Monterey Rockfish Trips – A Fantastic Way To Beat The Valley Heat   By: Dan Bacher August 10, 2006 More Articles by Dan

When the air temperatures reach into the hundreds and the Central Valley becomes a smoggy inferno, it’s time for me to head to the coast to cool down. One of the best ways to enjoy the cool ocean weather and have some fun is by going on a rockfish trip out of Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey.

I prefer going on afternoon rockcod trips, when available, because it allows me to sleep in. Besides, the fishing seems to be better for me during the afternoons.

When Chris’ Fishing Inc. and Randy’s Fishing Trips put together an afternoon rockfish trip aboard the Chubasco on Sunday, July 15, I jumped at the chance to leave sizzling Sacramento and nail some colorful and tasty rockfish.

I arrived at Randy’s in Monterey at 12:30 pm after making a relaxing drive from Sacramento. Since I lost some of my favorite bars on an afternoon trip to Fort Bragg on the rockcod opener aboard the Telstar, I decided to stock up on a few bars.

“Use the bars over 4 ounces, since there’s a good amount of current and wind on the ocean today,” said Pete Bruno, owner of Randy’s. “Also, the bronze and orange King’s Tackle bars are working very well.”

I purchased several bars, including one 4-1/2 oz. Megabait and two King’s Tackle orange/bronze bars, and boarded the boat. Josh, the deckhand, who was on the cover of the Fish Sniffer when 10 years ago, was getting the boat ready for the trip. Captain Brent Williamson got aboard the boat around 1:30 pm and about 10 minutes later drove the boat away from the dock.

“We’re going to fish around Point Pinos,” Williamson said. “It was windy this morning, as it has every day since the rockcod opener on July 1, but the rockfish action has been great, with limits every trip.”

The water was calm in the harbor, but the wind picked up as we went past the harbor breakwater. The seas were “sloppy,” with a steady wind chop coming from the southwest, so Williamson carefully and slowly made his way through the waves. Soon we entered a fog bank as we approached Point Pinos.

“Put your shrimp flies and bars down,” he said. “We have bait in the back of the boat, but you don’t really need it. There’s fish schooled up from around 30 feet to 150 feet.”

I put a pair of Super Flies down with 8 ounces of weight and immediately hooked up two scrappy blue rockfish. Seeing that I would limit out in no time with the shrimp flies, I switched over to casting the orange/bronze King’s Tackle jigs off the bow and began hooking up one rockfish after another in the 2 to 4 pound range, including starry rockfish, olives, yellowtails and big blues.

“The majority of the fish are right under the boat at 30 to 50 feet,” Williamson coached the passengers over his radio. “You don’t have to go all of the way to the bottom to hook the fish.”

I caught over 20 rockfish during the 1-1/2 hours, releasing the smaller ones and keeping my 10 fish limit. The other 10 anglers aboard the boat were finding fantastic action also, quickly limiting out. All of the anglers caught limits of quality rockfish, including several vermilions in the 4 pound range, and Williamson told us to bring up our lines for the afternoon.

Benedetto Bruno and his nine-year old daughter, Sophia, and his son, 12-year old Peter, had the best bags, keeping only starry and vermilion rockfish. They had limits of rockfish that would be hard to beat on just about any reef anywhere.

“The blues are best for deep frying, but the reds are best for cioppino,” said the enthusiastic Bruno. “I plan to cook up some ciopinno after I get back to my house in Seaside.”

His technique was to focus on dragging the bottom with shrimp flies baited with shrimp. “The red rockfish really like the shrimp,” he said. “You got to think like you’re the sinker going down to the bottom when you fish deep for the reds.

The trip back to the wharf took only about 15 minutes – we were tied up at the dock before 4 p.m. Deckhand Josh quickly filleted the remaining fish he hadn’t already filleted on the way back and Bruno, a frequent customer on the party boats, exhorted the glories of rockcod fishing out of beautiful Monterey.

“I love fishing off the party boats,” he said. “In my opinion, Monterey has the best fishing anywhere… it’s even better than off Sicily where I’m from originally. Monterey is like a gold mine for fishing because of the deep water of the Monterey Marine Canyon brings lots of species of fish into the bay. I’m very proud of my kids – my son caught the two biggest vermilions of the day.”

Barry Dudley of Roanoke, Virginia also gave a rave review of the fishing. He had never fished the Pacific Ocean, although he had fished the Atlantic without much success a number of times.

“I’ve never been on a trip like this where the fishing is so easy, where you catch one fish after another,” said Dudley. “I really enjoyed my time out on the ocean today.”

The anglers aboard the boat didn’t catch any keeper lingcod, although they released several shaker lingcod. It was hard to target lings because the rockfish were on such an aggressive bite that you couldn’t get your bait or lure through them before they bit.

One advantage to this year’s season, which closes on December 31, is that anglers can now fish down to 180 feet deep. Next year will provide even better opportunities for bottomfish enthusiasts, since anglers will be able to fish down to 240 feet after the season opens on May 1.

Want to beat the heat and catch a bunch of rockfish? Call Randy’s Fishing Trips at (831) 372-7440 or Chris’ Fishing Trips at (831) 375-5951.

More Articles by Dan