Three Pacific tomcod  (2nd, 3rd and 4th fish) together with a barred surfperch and six white croaker (generally called tomcod in southern California and kingfish in northern California), all from the Pacifica Pier in 1976

Species: Microgadus proximus (Girard, 1854); from the Greek words micros (small) and gadus (codfish), and the Latin word proximus  (next).

Alternate Names: Tomcod, piciata and wachna.

Identification: Typical cod-like shape with three dorsal fins and two anal fins. Tomcod have a short chin barbel. Their coloring is usually brownish above (although some are olive colored), and white below.

Size: To 12 inches; most caught off piers are 9-10 inches long.

Range: From Point Sal, California, to Unalaska Island, Alaska.

Habitat: Prefers a soft bottom (sand or mud), near-shore environment, although caught out to 700-foot depths.

Piers: Pacific tomcod may be seen at almost any pier north of Monterey Bay. However, I believe their numbers have decreased. Best bets: Pillar Point Harbor Pier, Pacifica Pier, San Francisco Municipal Pier, Fort Baker Pier, Point Arena Pier, Eureka Municipal Wharf, Trinidad Pier and the “B” Street Pier in Crescent City.

Shoreline: Rarely caught by inshore anglers.

Boats: A small, inshore species rarely taken by boat fishermen.

Bait and Tackle: When schools of tomcod move in, anglers can expect fast and furious action. The best bait appears to be pile worms, a small strip of anchovy, or a small strip of squid. Hooks should be small, size 6 or 8, and the best technique is to cast out, allow the bait to sink, and begin to retrieve as soon as the bait hits bottom. The tomcod usually will hit the bait mid-depth as it is being pulled up.

Food Value: Most tomcod are really too small for eating although some people like to pan-fry them as they would any small fish and they are said to have a sweet, delicate flavor.

Comments: When I lived in the Bay Area in the ‘70s one of my main fishing spots was the Pacific Pier and one of the most common fish I caught was Pacific tomcod. I caught them during every month of the year but the summer months were generally the best. I caught a few at other piers—primarily Fort Point and Fort Baker, but never in the numbers seen at Pacifica. I moved north to Mendocino County in 1979 and soon after began to fish the Point Arena Pier. Once again good numbers of Pacific tomcod began to show up. However, that pier was destroyed in a winter storm in 1983 and did not reopen until 1987. After the reopening of the new pier I never saw the same numbers of tomcod that I had seen previously. Visits to Pacifica in the past 30 years have shown much of the same — few if any Pacific tomcod. I’m not sure if I just missed them or if their numbers have decreased.

Small tomcod are fun to catch on light tackle and they provide a major source of fun for children angling in northern areas (Washington north). They are not to be confused with white croaker (Genyonemus lineatus) that are generally called tom cod in southern California.

According to Milton Love (one of our favorite marine biologists), “this species is very closely related to saffron cod.” Although I’ve heard of cod cooked in saffron, I had never heard of THE saffron cod! It turns out saffron cod, Eleginus gracilis (Tilesius, 1810), is a small, similar-looking fish found in Pacific arctic waters (the arctic-boreal Pacific). The range is from Korea and the Sea of Okhotsk in the west to the northern Gulf of Alaska and Banks Island in the east. Although small, they’re commercially fished with the major fishing grounds for Russian boats in the western North Pacific: Peter the Great Bay, Sakhalin region, Sea of Okhotsk and Kamchatka waters. Alaskan fisherman typically fish in Norton Sound. Most of the commercial catch winds up in Russia although the fish is also popular in Japan.

]]> http://kenjonesfishing.com/2016/10/pacific-tomcod/feed/ 3 http://kenjonesfishing.com/2016/09/silver-salmon/ http://kenjonesfishing.com/2016/09/silver-salmon/#comments Tue, 20 Sep 2016 21:41:46 +0000 kenjones http://kenjonesfishing.com/?p=11108 Order Salmoniformes

Trouts and Salmon—Family Salmonidae

Adult male — Picture courtesy of NOAA

Species: Oncorhynchus kisutch (Walbaum, 1792); from the Greek roots onkos (hook), rhynchos (nose), and kisutch (the vernacular name for the species in Alaska and Kamchatka, USSR).

Alternate Names: Coho salmon, silversides, hooknose, hookbill, blueback (young salmon), jack salmon, tschaviche, showitz, quisutsch, and bielaya ryba. Called salmón plateado in Mexico. The English name coho appeared as early as 1878 as co-hu and presumably descended from such similar Indian dialect names as kwahwult (Chilliwack and Musqueam) and kúchuks (Sooke and Saanich). [Pacific Fishes of Canada, J. L. Hart]

Identification: Body elongate, mouth terminal, large, and needlelike teeth. They have irregular black spots on the back and on the upper part of caudal fin; gums are white at base of teeth. Their coloring is metallic blue above and silvery on sides. However, when spawing in freshwater their color changes. Males become dusky or bright green on their upper back and head, bright red on sides, and generally blackish below. The females are less bright—bronze to pinkish red on the sides.

Adult breeding male — Picture courtesy of NOAA

Size: To 38 1/2 inches and 31 pounds. Most taken from piers are under eight pounds.

Range: From Punta Chamalu Bay (or Bahia Camalu), northern Baja California, to Point Hope, Chukchi Sea, Alaska with strays to Prudhoe Bay, Beaufort Sea, Alaska. Along the Pacific Asian coast from the Anadyr River, Russia to northern Korea and northern Honshu Island, Japan.

Habitat: Spends time in both fresh water and salt water. Tends to be near the surface of the water.

Silver Salmon from the Pacifica Pier, 1970s

Piers: Relatively few silver salmon are taken from piers compared to king salmon. Nevertheless, a few are hooked each year north of Monterey Bay. Best bets: Pacifica Pier, Point Arena Pier, Trinidad Pier, and the B Street Pier in Crescent City.

