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31

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / How did THIS happen?

« on: August 22, 2016, 11:10:33 PM »

OK, it's almost been 24 hours since, so I'm settled down enough to be able to write a post up now...
Hit it last night around sunset just after the tide had turned to an incoming. Knew the swell was going to be up some and wanted to change it up a bit so decided to try an AO that had a gentle slope to it and was all sand, nothing but sand bottom for a mile in every direction, except for a finger jetty in the shallow I set up about 100 yards away from.
This was not 7 gill territory, soupies and leos is what I have seen come from here before. So I soak fresh mack heads w for a couple of hours on a 12/0 circle with not a bump, not even from a -1 , SNGF or any crab picking. Just an occasional kelp stringer that would drift across my line on the surface and get sucked outward by an incoming swell and pushed back inward as the wave broke, was the only thing that gave my rod tip any sort of movement. It was already a bit after the no parking time so I got my bag packed up, and was reaching for my rod to give it the last reel in when something hit it like a freight train at full speed. In my experience bats won't take a bait on the fly, they stop, mouth the bait, and take at least a few feet to get their momentum back up. This hit had me guessing for a second if a pelican flying by in the dark had hit my line with its wing it was so sudden. But in the next few seconds I felt the power, and knew this wasn't no bird, as I turned down the drag , not slowing my screaming spool at all. Then I hear and see out on the surface a splash,splash, splash, splash of water being thrown from side to side and feel big thumping shakes on my taught line. It's was that hold your breath moment of the fight. Every thing held, whew, but now realized I realized it was on course to end me around the finger jetty rocks and I had to decide do I go out chest deep in the surf to try to get an angle on it or do I button down the drag some more to try and angle it away. I felt like I had some room to tighten it down more so I went that route. Mind you this is all in only about a 15-20 second span since the initial hit. So as I'm buttoning down gradually, with room to go even tighter, I feel the dreaded dull....pop..the kind you just instantly can feel you lost everything and that the hook didn't just pull out. So with a pit in my stomach I quickly reel up my slack line and I feel it come through my rods eyes way earlier than expected, about 100 feet early, half my 30lb mono top shot missing. I look at the break off point and find this.(See pics) Last night I really couldn't think of anything but a freak windknot in my mono? That idea just does'nt sit right in my mind as I thought about it into today. I more plausible idea came to my mind a while ago, but I'd be interested to hear what comes into your guys thoughts on how the hell a big slipless loop knot with a 6 inch tag end on it 100 feet up from my sinker got in my line to cause a break off point. The 6 inch tag is bizzare as it didnt break at the knot...     ...I'm OK now 
CLOSE UP OF THE MYSTERY KNOT AND TAG END. THE LINE GOING DOWNWARD WAS THE ONE LEADING TO MY ROD. THAT TAG IS WHERE IT BROKE, NOT AT THE KNOT

THE SINGLE LINE GOING TO THE RIGHT WAS MY MAIN LINE LEADING TO MY REEL, THE 2 GOING LEFT FORM A BIG LOOP OUT OF PIC

THE BIG LOOP

THE SANDY WASH I FISHED IN

32

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / In the minus column

« on: August 19, 2016, 09:26:56 AM »

Got out last night just after sundown for a couple of hours. Started out with a -1. Lots of small annoying nibbles...then another -1. Swell started to come up quick. Watched it go from what seemed like a 1-2' to 3'-4' within a couple of hours...Looks like the weekend into early next week is going to be tough as far as the swell goes.
Decided to call it a night after this double  ....how would you score this one? 

