Alas, I missed a Winglewich email in the holidays and storms and such. My apologies to him and his fans. Here's his report from December 29: "Afternoon Willie, 

I was off the bite on Sunday. I think either the storm put the lings in a funk or they finished spawning in the reefs close to the beach. On Monday, I switched tactics to locating and focusing on rocky pinnacles surrounded by sand offshore - and got my lingcod limit in one single drop. One on the jig, one on the teaser. I was a little disappointed because I thought it was one giant personal-best shattering ling. But it made for a memorable finale to my year and season.

I found my rockfish limits too, three of my brown rockfish came up with gorgeous hitchhikers, it got me fired up and I'm already excited about next season. 

- Sam W / wingle"  Nice redemption, Sam. I can't recall ever doubling on keeper lings myself. It does point out the fact that the rules for good rockfishing and real estate overlap (Three rules: Location, location, location). I imagine you'll be spending some of the next three months of no-rockfishing downtime gazing at Google Earth or Navionics searching for more good real estate. It will be time well spent.

     The King Tides have come and gone, and Saturday they hit along with a stiff South wind. The concrete blocks from the parking lot aren't just there to damage your bumper, as they also make a pretty good temporary sea wall. We were able to keep the store open and the floor dry and the blocks are now back in their proper bumper-damaging positions, ready to be moved back if duty calls. Thank you Alec for the drone picture during peak surge.