July 1, 2008
T-SHARK TORNADO – Thresher sharks blew through La Jolla, Dana Point, and Malibu in May and June, attracted by thick schools of bait. Plenty of kayakers got into the action, including Scott Gribbons of Thousand Oaks. Gribbons took this 120-lb t-tail on a Rapala CD-14 in blue mackerel. The fight took 45 minutes on 40-lb mono with an 80-lb fluorocarbon leader. “The battle went perfectly and I enjoyed every single moment!” Gribbons wrote. PHOTO COURTESY JOSH RIDER

May 23, 2008
MAY’S Q105 3-DAY MOTHERSHIP STARTED WITH BARN DOOR – In mid-May, long-ranger Q105 loaded 28 kayaks aboard for a novice-friendly mothership tour of northern Baja. The big boat dropped anchor on the beach at Colonet, at San Martin Island, and at KM 38 off Mex 1 just down the road from Rosarito. The crew kept careful watch over their charges, which included eight excited first-time kayakers.

Between great meals and bonus rockcod fishing from the big boat, the kayakers accounted for a mixed bag of calicos, sand bass, lingcod, halibut, and more rockfish. Jared Lane was top stick, landing the pictured 31-lb flatty just 20 minutes into the first fishing day. PHOTO COURTESY MIKE ALLEN

April 28, 2008
MALIBU FLAT ONE – Wilderness Systems staffer Mark Pierpont and team next took on a field of more than 500 power boaters during April's Marina del Rey Halibut Derby. The group boasted a lot of halibut know-how. Well, Pierpont is known as more of a bass man. Figures he took center stage with a 35-lb beast good for third place.

“I was due; I’m stoked to get it in a tournament. If you throw a hook in the water long enough… I didn’t realize it was so easy. Catching a bay bass, that’s hard” the long-time Plastic Navy competitor said. He caught the fish on Big Hammer rainbow trout swimbait fished shallow around kelp stringers.

Pierpont's timely catch earned him a 5 day/4 night fishing vacation for 2 people to the deluxe El Cid Hotel in Mazatlan, including 2 days of fishing with Aries Fleet, plus a $1,500 check to help pay for meals and airfare between LAX and Mazatlan. Congratulations! PHOTO COURTESY JEFF KRIEGER

April 5, 2008
Variety Pack
Talk about your grab bag. The sun peeked out from behind the clouds and the next we knew, it felt an awful lot like spring.

Bryan Buterbaugh is up first with a serious lunker of a largemouth. Look at that thing! It came in at just under 10 lbs. In the following days he scored a 7-14 and 9-1. The man clearly knows how to catch a Delta bass. Here's what he had to say:

I am just getting started in the yak in January, but I have fished the delta since the mid 80’s with my dad on his Stratos Fish and Ski.  I also did a lot of bank fishing when I went to Sacramento State. The 'yak is a perfect cheap way of getting off the bank to places I could never cast to from shore!  Plus, I don’t have to pay $50-$60  to fill up a bass boat.

Edwards was fishing near Fairfield when he felt a quick tap-tap on his line, reared back and swung hard.

“Boom! It was game on,” Edwards recalled of his first ‘dino’ powered ride. “The fight in those sturgeon is unbelievable. Every time it whipped its tail line peeled off the reel. Crazy. I said that ain’t no bass.”

Eventually Edwards wrestled his fish into a snare, where it taped out at 66 in. The absolute top of the slot, roughly 100 lbs, legal to keep and exceptional table fare, but Edwards never considered killing it.

Down south in glitzy Malibu, Jeff Krieger of the Ocean Kayak Fishing Crew greeted Easter Sunday from the water. On only his third bass cast of the day (Krieger was fishing the kelp) he picked up this 24-lb halibut. Krieger, take it away:

I was looking for bass in the kelp rooms of a large reef, and the halibut thought it was a bass! The fish hammered my swimbait, turned around and ran straight into the kelp and stopped! I kept pressure on her and gently got her out of the thick salad and finished her off.

Halibut, it's what's for Easter dinner.

March 15, 2008
Old School Fun
The squid stayed but the big fish went off the bite at La Jolla. With nothing much happening anywhere up and down the coast, Kevin Gephart and his buddy Jeff 'Slayer' Morasse paddled out to the Oceanside artificial reef.

Gephart was toting a secret weapon, a lure he'd carved out of a couple pieces of pine. A 2-oz torpedo sinker was salted inside. Here's Gephart with the rest of the story:

I dragged my contraption along the bottom on several drifts but no luck. Slayer insisted that I join him on “the spot”, so I began to retrieve my lure from the bottom. When the lure neared the surface, I got a decent hit, but could not close the deal. I noticed the lure had several bite marks in it, so I immediately threw it back out. I failed to set the hook two more times before finally closing the deal on the third hit and landed the big Grumpy. 

Gephart pegged the fat sand bass at 3.5-4 lbs. "I laughed my butt off.  I never thought I would catch anything on my 'Old School' lure," Gephart wrote. He'll be back out there, but the lure has retired at the top of its game. 

February 25, 2008
Squid Floats at La Jolla; Yellows and White Seabass Tear It Up
Holy repeat history, Batman! A short lunar cycle after the year's first thick squid float, it was double-trouble time. Clouds of market squid drifted up from the depths of La Jolla submarine canyon and boy, did the game fish ever follow.

The bite kicked off over the long President's Day weekend. Action on big homeguard yellowtail was frantic, but the best was yet to come. On Tuesday the 19th the white seabass showed in great size and numbers.

Steven R Orr got one of each, in grand style. That yellowtail of his - a seriously thick specimen - weighed in at 41-lbs. Both fish came off "borrowed" squid.