33

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / How'd I get here?...Welcome back big bats

« on: August 12, 2016, 08:21:59 PM »

Set out driving yesterday after work with a friend that's a female, my surf fishing set ups and basic gear, 1/2 dozen recently caught surf macks and some drinks on ice in a cooler, change of clothes, all hastily thrown in my car... and headed towards the coast with no particular destination in mind set. It was one of those, let's just pack it up, get outa here, go, and see where things lead me type plan or, non plan you could say. Picked up a pizza on the way, took a canyon road over the hill and asked her left or right when we hit PCH. "North" she says. OK I say (as I'm thinking to myself, damn, why'd she say that, the better spots are to the right...)You have to remember this isn't slated as a hard core mission to fish trip in her mind, we're just taking a drive. So northward we head, past a few spots I knew had potential for fish but would require a bit of a walk into, that I knew would draw some whining, so I didn't make the suggestion...and the now what had turned into a scenic drive up the coast for her continued on, and on some more, until finally she said "oh look how pretty that beach is, let's stop here for a while. As I'm thinking to myself, of all the places we had passed by and she picks this snaggy bottom, lose my rig everycast looking stretches of coast with just a small patch of sand to put a blanket down on beach that I havn't fished for over 20 years because I remember losing 10 rigs in 10 casts the one time I had tried it.  So I casually tie on a rig to one of my set ups cast it out with half a mack on it, and put it up in my rod holder, prepared to just let it sit till she's ready to move on in 30 minutes or so, when I'll be stuck and have to snap it off, like I remember from my brief encounter 20 or so years ago here. So, before I even can get sat down and comfortable, I hear my reel start out screeeaming at one speed, fast! Not really prepared for that to happen so soon, I struggle to get it out of the holder, fumble to tighten down the drag knob and burn the sh!t out of my hand against the braid flying off the spool, tighten down into it too much for it's initial run and.... pop, I feel that dreaded slack line weightlessness that doesn't even provide enough tension to wind the line back onto your spool. So, I go from zero to 100 , 100 to zero without warning within a span of less than a minute. Leaving me in that simultaneous full adrenaline rush, loud cussing mode, that I'm sure most of you have experienced before, with my friend just looking at me like, "what a freak" and me loudly muttering "f@ck, that was big, it was f@cking  big! sh!t!" to myself. LOL...So I sit down for 5 or 10 minutes, have a smoke, and try to wind down a bit before I retie, bait up and cast out again. I pin 3/4 of a mack on a pully rigged 12/0 circle hook and launch it out again. Before I can take up enough slack to get the hook up to the pulley I feel thump, thump, slack.. thump,then click-click-click-click, line tightening up from a constant slow steady pull for a bit, until I give my drag knob a turn down, and I can feel the pressure  slowly load up and set the circle hook. Now it's that moment when whatever just got the hook set in the corner of it's mouth feels some unnatural resistance to it's swimming, panics, it's flee instinct kicks in, and it's the hold on tight and hope 3/4 of the spoon sn't get peeled off before it slows down any. After about a 100yd initial run away from any structure it slows to an almost stop  I feel a sense of relief as all held up through the initial run and at this point I'm 95% sure it's a big bat I've hooked into. So I think to myself this is a perfect time to explain to a rookie, without words, what this fishing thing is about, and put the butt of the rod in the side of her hip, put her hand up on the fore-grip, and say hold this up like this, don't let it be pulled it down, as it starts it's second run that I knew it would, and easily beats her at the arm wrestling match and gets the rod to a position pointing directly out at it and almost yanks my whole set up right out of her hands completely. At this point I say, "see, they're really strong huh?, let me finish fighting it." and me thinking, how stupid am I? My best set-up almost just got pulled into the drink. Anyhow it's close to an hour of the classic type bat ray give and take type power battle and another 15 minutes in the skinny before I can wade in and and grab onto it by it's gill ports and drag the 54" beast out of the wash and up onto some wet sand. I just hear a bewildered "Oh my god, look at that thing" as the big bat is grunting and slapping it's wings on the wet sand. I tell her to take some quick pics for me and gets a few snapped before my cell phone's battery dies. This was only the first one of the night and in the next few hours got 2 more bats onto the sand along with a nice 56 inch Leo. This night the these surf bats were more then welcome to be back on the end of my line again. This was one of the fun times that fishing can provide, that only a small percentage of people will ever be able to understand but I think I added one to that mix last night    Thanks for reading my montage if you got this far 
JOE




                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
     

34

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / Cooler water

« on: August 07, 2016, 09:02:10 AM »

Headed a ways north than usual in search of some grinner holding cooler waters. Fished from the bottom of the low till almost the peak of the high before salad rolled in with a vengeance and shut me down for the night. Always nice to fish new water. No grinners, only some puckermouths, but felt this water has potential for a later date. Usually don't post AO pics but if someone wants to do the hike it takes to get into this one , more power to ya...