Shoreline: Genereally not taken by shore anglers in ocean areas but caught by anglers in streams and rivers; illegal to keep.

Boats: Once a major goal of boaters but now illegal to keep.

Silver Salmon taken near the surfline at the Capitola Wharf

Bait and Tackle: None since they are illegal.

Food Value: None since they are illegal.

Silver Salmon from the B Street Pier in Crescent City

Comments: A favorite salmon due to its aerial acrobatics. It is now illegal to keep silver salmon in California. Handle with care and return them to the water.

Silver Salmon from the B Street Pier in Crescent City

Although the main impetus for this trip, as well as most of the trips to the Humboldt-Del Norte coast, has been on fishing—i.e., fishing the piers or helping manage the Trinidad Youth Fishing Derby,  the number of sights along the trail inevitably call for stops to enjoy the nature of the area. This would prove true again this year as redwoods, coastal scenes, elk, and other attractions demanded a stop.

[Warning, this particular blog may be more of a travel log than a simple fishing blog.]

Day 2 — An early morning call came from “Big Rich” a former student and long-time Pier Fishing in California follower. “I’m in Eureka, I came up to help out at the derby.” We decided to meet for breakfast and then he said he would like to fish with me prior to the derby, even if that meant heading up to Crescent City.

Soon after, we were at Trinidad testing out the action. Unfortunately it was slow but I managed a few fish and, as always, I enjoyed the beauty of the pier and its natural environment.

“Big Rich”

It was chilly and a little windy so I brought the sweatshirt and a coat

The pier’s left side is close to a cliff and all rocky

This  rocky area usually produce some greenling, kelp greenling and rock greenling; this trip it produced a kelp greenling.

The tide was a little low

This rock is just out from the pier on the right side and one of my favorite places to fish

A bait dropped down by the rock produced this nice striped perch

After two and a half hours of fishing, and only three fish, two striped perch and the kelp greenling, I decided it was time to move on to Crescent City. We stopped fishing and headed north. I told Rich I would meet up with him at Klamath since I figured I would be stopping a few times  for some pictures.

I stopped in Orick near where there are typically some elk, but I didn’t see the large animals. However, who doesn’t like little old red school houses?

The old Stone Lagoon School House

The next stop was at Stone Lagoon

A beautiful area but Crescent City and its two piers were still beckoning

I met up with Rich at Klamath and he said, “did you see the elk” and I said no. He said they were bedded down left of the school house. Duh! Good thing I’m not a hunter.

At Crescent City we checked into a motel and then headed over to Citizen’s Dock where I almost always catch an interesting mix of fish. It would prove true again.

Looking across the harbor toward the “B” Street Pier and the lighthouse

The marina has been totally rebuilt following the tsunami (tidal wave) of 2011 that destroyed the docks and pilings in the harbor, sank 16 boats, and damaged the breakers around the banks of the basin. In response, it was decided to build the West Coast’s first harbor truly able to withstand severe tsunamis (those expected to hit once every 50 years). A $38.2 million dollar reconstruction ensued and it looks great today.

Another angler was fishing in the area I normally fish but he soon left and soon after, we began to  fish in the same spot.

Over the years this inner section of Citizens Dock has proven to be the best place on the pier for fish. Luckily that proved true once again since new signs indicated that anglers could no longer fish further out on the pier. In years past I had moved around the pier, always being careful to stay out of the way of workers, but apparently those days are over.

As usual there was a steady mix of small fish—different types of rockfish, small cabezon, and one lone greenling.

Brown rockfish

Kelp greenling

A baby cabezon

Interestingly, every few minutes the water would turn almost black and huge shoals of anchovies would barrel their way through the water. Eventually I decided to Sabiki-up a few for fresh bait (or live bait) and pulled in a few. Surprisingly, on the last cast I was intending to make, something looked a little different and it turned out to be a small Pacific mackerel. It was the first of the species I had caught north of San Francisco (though I had seen one the prior year at the Trinidad Kids Derby). I’ve caught them from California’s southernmost pier, the Imperial Beach Pier that sits almost next to the Mexican border, and now at Citizens Dock, roughly 20 miles from the Oregon border.

It was a juvenile mackerel, and pretty small, but it was still a mackerel

Two hours of fishing produced 12 northern anchovies, 6 cabezon, 5 copper rockfish, 3 blue rockfish, 2 brown rockfish, 1 kelp greenling and 1 Pacific mackerel but after two hours the wind had come up and made it nearly impossible to fish. We decided to call it quits, break for a rest, and then head over to the Chart House Restaurant for an early dinner. Hopefully the wind would die down and we could then proceed over to the “B” Street Pier for some night-time fishing. We wanted to see if there were any sharks, rays or skates. But it was not to be. Our dinner was delicious but upon exiting the restaurant we found the wind to be a howling and it obviously would be too windy to fish. Rich headed back to his motel room while I headed over to the pier to take a few late afternoon pictures.

Looking down the Crescent City beach near the restaurant

The “B” Street Pier

I decided to walk out on the jetty to take some pictures of the pier from different angles — but I was careful to watch the waves and where I was walking

The winds didn’t decrease. In fact, they increased to 40-50 miles per hour with occasional gusts topping 60 miles per hour. The Battery Point Lighthouse sits seaward near the entrance to the jetty and is accessible during low tide. This night the wind-churned waves attacked the shore and made access impossible. Then, while walking back on the jetty the winds grabbed and carried away my favorite hat. It was futile to even consider going fishing in such conditions. No, as the sun gently dove into the sea I knew it was time to head back to my motel.

The sharks and rays would have to wait for another night.

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