Bay Blenny (Hypsoblennius gentilis)
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50542041303_3787056598_b.jpg)
The nice thing about snorkel fishing is that you don't have to deal with bycatch. I kept the baited hook pinched between my fingers while I looked for a finspot. There were a lot of fish around, but until I saw my target I wasn't going to bother fishing. The highlight of the day ended up being this octopus. I had recently watched My Octopus Teacher on Netflix (highly recommended), so I was inspired to reach out my hand in an offer of friendship. Sadly, my offer was rejected, because the octopus shot a jet of ink at me and swam away. Oh well.
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50542041158_cff561370e_b.jpg%5B/img%5D%5B/url%5D%5Burl=https://flic.kr/p/2k1eaYJ%5DPA241264%5B/url%5D%20by%20%5Burl=https://www.flickr.com/photos/64436841@N04/%5Dben.a.cantrell%5B/url%5D,%20on%20Flickr)
I snorkeled for a few hours, but the cold water quickly wore me down. The reef finspots were outsmarting me, so I made the most of my time by practicing my underwater photography skills. Here's a selection of the fish I saw.
Garibaldi (Hypsypops rubicundus)
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50542768316_e891078986_b.jpg)
Spotted Kelpfish (Gibbonsia elegans)
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50542040993_b16f151bfa_b.jpg)
Topsmelt or Jacksmelt (Atherinopsis sp.)
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50542905112_995d23dcc7_b.jpg)
Opaleye (Girella nigricans) and Zebra Chub (Kyphosus azureus)
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50542041068_13a8019b37_b.jpg)
Notchbrow Blenny (Hypsoblennius gilberti)
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50542905007_7efa7f5ac6_b.jpg)
Dwarf Surfperch (Micrometrus minimus)
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50542768266_4a88a9bca6_b.jpg)
The following weekend I was ready to kayak again. We shouldn't be limited to having just one nemesis, and cabezon was definitely my second one. I planned to split the day between the wrecks of the Ruby E and the Yukon, and I started out at the Ruby E. I expected the bites to come quickly, but it was actually surprisingly slow. After moving spots several times, I finally hooked up with my first fish, a sharpnose seaperch. The bite turned on then, and I caught some nice gopher rockfish, sheephead, and ocean whitefish to take home to eat.
Sharpnose Seaperch (Phanerodon atripes)
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50551016542_3eb5daf194_b.jpg)
A dive boat arrived, so I politely began packing my gear up to leave. On my last drop I felt a few small bites, and I was delighted to pull up a small but boldly colored goby. I knew from dive videos that blackeye gobies were common, but I didn't expect to catch one from my kayak!
Blackeye Goby (Rhinogobiops nicholsii) - new hook & line species #677
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50550154793_6bb9b94674_b.jpg)
I paddled over to the Yukon and put one of my rod handles through the loop at the end of a buoy rope, so I wouldn't drift away. When I've fished the Yukon in the past, I've always used a small hook size in hopes of catching a pile perch. This time, however, I used a larger circle hook on a dropper loop and fished a big piece of mackerel. I caught a variety of smaller fish - rock wrasse, blacksmith, and a very ambitious sharpnose seaperch, but then I felt the thump of a bigger fish. It was my cabezon!
Cabezon (Scorpaenichthys marmoratus) - new hook & line species #678
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50551016322_efe373c094_b.jpg)
Not only was this my first, but it was a good sized one too! It was definitely big enough to keep, but I had to let it go. It was just too cool.
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50550154728_39c62a29d8_b.jpg)
The afternoon wind was picking up, so I detached from the buoy rope and drifted back towards the jetty. I fished while I drifted and caught a bunch of sanddabs, a couple bass, and this olive rockfish, a species I haven't seen in a few years.
Olive Rockfish (Sebastes serranoides)
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50551016277_0cb384d97a_b.jpg)
Pacific Sanddab (Citharichthys sordidus)
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50550888936_a5be834a21_b.jpg)
Back at the jetty I watched the crane pull up rocks from the bottom for a while, and then paddled past it back to the launch. They've been working on the jetty for quite a while.
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50551016152_d2044950c2_b.jpg)
Normally this route is about 7 miles, but I had to backtrack from the Ruby E to the Yukon, because there was a dive boat anchored there. The trip ended up being less than 10 miles, which is pretty reasonable for me.
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50562021286_468c75e87a_b.jpg)
Miles: 9.86
Hours: 8:07
Water Temp: 66 F
My only fishing session in November was a tidepooling trip to Sunset Cliffs. I had a few leads on reef finspot, and I wanted to look for them at low tide. The habitat looked good - tidepools with seagrass. It was an extremely low tide, so there was a lot of territory to cover.
Water Temp: 66 F
My only fishing session in November was a tidepooling trip to Sunset Cliffs. I had a few leads on reef finspot, and I wanted to look for them at low tide. The habitat looked good - tidepools with seagrass. It was an extremely low tide, so there was a lot of territory to cover.
![](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50752127112_fd8ccb29ce_b.jpg)
The good news is that I found my target, two of them in fact! The bad news is that neither was caught by hook & line. The first one jumped clear out of the water as I was walking past a tidepool and got stuck in the seagrass on the surface. It was so ridiculous it made me laugh out loud. The second one I caught by hand by cupping my hands under an overhanging cut in the rock and getting the finspot to swim out into my palm.