Low tide at sunset

Mr. Horny




Thanks for looking
JOE

35

Lure & Rig Crafting Board / Up & Over Rig

« on: July 30, 2016, 04:30:07 PM »

So here's a rig I've been tinkering with and had some success with my last few seshes for SNGF and sand bass at least. Like anything else it's uses are situational, but seems to do best when there's not much if any salad and on non-snaggy bottomswhere there is an ebb and flow of current to take advantage of the long length of line the baited hook is tied onto.I've been tying it with the hook on an 8' length of line off the main line which theoretically means your bait could get 16' of drift in along the bottom when the current from a swell pushes towards the shore and then 16' back out the other way when the swell action creates a receding flow, back and forth, etc...

The diagram is not to scale...but length B (from 3-way swivel to hook) needs to be twice as long as length A (rig clip to other leg of 3-way swivel)




For the cast then 8' section of line is run up (4') to the upside down rig clip and then back down (4') where the baited hook goes into some kind of bait clip. In the pics I'm using an imp shield and in the diagram it's a gemini splash down clip but an imp clip should work as well but yould have to be more precise on the lengths of line felative to each other.

ignore the line going straight left in the diagram, it now goes up and over the rig clip and back down into the bait clip.


Here's a close up of the gemini rig clip up top that holds the line during the cast until splash down, when the bait clip releases the baited hook and the line will release from this rig clip as it falls through the water to the bottom.


the orange line would be your main line or shock leader tying on


here's the bottom half, but a regular 3-way swivel could be used in place of the rolling barrel on a crimp sleeve as in the pic.
Not to be confusing but in this pic the orange line leads to my hook


http://www.gemini-tackle.co.uk/listings.asp?id=220

36

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / Couple of Sandies

« on: July 29, 2016, 11:19:35 AM »

Hit it last night for a few of hours from sunset till 11pm...Beautiful conditions all around and weather perfect. Picked up a couple of sand bass on an up & over rig I tied up a few of and was trying out to make sure it cast well, didn't tangle or have any other unforeseen issues. It seems like it'll work well in certain conditions. I might post the details and pics up in the tackle talk section shortly but its basically a 3 way rig but with an 8' length of line the hook is tied onto that all clips down for streamline casting....



What do you guys think of the new camera phone pics? I picked one up just because Tom's night shots looked so good...LG Nexus6x
JOE

37

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / Despicable Creature of the night

« on: July 10, 2016, 10:11:49 AM »

Beautiful conditions alround contrary to the bump in weekend surf forecast but, Tom's right, now I understand, my first moray eel was enough, no more please...Haven't heard of any taken in LA County before but this one managed to foul tail hook itself on my circle hook somehow and before I got him on the sand he managed to spin and interweave my rig and shockleader in with eelgass salad and himself to make a slimey birdsnest from hell that bites. Even though my 10/0 only barely caught about a inch of him I could not pull my hook out of it's skin. Now I get why it's used to make boots with. Its tougher than tanned cow hide. Combined with a couple dead lobster washed up on the sand,at least I know I was near some reefy type Sevengill structure I look for edges of.
Not much else going on with the 8 rods we had out between me, Sean and Edgar until well past midnight. Those guys are are fun to fish with regardless, plus they pack plenty of oreo cookies along with them 
JOE

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THIS....RETIE TIME

38

General Board / Old California Soupfin study & data

« on: July 05, 2016, 05:15:42 PM »

Alright, alright, your probably wondering where that soupfin diet chart came from...here...
It's from an old study conducted in the 1940's in California using specimens taken mostly by gill net and not meant for angler's use but some of the statistical data could be applied to surf soupies if you do some creative interpretation & know some stat.
Warning- don't open unless you have a spare 30 minutes or so...Ron, this means you too
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt3b69n668&brand=oac4&doc.view=entire_text
   

39

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / Holiday Pay

« on: July 05, 2016, 01:59:38 AM »

