at the honey-do list.

[Latimeria]

I'm loving these road trips you're doing!  Well worth the time checking new stuff out and fishing in new places!

BTW, I'm not sure if I ever made a 30 minute walk to a fishing spot either.  hahaha

[BenCantrell]

That coast looks awesome.