Ice On The Beach! Pacific City, Oregon 12-11-09

[yakinitup]

Before heading back down to SD for the holidays to see family, I thought it would be nice to head out to the coast and round up some rockfish to freeze and bring down with me for a fish fry! So one of my buddies and I headed out to the haystack rock at Pacific City on Friday of last week. He had never been there and I was itching to get back out to the rock. We get to the beach and the temp is in the mid twenties, there's a consistent off shore breeze at about ten mph, and it's pretty humid. So all of that wrapped up equals COLD!! Water temp. was around 48 and the sand on the beach was pretty stiff. The surf, however, was finally playing nice and well under 8 ft. so this was the day to do it!

We get on the water shortly after 9 after bundling up in our layers and were in the fish by 9:30. Plenty of rockfish, a little cabezon, and a couple of legal size lings were caught. My largest happened to be my first rockfish of the day coming in at 18" and well over 4 lbs.. We stayed in close to the rock for most of the day but did attempt to head out to my favorite hole and see if we could fight the wind. We couldn't. I was jigging with 4 oz. of lead and couldn't keep it even close to straight down. Even though the fish were biting like crazy, we were getting blown out pretty quick, so we headed back to the lee of the rock.

It was great to get out there again and hitting up my favorite spot sure was a nice way to wrap up 2009.
Cheers from Oregon!

[steveooo]

Great report. Looks like a pretty bitchin spot too. Love the pics

[Matt]

Daaaayyyyyummmmmmm that looks cold!!! Nice catch though for sure!!! Thanks for sharing!

[Dan]

So cool. Isn't that the beach where the locals drive on and launch their boats?

[dos ballenas]

Thats place looks so epic! Whats the water temp and depths around that rock? Congrats on getting a nice window in an otherwise swell filled month!

looks like a blast!

thx for the report!

[Afran]

Great report

[yakinitup]

Originally Posted by Dan

So cool. Isn't that the beach where the locals drive on and launch their boats?

Yes it is! That would be the dory fleet and it's pretty cool watching them come back in. That's a big part of that town's history.

[yakinitup]

Originally Posted by dos ballenas

Thats place looks so epic! Whats the water temp and depths around that rock? Congrats on getting a nice window in an otherwise swell filled month!

The temp next to the rock was about 48. The depth averages at around 20 to 30 ft. right next to the rock. There is a reef on one side that is either exposed, or submerged by about 5 ft. depending on what the tides are doing, and there's a spot on another side that is 60 to 70 ft. deep right up against the side of the rock. So it provides a very wide range of structure and is always productive.

[Slay Rider]

Very impressive, VERY!