Hard to complain if your getting paid for the day off and on the sand instead of at work.. First time in recent memory that Ive fished with the sun still high in the sky. It was kind of strange to actually see my cast, haha...Got a 50" Leo on a small mack head pulley rigged. It was one of those fun Leo's takes that looks like they grabbed your bait on the fly while swimming at full speed past it. Knew it was too fast to be a bat run...Fun fight, high speed zig zaggin roostertails up in the trough and skinny...and my first SNGF of the year, 49 incher, ....and probably the last one of the year that Ill bother taping & posting a pic of....wasnt going to be much beach left after sunset with the 6+' high rolling in so packed it up in time to go see some fireworks with the GF by dark...Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention water was virtually salad free, what a difference a week can make...
JOE

40

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / Sandhand night

« on: June 12, 2016, 12:14:57 PM »

Meet up with FishJerk in VC last night. Got to play sandhand on a bat & a couple of ornery 7's for him. Me nothing but a couple run & drops and one lost on a rig failure. Chatted with the Sheriff a bit as we were leaving an hour past curfew. Since we were just fishing they were cool. Asked us we had noticed any panga boats out here ever at night dumping cargo overboard and would appriciate it if we nightfish alot to keep our eyes open and give them a call if we see anything like that in the future. Said theyre on watch for Mexican cartels smuggling in dope with pangas lately...I'll let Ron post up his grinners.
JOE

41

Fishing Talk / We've come a long way

« on: June 08, 2016, 09:48:43 PM »

I was just cruising through some of the old front page news articles on here and came across this one from almost exactly a year ago...impressive how many sharks have been put up since then especially considering the late summer & fall dry spell there was.. Look at this May compared to last May, wow...

http://prehistoricsoul.com/socal-surf-shark-list/

42

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / Epic night...

« on: June 08, 2016, 12:33:04 PM »

Well, the conditions were at least, not the fishing Had a couple pick up, run, and drops, that were most likely just calicos. Don't remember the ocean ever being so calm. I'm talking ankle high swells that didn't even have the power to ever break into a wave lapping on the sand most of the night. Maybe a few calf high sets rolled thru that actually shore broke into a wave. Breeze picked up around 10pm. Kinda strange surf fishing without any whitewater to be seen or waves to be heard...The other thing that caught my attention was all the baitfish in the water, not sure what they were exactly but they were bigger than chovies but smaller than macks. When I would hit the water with a flashlight it would send them all scattering and splashing on the surface trying to escape the beam of light. And since it was so quiet without any waves you could hear the by the 1000s either surface feeding or scattering from things constantly. They seemed to be grouped in balls every 50 -100 feet or so. My best guess is they were either night smelt or grunion but acted like how mullet do as far as being so skitish to any movement. I didn't want to leave as early as I did ,as although I had no solid take downs it still felt fishy. I have this thing called work I have to show up at by 8am 5 days a week though that tends to detract from my fishing time. Maybe it's time to get my priorities straight and start skipping more days of work...            

43

Tackle Talk / Tapered Shock Leader

« on: May 23, 2016, 07:07:54 PM »

They havn't arrived yet but a few days ago I ordered from Italy some 5 packs of knotless mono tapered surf casting shock leaders. Each one is shown to be 45 feet long with 30 feet of it being the thickest heavy 80# portion, which is easy enough to trim down to 20 ft or less if wanted, and the other 15 feet being a taper down to the lighter end. The heaviest, lighter end I could find was 18# tapering up to an 80#) but my thinking is I can find the place in the taper that comes close to the diameter of my top shot that I'm splicing it onto and cut it off and tie in there, leaving somewhere between 7-10 feet of taper. Hopefully this turns out to be a legit way to solve that damn top shot to shock leader bulky knot's associated issues of running through the rod guides smoothly, laying on the reel spool and salad collecting.
Anyone ever tried using  tapered leaders before? (other then for flyfishing)
 I'll update after they've arrived and I try them out...
and no, I couldn't find any that tapered up to 100#. Seems like there would be a market for a 30# or 40# tapering up to 100#, from members on this site alone...
JOE     

44

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / Putting in some more Seven time...

