Birthday was 6/29 but weather was better the 30th. I always seem to end up fishing on the 30th...
0600 launch.
25 mile ride to the 14 mile bank from Huntington. It's 14 miles from Newport and Dana but lose the time advantage to traffic. 2.5 hours or so with the 4hp. Loooooong ride, broken up with tunes and podcasts back and forth.
Bait, birds, mammals on the flats. Bait popping everywhere. Made me think the thresher game might be the play but gotta stick to the plan! Plan was to fish various depths around the 14, preferably over 600' in search of new species. Blackgill and Mexican Rockfish seem to be the main players in the game according to reports, and anything else would be cherry on top. But I ain't got either of those on my life list yet. And my deep drops this year so far have been thwarted by morning winds, and/or I've chosen garbage spots in coastal canyons that are probably more mud than anything. But I figured if I sent it to the 14, I'd be rewarded.
And, some coastal bluefin have been reported, and it's about time of year for them to show up. So I was actually more pumped up about potentially running into tuna than I was into deep dropping. Brought 3 tuna rods to one rockfish rig.
Well, once I got off the flats, there was no real surface activity. One mola, a couple lack luster kelps. Trolled the high speed mackstick on the way over. Got to the knoll and didn't see any surface activity, so made my first drop in about 750-800'. FF was dead so went off of general Navionics topography for depths and stones.
Forgot squid, brought flukes and some shad spray though. 24oz sinker all day. 60# braid, 60# leader. First drop resulted in....
...long drum roll...
Thought it was a damn greenblotched rockfish at first, but I'm really leaning toward Pink Rockfish at this point. The green blotches are only pronounced on the dorsal fin. Sources say 18-19 rays on the pectoral fin and I'm counting 18 or 19, as opposed to 17 for a greenblotched. Who cares? I do. Might not be flashy but it’s a new species!
Next puzzle are these two duds from 800'. Clones. There are like 5 species of rockfish that all look like this. Rosy? Rosethorn? Swordspine? Pink? Freckle? The jury says...Swordspine. Look at the anal fin spine of the lower one. Bam, new species. I threw them both back without any real help, and believe it or not one of them was able to swim right back down and out of sight, impressive from 800'.
After 2 drops, 3 bites, and no mexicans or blackgills, I decided to explore more options around the knoll. A ton of options as far as different structures and depths throughout, from 350' down to 1500' or more if you wanted. Focused on 900' to 1000' for the rest of my time.
Rolling up to the next spot I scared up a little 2-3' shark, blue or mako, near a piece of kelp. Threw an iron around for a minute to see if I could add that to my list on this day but didn't get it to go.
First drop in 900' and I was bit on the drop. Two new species in one drop! The upper fish I’ve flip flopped on twice now, back to thinking it’s a Chameleon Rockfish. The lower is a Mexican Rockfish. These two coming up at the same time was quite a sight to see, both with exceptionally fine scale patterns and glossy tones, one darker than I'm used to and one practically albino. Real trippy.
Picked off a couple more mexicans on this stone before deciding to sample something else, as my blackgill still hadn't made its showing yet...
Moved a mile or two east, now well away from the other 4 boats working the shallow crest of the knoll. As soon as I hit bottom, felt like I was stuck. Realized it was a fish, fought for a second, then eased off but was still hooked up. And what do you know! Blackgill Rockfish! Not very big by their standards but more than enough for the life list!
Next drop that same feeling of being stuck on the bottom. This time trusted that it was a fish and buttoned down on it. Loooooong ride up with something heavy, hoped to god it wasn't a bucketmouth paisan f@cking with me. Turned out to be a unit of a mexican at 6lbs and 22", alongside a 12" mexican on the other hook. Didn't get a pic til after I got off the boat so I'll cap off the report with it.
2 more drops and I limited out on another pink/greenblotch and a mexican. Still glassy at 1130 as I was leaving the grounds with a high speed mackstick in tow.
Once I got back to the coastal shelf I started racking up metal balloons...
Even the giant cutting board wasn't gonna hold all the fish this time, so here are some size samples from the bag.
Absolutely stoked to be able to add 5 new species to my list in one day in SoCal saltwater. Didn't think that was possible these days. There are still several more deep water targets I want to nab, and I'd like to find a better blackgill spot, but won't need to try again for at least a couple weeks with all the new meat in the freezer. And I'm sure my arm could use the rest. Dropped 24oz a dozen times and brought up fish all but one time. Elbow is feeling a little funny...
