January 2008

The sky was looking like it would open up and pour rain at any moment, when a good friend called to say that low tide was at 3:20pm and would I like to go collect some mussels with him for dinner. My son Kyle also wanted to go so we quickly  packed buckets, pry bars, rubber boots and towels into the car. Then we headed off to the local store to pick up our 2008 fishing licenses. We met Val at Surf City Coffee in Scotts Valley at 2:30pm for a hot cup of brew before heading north on highway 1 to Val's "secret spot". I was sworn to secrecy on the spots location but I will say it was north of Davenport.

We arrived just as the sky began to spit rain. No time was lost changing into our wooly socks and rubber boots. With buckets in hand we climbed down the rocks to explore the exposed tide pools. I took photos as we hunted the rock walls for mussel beds. Within an hour we all had our desired amounts of mussels and the rain was starting to pick up. We quickly changed shoes and got into the car for warmth.

That evening I filled a large pot with water. I added sea salt, onion and minced garlic to the water and brought it to a boil. The mussels were added to the boiling water and cooked until they opened. They were then loaded onto large plates and served with melted butter. We like mussels but had never collected our own locally.  I was a little concerned that they may taste too "fishy" or strong for our liking. I was very surprised at how mild and sweet they were. We all ate our fill and talked about doing this again with the next low tide! The season for collecting mussels and clams usually closes May 1 thru Oct 31 due to red tides that create a toxin in the shellfish that can make you sick if you eat them.

February 2007

           On Feb. 5th we took the boat out of theSanta Cruz harbor for a sea trial of our interphase forward scanning sonar with Johnson Hicks Electronics. After dropping Andrew from J&H back at the dock we decided to run north to hunt for large Humboldt Squid. The sun was out and the ocean was almost flat, in other words it was an unusually beautiful day with little or no wind. We ran north 18 miles toDavenport, then out 6 miles to 2,000 feet of water. We were using 20-40# rods, a Baston/Forcast Tuff Stick and a Calstar. Both rods were spiral wrapped for stability and we were using Penn 2 speed reels. After rigging our rods with the large Humboldt squid jigs we dropped them down to 700 ft. I left my rod in the pole holder while Dave went to work jigging. With in 5 minutes Dave's rod bent over. Dave exclaimed, "If I didn't know better, I'd swear I have the bottom hooked!"  Suddenly my rod also bent. We both had hooked Humboldt squid. These awesome fighters give you a real work out. They would alternate between fighting, where we both needed both hands to hang on to the rod, (I was using a fighting belt) to swimming toward the boat and letting the line go slack as if they'd escaped.

  Within 30 minutes we landed 5 squid and decided to call it quits. We firmly believe in never taking more than we will use. The weather was still great so we ran back to the area of the Santa Cruz harbor and out to 250 feet of water. Our goal this time was to catch Sand dabs and halibut. We brought in 12 dabs and one under size halibut that we released. The dabs will be a great dinner and it is now late afternoon and time to go home. A beautiful day and great fun fishing, there is plenty of fun and good meals waiting for you even in the off season of fishing.

   On February 9th 2007 we went to visit Kyle at college for his Presidents Weekend break. While there we met our new friend Greg Olsen.

Greg was kind enough to take us out in his boat and teach us how to hoop for the Calif. Spiney Lobster. The weather was beautiful and the water had a small

swell. We set our hoops in the late afternoon then baited them at sundown. As the light faded we began to pull up the hoops. Now it was none stop action of

pulling up a hoop, taking out the legal lobster and throwing back the small lobsters and various crabs that would get in the traps. By 9pm we had our limits for the

three of us, 7 lobster a piece. We had a blast! Hopefully we can repay Greg for his kindness and he will come north to fish aboard the Alibi II for salmon and

albacore.

February  2007                    Congratulations!   

  David Recieves the IGFA All Tackle World Record for the Olive Rockfish

On Oct 6th we trailered the boat to Monterey and launched in flat seas at breakwater. We ran to Carmel Beach to drift for rockfish. We had a friend of Bev's on board with his 6yrs son Monty. On his first drop Monty hooked up and brought in two very nice blues. Monty had the hot rod all afternoon. David landed a large Olive that broke the current IGFA record by a pound. We have summitted his fish to IGFA and we are waiting to hear if it is accepted as a record.

May 2007

The Salmon bite has been slow so we deciede to take the boat for a halibut and rockfish trip. We left the harbor late at around 9 am. The swell was 5' to 6' and the wind was already beginning to

blow. We tried drifting for halibut at the mile bouy and off of Capitola beach. After 2 hours without a bite we switched plans and ran to south rock to try our luck at rockfish.

We used the halibut rigs with dead squid to jig for the rockfish. Dave quickly caught a nice olive. I followed with a nice gopher. Both would make a very nice dinner for us. The wind was blowing

harder and with the large swell it was making fishing sloppy. Since we had already caught dinner we ran back to the calm waters of the Santa Cruz Harbor and called it a day.

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                                                                           June 2007

                      Central Valley Marine's Grady White Boats 2007 Salmon Derby

     The Derby was Fathers day weekend 2007. The weather was beautiful but overcast and the wind came up early. We arrived early and

launched at 5am. The fish had been biting the day before at Mulligans hole which is about a 9 mile run south of Santa Cruz.

After putting our lines in and beginning to troll we heard many anglers hooking up to fish, but we did not see anyone around us

getting fish. At around 10 am we began to troll north toward Santa Cruz. There was some kelp in the water and we brought in

the lines to check them. While letting the lines back down a fish suddenly grabbed Kyles lure at about the 40' mark and began to

run with it. Kyle did a great job fighting the fish and bringing him to the boat were Dave easily netted him. The fish was a beautiful

fat King salmon approx. 19#, gilled and gutted he weighed in at 15.3#

      We never got another bite and called it quits to head back to the harbor at 1:30pm. Weighin was 3pm and the BBQ had already

started. The group were gathered on the deck behind Leo's sportfishing Charters and were enjoying sausage, chicken, hamburgers, potato

salad, beer and wine. After the 3 pm deadline we had taken 5th place in the tournament and we had plenty of fresh salmon for

dinner.