« on: May 23, 2016, 11:40:44 AM »

Hit it last night starting more than an hour before sunset from a newly found VC access point. Armed myself with some good looking squish and a couple monster macs, I'm talking close to state record size macs here  All conditions looked great... wind, weather, surf size, no salad, incoming tide, no people within earshot, all systems go. Since I hadn't fished this exact stretch of beach before, I decided to "leapfrog" using 2 set-ups, one rigged with squish, the other with mac, starting out about 100' apart, then alternating, moving each one 200' every 15 minutes or so, leapfrogging the other one, standing midway between the two when they where both set...So a bit over an hour into it the squish rod goes zzzzzzing and I do a 50' dash, put the reel in gear and hold on for a blistering initial run. Then it turns south and starts heading parallel to the shore, fortunately toward my other rod, which I manage to reel in and get it's rig out of the water so I don't double up. After over an hour in the trough (of missed prime time soaking for grinners as I saw it) I finally go out and hand hold drag her onto the sand and she tapes out at a thick 55". Would have been really stoked a few months ago with her, but at the moment I'm exhausted, it's now dark, & I just burned away that magic sunset hour fighting another  friggin bat,this was not my target tonight...is what I was thinking.

Ho humm...
After a 10 minute rest to recoupe, back to it, but now mac chunks  on both rods, there will be no more squish soaking tonight...A couple of hours, and a few hundred yards of covered beach pass by before the full moon starts to rise...and zzzzz, bendo, strong initial run, then the moment of truth...bounce, bounce, slap...yess!, then pop, slack line, and cussing, lots of hours invested into that...hook just pulled clean, damn! Only 30 minutes left before I'm pushing tow away and ticket time so I go to just my main rod and recast with the glow stick from my other rod tip now clipped on to the 6oz of lead & a BIG new mack head. My new rod loads and throws this very well...Before I can tighten up the slack and put the rod up in the holder I feel a pull much stronger than that initial set you feel when you tighten down to the sputniks grab. Then it seems like something just realized it had a hook in it's mouth and takes off on a strong, no turning it, powerful initial run, then bounce bounce,ping, slap, bounce, holding my breath.... still tension, Yesss! After about a 15 minute long, very respectable battle with alot of breath holding by me during head shaking and tail slapping runs, I see my glow stick come up into the skinny, loosen up my drag, put the rod in it's holder, and go down for the solo tail grab. I manage to drag him up into the dry sand, where he rolls, hence the sand covering him in the poor pics. I wished there was someone around to take some pics with me in a shot too but this 84" male Sevengill and myself are the only one's on the beach within miles. I drag him back into the skinny, rinse him off, resuscitate  adequately, and watch his tail wake as he powers out into the trough. I went to sleep last night with a feeling of satisfaction.

45

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / Salad, wind, waves & bats

« on: April 24, 2016, 11:46:44 PM »

Ended up doing a quick catch and go for about an hour this evening 6 - 7pm. Conditions were not ideal at all, 20 knt wind in the face, 3-4' surf, low tide had just turned and salad all up and down the water column grabbing my line from where it entered the water down to my sputnick. Let my first 3 casts soak about 10 minutes apiece and spent 5 minutes between each picking the salad off my line. The baits were coming in a bit chewed on or gone each time so I decided to give it one more cast and hold my rod instead of putting it in its holder to see if I could distiguish a bite from salad wrapping onto my line. I definetely felt something pick up my bait after only a couple minutes, lowered my rod tip to horizontal, counted to 5, and raised it back up to set my circle into something, may it be a fishes mouth or a big salad clump, but it set into something. Then it took off and started screaming out line with no big wave approaching to be sucking salad into it, but then let me gain 20yds back before it started the tell tale parallel to shore sideways runs...Was no fun with all the salad still attached once I got it in the wash trying to solo grab it but I eventually dragged it up onto the sand. Didnt have a tape onhand this sesh so put a pack of cigerettes on it for scale reference but my best guesstimate was 53-54". Trying to post this from mobile so not sure if the pic will make it up tonite but its nothing special if not