A day later Dave Easton pulled off his own incredible white seabass two-spot. The Wilderness Systems staffer's smaller fish weighed 42-lbs - the larger, nearly 60.

Easton's seabass came on a double hook-up on the heels of another trophy catch. He'd just landed an 8-lb calico when his squid rods went off.

He fought the first seabass to the 'yak, then realized his big checker was still waiting for its freedom. Task accomplished, Easton turned his attention to the second fish and finished off a rare La Jolla seabass double.

Easton said the magical day made up for a long big-fish drought. And how! Thanks go out to Easton fellow Wilderness Systems staffer Chris Fierro for the photo.

The days-long bite made for a lot of happy anglers. Here's Al Drake with 56 lbs of prime white seabass. Drake was fishing inside when he decided to head for deeper water. He paddled off, trailing a white iron tipped with a Gulp squid, but didn't get far. Wow.

Here's a tip of the cap for the many boaters who shared live squid with the kayak fleet, or allowed the little 'yaks to scoot up and fish bait in their lights. It was a true reflection of the good will that prevails between fellow anglers. Thank-you.

February 11, 2008
Sturgeon Stay on a Tear
The Northern California Bay Area sturgeon bite continued its rapid (for dinosaurs) pace. In quick succession NCKA's Freddie caught a 61-in beast, followed a day later by Chuck Espiritu with this 64-in giant.

Photo contributor Sean White said he'd rather catch one himself - wouldn't we all - than take excellent snaps like this one. White pegged Espiritu's fish as a real hog and estimated its weight as close to 100 lbs, one of the largest ever caught by kayak.

La Jolla Encore
No, the epic La Jolla yellowtail bite of two weeks back hasn't reignited, more's the pity for anglers who missed the golden opportunity. Here's one more shot from one of the most incredible multi-day bites in memory.

Pictured are a trio of Hobie royalty: Vince Console, Fishing Product Manager; Jared Lane of Fastlane Sailing and Kayaking; and kayak fishing guide Morgan Promnitz. Their 'tails went in the mid-30s. Thanks to Larry Laumann for the photo.

January 28, 2008
Squid Float Fires Up La Jolla Homeguards
Who says big game fishing is a bust during winter? Not Nathan Clookie of OEX Oceanside, pictured here with a 45-lb yellowtail. Clookie got the biggest kayak-caught fish during an exceptional squid float at La Jolla. Epic.

Clookie had a second 'tail, and fishing buddy CJ Siebler did more than take this shot - he also doubled down. An assist went to Barry Brightenburg of FishTrap Lures who slid the pair a few live squirts.

A week later, Clookie was asked if the feeling had gotten old. "No way, not until I get my 50 pounder," he answered. Go get 'em.

Randy Janush of Candy Catchers squid jigs got into the La Jolla action a couple of days later. After making a full tank of 'candy,' Janush sent a live one to the bottom on a dropper loop. A while later he had his first real sleigh ride.

"There's nothing quite as satisfying as jigging up your own squid and then using them to catch a big fish on a kayak," Janush said.

By Jan 20 the bite had slowed dramatically. Be ready, it could return according to squid-savvy Brightenburg.

Dinomite!
Chuck Espiritu of NorCal Kayak Anglers sent KFZ this picture of Melissa Lee with a 59-in sturgeon caught in San Francisco Bay near the Oakland Airport.

Corraling one of these brutes is no easy task, but Lee was up to the challenge. 35 minutes with an Okuma Baidarka kayak rod - the BK-C-761 medium light model! - was all it took.

Espiritu believes Lee is the first woman to accomplish the feat, which propelled her to the early lead in NCKA's 2008 Angler of the Year points contest. Talk about your girl power!

January 14, 2008
Marlin Rock Cabo
Early January was rainy and cold throughout the west, but down south BluewaterJon.com daredevil Jon Schwartz was on fire. On both the 3rd and 5th Schwartz rode a mothership 57 miles out of Cabo for a shot at Finger Bank billfish.

Schwartz tallied an incredible eight marlin in two days, all hooked, fought and landed from the kayak, a signal feat. "For some reason the fish were very cooperative. They all jumped many times, and some in circles right around me. I couldn't believe it!," Schwartz said, adding modestly, "Many anglers would have done just as good a job, or better, than I did. It was just about being in the right time and the right place as always."

Big Flatty at Cabrillo
John Gugliotta snuck out to Los Angeles Harbor in the wake of the storm. Finding the bait barge closed, he spent 90 painstaking minutes to make an even dozen smelt. The extra effort paid off.

"I took off to a spot in 60 ft of water and pinned on a nice 12-in jacksmelt, and with in 5 minutes I got slammed," Gugliotta said. 10 minutes later, he had himself a 28-lb halibut, one of the larger kayak fish to come out of Cabrillo in some time.

No 'Sad Bass' Says Big Sandy
This is a late report but too good to pass up. Back on Dec 18 Steven R. Orr was halibut fishing in the Dana Pt area. After only one small sand bass for two hours of soaking live bait Orr was ready to call it a day when Big Grumpy came to call.

"I set the hook and began the fight; the fish immediately turned the 'yak around and the California sleigh ride started. I knew immediately that it wasn’t a butt, but I had no clue what it was. I was first hoping it would be a big butt. At first color I saw a stripe on a BIG body, so I thought I was going to get my leopard. Then I could not believe my eyes as I got the fish to the surface again. It took me a second to even figure out what it was, because you never associate something this big with a sandbass," Orr wrote on Kayak4Fish.com.

Orr's Boga Grip pegged the bass somewhere between 12 and 13-lbs, just shy of the California state record. It taped an impressive 29-in long. Then Orr took the path less traveled and released his lifetime sand bass. Major kudos.