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So Cal Fishing rocks!
10-15 with gusts to 20 kts in the afternoon. That was the NOAA prediction for the outer waters on Sept 1, 2010. That was also enough information to cancel a hoped for trip to the island. We'll save the 100 mile round trip for next week.
So what's a couple kooks supposed to do now ? Stay on the beach ? Get on the potpourri-train at Cat ?.......hhhmmmm......on a 2-0 unanimous crew vote the beach would be the target on a chilly grey morning in avg. 63.5-65 degree stained light green water with 10'-12' visibility. Two scoops of perfect 4" sardines from the best guys in the bait business (thanks Joe !)are in the tank, a slow slide past the 5 mph bouy in Dana Point Harbor, deisel boost begins to sing from the 27' Farrallon, the game begins.
Stone after stone and reef after reef produced only a few biters. With low hanging fog as the backdrop, it felt more like San Simeon than the South Coast. The 200' fog ceiling drew a parrallel line across the sky as the occasional 5' sneaker wave would reveal the next all-to-close boiler rock. A 4 hour barrage of hard-baits, plastics, bio's and sardines led us to conclude the bass were not orientated to the rock. Time for a rethink.
KERSPLOOSH !!! I love the sound of big baits cast into the kelp when attached to 65# spectra. I'm sure the Mackerel aren't too happy with a big 'ol hook stuck in thier butt on the flyline but big baits bring big fish. Anchored in 50' just barely off the kelpline we brail a little........the place comes alive......Calicos start chewin', Terns start picking and Rob's Mackerel gets slammed.
"PULLTHEANCHORI'MGETTINGSPOOLED!!PULLTHEANCHOR!!PUL LTHEANCHOR!! Imagine our surprise when 7' of Thresher tail emerges from the kelp then slowly submerges only to hit the afterburner on a bee-line run to Japan !
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After lots of backing down and a 1 hour battle on 50# spectra/50#flouro with 15#'s of drag Rob says, "Let's release it"....this his first T- shark.
This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1024x768 and weights 218KB.
Circle circle circle under the boat.....deep color.....circle circle.....more deep color....."HOLY ****!!!THAT THING IS 14'LONG!!!HOLY****!!!FEELS LIKE A 150#YELLOWFIN!!HOLY****!!!"....Rob's words.....my words, "Looks to be 200#-250# or more ! I grabbed the camera and pop goes the 50# flouro. No physical picture unfortunatly but a mental image most certainly burned into our human hard-drive. A legit C&R in my book, congrats Rob that was an epic battle !!
We re-set on the same kelp after our 1 hour absence. My first bait to hit the water gets slurped up just minutes later. Everything held together and I was able to land my fish on anchor in about 15 minutes giving us more reason to think Rob's fish was rather large.
BBQ time !!!
This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 768x1024 and weights 148KB.
Oh.....as a side note, the bassin' was insane ! We pulled over 100 fish with 75% legal sized to 2.5#'s in non-stop bite-per-cast action on the Sardine and bio-baits. 5% came from boilers and 95% came from the kelp....hope that helps someone.
This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1023x959 and weights 216KB.
Some fun stuff:
I hooked a 75# class Black Seabass on a Calico-tipped leadhead.
Some drunks on a really clean 24' Skipjack flybridge were on a 10 knot destiny cruise to a boiler rock until they finally relented to our screams and flailing arms.
Schools of 4-5 Mullet to est 3# breezing our chumline.
A 25 knot 10 mile ride home.
Final fish count for 2 anglers:
2 Threshers (1 released)
100+/- Calicos (100% released)
1 Black Seabass (thumbed-spool release)
10 snotsticks (released)
1 50# Batray (released)
1 Sandbass (released)
25 all-you-want Mackerel (kept for bait)
http://www.976tuna.com/e107_plugins/forum
/forum_viewtopic.php?141278.last
So Cal Fishing rocks!
10-15 with gusts to 20 kts in the afternoon. That was the NOAA prediction for the outer waters on Sept 1, 2010. That was also enough information to cancel a hoped for trip to the island. We'll save the 100 mile round trip for next week.
So what's a couple kooks supposed to do now ? Stay on the beach ? Get on the potpourri-train at Cat ?.......hhhmmmm......on a 2-0 unanimous crew vote the beach would be the target on a chilly grey morning in avg. 63.5-65 degree stained light green water with 10'-12' visibility. Two scoops of perfect 4" sardines from the best guys in the bait business (thanks Joe !)are in the tank, a slow slide past the 5 mph bouy in Dana Point Harbor, deisel boost begins to sing from the 27' Farrallon, the game begins.
Stone after stone and reef after reef produced only a few biters. With low hanging fog as the backdrop, it felt more like San Simeon than the South Coast. The 200' fog ceiling drew a parrallel line across the sky as the occasional 5' sneaker wave would reveal the next all-to-close boiler rock. A 4 hour barrage of hard-baits, plastics, bio's and sardines led us to conclude the bass were not orientated to the rock. Time for a rethink.
KERSPLOOSH !!! I love the sound of big baits cast into the kelp when attached to 65# spectra. I'm sure the Mackerel aren't too happy with a big 'ol hook stuck in thier butt on the flyline but big baits bring big fish. Anchored in 50' just barely off the kelpline we brail a little........the place comes alive......Calicos start chewin', Terns start picking and Rob's Mackerel gets slammed.
"PULLTHEANCHORI'MGETTINGSPOOLED!!PULLTHEANCHOR!!PUL LTHEANCHOR!! Imagine our surprise when 7' of Thresher tail emerges from the kelp then slowly submerges only to hit the afterburner on a bee-line run to Japan !
This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1024x768 and weights 102KB.After lots of backing down and a 1 hour battle on 50# spectra/50#flouro with 15#'s of drag Rob says, "Let's release it"....this his first T- shark.
This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1024x768 and weights 218KB.Circle circle circle under the boat.....deep color.....circle circle.....more deep color....."HOLY ****!!!THAT THING IS 14'LONG!!!HOLY****!!!FEELS LIKE A 150#YELLOWFIN!!HOLY****!!!"....Rob's words.....my words, "Looks to be 200#-250# or more ! I grabbed the camera and pop goes the 50# flouro. No physical picture unfortunatly but a mental image most certainly burned into our human hard-drive. A legit C&R in my book, congrats Rob that was an epic battle !!
We re-set on the same kelp after our 1 hour absence. My first bait to hit the water gets slurped up just minutes later. Everything held together and I was able to land my fish on anchor in about 15 minutes giving us more reason to think Rob's fish was rather large.
BBQ time !!!
This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 768x1024 and weights 148KB.Oh.....as a side note, the bassin' was insane ! We pulled over 100 fish with 75% legal sized to 2.5#'s in non-stop bite-per-cast action on the Sardine and bio-baits. 5% came from boilers and 95% came from the kelp....hope that helps someone.
This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1023x959 and weights 216KB.Some fun stuff:
I hooked a 75# class Black Seabass on a Calico-tipped leadhead.
Some drunks on a really clean 24' Skipjack flybridge were on a 10 knot destiny cruise to a boiler rock until they finally relented to our screams and flailing arms.
Schools of 4-5 Mullet to est 3# breezing our chumline.
A 25 knot 10 mile ride home.
Final fish count for 2 anglers:
2 Threshers (1 released)
100+/- Calicos (100% released)
1 Black Seabass (thumbed-spool release)
10 snotsticks (released)
1 50# Batray (released)
1 Sandbass (released)
25 all-you-want Mackerel (kept for bait)
