June 4th, 2011– We went out after rockfish and crab today. Some strange weather we’re having. I think we’re still in March. We had an offshore wind today. Usually 20 to 30 kts. The ocean was flat, but the drift was strong. First thing we did was head up to Ten Mile Beach to get our crab pots fishing. Then we went to try our luck at some rockfish. If you worked your gear, you could get some fish, but it was tough. The grade of fish was excellent. Lots of big blacks and some nice reds too. My thoughts were that the winds were going to blow through early so at 10:00 I decided to go run our crab pots and maybe give some time for the winds to die down. The pots yielded good counts. On our first run we scored 74 crabs out of 20 pots. Not bad for a 2 hour soak. When we got back to our rockfishing grounds, the wind was blowing even harder. We fished for another hour and a half and returned back at the crab grounds to stack our pots. We added another 55 crabs to make our grand total 129! Just over 9 per person. Final score on fish was about 1/2 limits with 1 keeper ling. Picture; Deckhand Sean Thornton (left) and to his right passenger Shawn Blower out of Willits, Ca. are showing off one of our better pots with 9 keepers and 4 throwbacks. Fun was had by all. Fish-On!

   Capt Randy

2nd of June, 2011 — We went rockfishing south today. We still have a strong current out of the north but the south wind seemed to counter-act it. We found our best fishing in close to the rocks. About 40 feet of water. The water was clear and 54 degrees. First time I’ve seen the school fish in numbers in 3 years. We had the blues up on the surface and hungry. Lots of action. Great variety too! Ended up with 6 keeper lingcod, some cap’s, and a couple of nice vermillions. Over all, I think we were pretty close to limits of fish for 11 anglers. Ocean was nice and the sun was shinning for the most part. Lots of fun!! Fish-On!

     Capt Randy

1st of June, 2011 — Started off going straight out looking for some hungry king salmon. Had our first bite in 240 ft of water. No taker though. The currents strong out of the north so it makes it hard to troll around all the crab pots. The current is so strong, the crab pot buoy’s are underwater most of the time. I kept trolling west and finally hooked a good one in 300 ft of water. One in the boat. That was about 9:00 a.m. Trolled the rest of the day and didn’t have any more bites. Until… right at the end, we were in 130 ft of water off the yellow house. We pulled our first rod out of the water to go home and … “Fish-On!” On the other side of the boat we had hooked another fish. Good fighter! Landed it to make our score 2. With little time left, there were no other bites. Picture; on the left is Valerie Cameron from Las Cruces New Mexico and next to her is her brother Benjamin from Yuba City Ca. Valerie’s fish weighed in at 16 pounds and her brother’s fish was 20 pounds. Nice job!

    Capt Randy

Not much to say for the day. For the most part, the weather was pretty nice. We went up north and ran our crab pots first thing. Lately I’ve been having a problem with starfish getting in the pots and letting the crabs out. So, our counts were a bit off. Then, we went offshore and fished for some salmon. Between the current and the wind, I didn’t have much choice where I wanted to go. We had no bites, and then the wind decided to really blow. At that time we all decided it was time to go get our crab pots and head for port. By the time we arrived at the crab grounds, the wind was really cranking on. Pretty steady 30kts. The crew worked excellent and we managed to stack all 20 pots and return safely home. End count was 5 crabs around. Fish-On!

     Capt Randy

May 28th, 2011 — The weather thinks it’s March, maybe the fish do too. Everything else looks good. The water temp is good, there’s lots of bait, and the water color is what we like to see. So why no fish? That’s the question that I try to solve everyday. Today we fished southwest 4 to 5 miles out in 350 to 400 feet of water. Like I say, the ocean looks fishy. We landed one fish for 6 anglers weighing in at 16 pounds caught by long time customer Jim Sapp out of Gridley Ca. Jim was fishing on a downrigger at 40 feet with a chrome/brass flasher with a J-71 hoochie over a cut anchovy. We lost a couple of keepers and had a lot of action with bites but I think they were little fish (undersized). We did release one small king. Ocean was calm with some rain showers off and on. Looks like we might have some wind coming tomorrow. Fish-On!

