Any Santa Barbara area members? - Kayak Fishing Adventures on Big Water’s Edge

sbsyncro · 10-08-2007, 06:10 PM

Well, it was a beautiful day yesterday on Naples Reef. A buddy and I took my Hobie Outfitter tandem loaded up with four rods, bait bucket, and an assortment of plastics. After about a 40 minute paddle, we arrived on the reef at about 9 AM. We launched from the beach just below Bacara, and was a bit tricky due to the steepneess of the shoreline and that it is made of rocks instead of sand.

Once on the reef, my first cast out, a small (probably about 8") calico folowed my 6" swimbait all the way back to the kayak. I hooted and said "This is going to be an AWESOME day!". Unfortunately that was the last calico we saw until about 20 minutes before coming in where we stopped under the Veneco pier to fish the kelp stringers there. (a 18" or so calico was sitting about a foot below the surface just staring at me. And I mean *staring*). I couldn't entice him with anything wiggled past his nose (not even a fly-lined chunk of squid tentacle)..

We couldn't make any bait except for smelt, which I've never had any luck using as bait, so we focused mostly on swimbaits. I tried all colors and sizes and only caught two sub-legal rockfish in about six hours of fishing the reef.

There were some teenage kids out there free diving off a Zodiac in about 30' of water and one of them speared a ~6' thresher. He apparently didn't get complete penetration and the thing thrashed the surface for a minute and then took off. They jumped in the zodiac and chased after it, but never found it again. Crazy kids...

Anyway, my FF comes this week, and I am definitely planning another trip to Naples - it is a seriously nice spot, and it would seem a prime fishing spot when there's a bite on... I think the sudden drop in water temp may have put the fish down a bit, but I'm still learning this whole saltwater fishing thing....

10-08-2007, 06:10 PM	#3
sbsyncro Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Santa Barbara, CA Posts: 80	Well, it was a beautiful day yesterday on Naples Reef. A buddy and I took my Hobie Outfitter tandem loaded up with four rods, bait bucket, and an assortment of plastics. After about a 40 minute paddle, we arrived on the reef at about 9 AM. We launched from the beach just below Bacara, and was a bit tricky due to the steepneess of the shoreline and that it is made of rocks instead of sand. Once on the reef, my first cast out, a small (probably about 8") calico folowed my 6" swimbait all the way back to the kayak. I hooted and said "This is going to be an AWESOME day!". Unfortunately that was the last calico we saw until about 20 minutes before coming in where we stopped under the Veneco pier to fish the kelp stringers there. (a 18" or so calico was sitting about a foot below the surface just staring at me. And I mean staring). I couldn't entice him with anything wiggled past his nose (not even a fly-lined chunk of squid tentacle).. We couldn't make any bait except for smelt, which I've never had any luck using as bait, so we focused mostly on swimbaits. I tried all colors and sizes and only caught two sub-legal rockfish in about six hours of fishing the reef. There were some teenage kids out there free diving off a Zodiac in about 30' of water and one of them speared a ~6' thresher. He apparently didn't get complete penetration and the thing thrashed the surface for a minute and then took off. They jumped in the zodiac and chased after it, but never found it again. Crazy kids... Anyway, my FF comes this week, and I am definitely planning another trip to Naples - it is a seriously nice spot, and it would seem a prime fishing spot when there's a bite on... I think the sudden drop in water temp may have put the fish down a bit, but I'm still learning this whole saltwater fishing thing....