Kayak deep dropping Carlsbad Canyon

Yesterday Emerson and I decided to try Carlsbad Canyon for deep dropping. On nautical charts it looks like the younger sibling of La Jolla Canyon, and it's head is equally close to shore. We chose Tamarack Beach to launch. It was quite a bit steeper than La Jolla Shores, but we made it work.

We followed my usual deep drop routine by paddling out to the furthest and deepest spot first and then working our way back towards shore. We dropped in 970 feet, our hooks baited with fresh strips of squid, and my rig had a green strobe light. The 16 oz sinkers we used were heavy enough to hold bottom, so drifting was not an issue. In hindsight though, I wonder if the lack of drifting was actually the reason why we didn't get any bites.

We also tried dropping in 650 feet, 500 feet, and 400 feet, but no one wanted our tasty strips of squid. I added a chum cage to the top of my rig, filled with more pieces of cut squid, but it didn't change the results. Eventually the wind began to pick up, and we let it push us off the canyon into less than 300 feet of water. Finally we started getting bites! We started off with a mix of longfin sanddab, Pacific sanddab, and halfbanded rockfish.

Longfin Sanddab (Citharichthys xanthostigma)

Longfin sanddab was by far the most common catch of the day, and it was nice to get some more photos of them. If you look on the blind side you can see a streak of bright yellow at the bottom of the operculum. Breeding colors perhaps?

Sanddabs are not large fish, but one of the longfins was considerably large compared to all the others. I'll definitely be swapping this photo out with my old one on my lifelist.

We continued drifting into shallower water, and at 140 ft I had a good hit and pulled up an even more exciting flatfish, a fantail sole! I've only caught one of these, and it was several years ago. It was nice to see another one, and definitely a special one to get from the kayak.

Fantail Sole (Xystreurys liolepis)

A few minutes after the sole I heard Emerson yell "Ben!". I looked over to see his rod bent over, and then he said "Oh sh$%..... I'm going for a ride!". Sure enough, his kayak took off in the direction of the open Pacific. I had to paddle hard to catch up. He was hooked into something big, and after it's initial run it was mostly a vertical battle.

We debated what was on the other end of his line. A halibut wouldn't have made that initial run, so it likely wasn't that. Emerson insisted that it felt like a giant sea bass, but we weren't anywhere near structure so I had my doubts. When he finally got the fish to color he yelled "white seabass!", but as it got closer to the surface we finally saw the bright yellow tail. Emerson's first kayak yellowtail!

California Yellowtail (Seriola lalandi)

The wind was progressively getting stronger and stronger, so we didn't fish for much longer. My last catch was another fantail sole, smaller than the first one, but it was right-eyed instead of the usual left-eyed. There are only a few flatfish that can be both orientations, with California halibut being the other one that I can think of.

We had a long paddle back in the wind. Usually I can comfortably do between 3.5 and 4.0 mph, but heading north into the wind we were barely able to maintain 2.5 mph. To make the end of the day more interesting, when we got close to Tamarack Beach we realized it would be impossible to make a landing on. The outflow from Agua Hedionda lagoon combined with the swell and tidal flow and wind made for some terrifying conditions. However, the beach to the south of the lagoon entrance didn't look as bad, so we landed there and hiked over to get our vehicles.

Miles: 9.39
Hours: 6:15

To sum up: deep dropping continued to disappoint, I've established myself as a professional sanddab fisherman, and Emerson's kayak yellowtail was by far the highlight of the day.