     Capt Randy

Friday, May 27th, 2011 — Telstar* did a salmon/crab combo today with 5 anglers on board. Fished up northoff of Ten Mile beach. We fished for awhile in 150 feet of water with no action and lots of kelp and seaweed to try and dodge. We moved offshore to about 350 ft of water. The conditions look great in both areas. We had one on for a couple of minutes and lost it and had a couple other bites. After a couple of hours of that, we decided to go into the beach and run our crab pots, which we put in this morning. We ended up with 46 crabs for the 5 anglers. We stopped and fished for 45 minutes to an hour on the way in, but again, no action. End score- 0 fish, 9 crabs around. The ocean was beautiful and the sun was shinning. Not bad considering that we woke up to rain this morning. Picture left to right; Leticia, Alex (10 years old), Summer (6 years old), and Alberto Perez. A nice family from Carson City, Nv. showing off their catch!  We all had a very enjoyable time.

      Capt Randy

Once the winds died down, the ocean took no time to calm down. Although the south winds picked up this afternoon. All kinds of weather change today. We found a couple of fish today. Not much other action. Had a couple of bites besides the two we landed. We caught one south of the whistle buoy and the other north about the same distance. Between 200 and 240 feet of water. Lori Garcia from Colfax(left in the picture)  caught the first and the biggest salmon at 17 lbs. She was fishing with a  red and orange hoochie over a cut anchovie behind a flasher down 45′ with a 2 lb weight. Johnny hooked his 16 pound king on the bow downrigger at 40′ with a green/crome crocidile spoon. Johnny Radzik resides in Little River, Ca. Fresh salmon for dinner tonight. Fish-On!

    Capt Randy

May 17th, 2011– Telstar’s* first day fishing the rocks. Not the best conditions. Southerly wind and cool water, but we found plenty of action anyway! Had 6 lings and released at least that many. About 3/4 limits around and almost a ling per rod. Biggest ling of the day was 14 lbs caught by regular Susan Copeland. Her and Bob Ruddock each had a pair of nice lings. Plenty of variety too. Vermillions, nice blacks, and china’s and gopher’s. Fish-On!

Capt Randy

Pic’ left to right; Dean Rice/Orland, Suzie Copeland/Fort Bragg-El Paso Tx., Herb Ng/Daily City, Gracie Martin and Her dad Jim Martin from Fort Bragg.

Decided to go south today and see what fishing is like down off Jughandle. We fished everywhere from 130′ to 300′ of water. Not much action. I talked to a couple of boats that were fishing up north between Virgin Creek and the reef and it sounded like they were having lots of action but not putting anything in the box. I thought I’d stick it out down here, it looks like there should be salmon here. About 10:30 edges started forming and birds started showing up. Maybe some action is about to happen. Then, I saw something fining just underneath the surface alongside the boat. It wasn’t a shark. It wasn’t bait. It wasn’t a bird. But it seemed that every time it broke the surface, it would break it in two places. Like a fin and a tail. I thought it might be a silver that someone had released and was a bit stunned or something. Pretty soon, it was directly in front of the boat. I grabbed my 8′ bait caster and snapped a on it and winged it out there. It landed right next to whatever it was swimming in the water. I didn’t feel any bites so I reeled it back in before I trolled over it and tangled my lines. About 30 seconds later “Fish-On”. Could it be? We’ll never know, but we did land a 16 pound king right then! Holding up his prize, is Jim Smith out of Hamilton City Ca. After that we had some action. We ended up landing one more fish around 12 pounds caught by Linda Abbott from Willows. The picture with her holding her fish didn’t turn out very good so “sorry Linda” you’ll just have to come back and we’ll do it again. We also released some shakers and a couple of silvers. Boats around us were catching as well. When the fish turned on, we were in about 280 ft of water about 1.5 miles southwest of the buoy. Fish-On!

    Capt Randy

5/13/11– Ocean was calm, winds were light and the sun was worming our bones while we patiently awaited for one our rods to start bouncing. The salmon water is here. Chocalate brown with birds working and good tempurature. All we need now is for some hungry salmon. We were fishing about 1/2 way up the beach (6 miles north) in 200-250′ of water. We landed one fish (nice one), lost one due to the handle of the reel fell off, released one shaker and one silver. After our serious effort, we resorted to our crab pots. I had my pots in 30-35′ on the beach and they produced well. A bit slower than I expected but we ended up with 8 around for 10 anglers. Not bad for a bad day of crabbing. I think the fish are here just not hungry. Maybe tomorrow. I’ll keep you all posted. Fish-On!

     Capt Randy