Gimme Shelter 8

This past weekend I fished the 8th annual Gimmie Shelter kayak fishing tournament in shelter cove CA. The events drew 218 anglers from all over the West coast and is the largest kayak fishing event in CA, maybe the whole west coast. I pre fished for 3 days and was pumped to get on the water for game day. I fished hard and paddled even harder. We had amazing conditions, 70*, 3′ swells and no wind. I can’t remember ever being on the Northern California coast in that favorable of conditions. I finished in 9th place with decent fish in 4 of the 6 species in the event. I landed lots of black and blue rockfish up to 20″, Cabazone up to 20″, greenling, and a 26.5″ Lingcod. All my fish were caught, photoed and released. I’m super excited to break the top 10 this year with so many great fisherman out there. On a side note the day before the event I got my devil fish, 21″ Vermillion rockfish. No matter what I did I have never been able to land a Verm. I got one this year on opening day and it was big.