Newport?
 

Anyone fish Newport lately? taking a newbie out and wanted to kinda stay closer to home than tidelands

Fishing is still pretty decent right around 180-200' of water..

I assume you're targeting rockfish at that depth? They are not in season but do a lot of people C&R in the off months or is it too big of a pain and risk to return every fish?

C&R is always good practice but I wouldn't risk it out of season. I was there last week and was pulling up very nice size sand bass at those depths.

If you're intentionally targeting rockfish, sheephead, etc that are in a closed season, you are definitely putting their lives at risk in anything over 50' of water, by playing around with C&R. Reeling them up quickly even at that depth will still inflate their bladder, very often making it impossible for them to swim back down.

Ok, that's what I was thinking. If not in season I'm careful to avoid fishing that deep for fear of bringing up anything that would automatically have to get sent back down. I'll mark structure that deep off season to check later, but that's it. I always forget Newport is pretty good for shallower rockfish though. Sorry for threadjacking. :D

NP.. I was hoping some guys had harbor reports.. he is going in a tube so we are staying inside the wall

Bass fishing has been pretty good this week with the monster tide swings.