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Boat Fishing => Saltwater Boat Fishing Reports => : Latimeria August 22, 2020, 07:15:33 AM
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My shoulder is the worst it has felt in a long time and I'm already at my max of cortisone shots for this joint. The pain and lack of sleep has been overwhelming, so I was planning on resting it up and not fishing this weekend. I talked to my buddy Dave and put the drain plug in just in case, but got nothing put together. I saw there has been some local yellows and found out Saturday (today) is my grand daughter's 1st birthday, so yesterday was my only window I had. I couldn't sleep as every time I rolled over, I would move my arm and wake up in pain. Sometime after 3:00am, I realized I wasn't going to get any restful sleep, so I got up and started packing up the boat. I usually do this the night before, so it was weird trying to pack everything up and stay quiet enough to not annoy all the neighbors.
I heard of "Red sky in the morning, Sailor's take warning", but don't remember any sayings about the sun being so red. Probably ash from the fires up north?
(https://i.imgur.com/BohhH89.jpg)
On the way out, I noticed the old jetty navigation pad on the barge, so they were done placing new boulders.
(https://i.imgur.com/bnq8g1D.jpg)
Goal number one was to find bait. I didn't meter any around and drove a long way to find it, but got a healthy mix of sardine, mackerel and Salema.
(https://i.imgur.com/78y4jhb.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/8kuP2Nl.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/LBDumwK.jpg)
I decided not to spend too long bait fishing so went to work with the artificials at first. It was really good bass fishing as I got them on the plastics, iron, megabait, hydro-minnow and even live bait.
Almost all were legal, but the first thing I noted was all of the bass were so lit up! Not sure why, except that they were in breeding mode.
(https://i.imgur.com/T51Tmqm.jpg)
Even the smaller ones were nice sized.
(https://i.imgur.com/ODLcF1A.jpg)
So many golden colored ones... must be breeding...
(https://i.imgur.com/AitamWu.jpg)
Most of the turd rollers looked normal, nut then I pulled up this crazy lit up one! Hybrid? or just lit up breeder?
(https://i.imgur.com/fmFR8fe.jpg)
I also had 3 WSB, but only one made it into the boat when I tried pulling them in. I was hoping to find momma somewhere, but it was nice to see this spot has so many juveniles around.
(https://i.imgur.com/JQukewa.jpg)
Then the snot sticks came rushing through and I was about done with these little things. Ruining baits and hitting everything that touched the water.
(https://i.imgur.com/0cYYjlY.jpg)
I decided to head to some rocks and use the remaing baits to try and bring home something big and tasy as I CPR'd all the other fish. It was a long ride back, but all of a sudden the water started frothing in front of me! I killed the motor and grabbed the jig stick. First cast and they sunk out but not before I get bumped on the jig... didn't stick... damn!
4 casts later and this one stuck! Fought the yellow for 5 minutes before it pulled the hook somehow. Hooks are sharp, so not sure what's going on.
My shoulder and arm are on total fire now, so I opted to toss a bait out instaed, but only had a bass rod rigged up for live bait so I pinned a mackerel on and put it out while I searched for rigs to hook up a legitimate rod. Figures, I forgot my rig bag in the garage..
I started tying something up when i kept hearing these strange creaky noises. I look up and my bass rod it bent down to the handle! Holy crap!
It was a long and tedious battle and bass flipping sticks are not ideal to catching nice yellowtail, so I took my time. No boats came over and after a long battle, broke in my little gaff I made properly!
15 pounder! (actually 14lbs, 13oz)
(https://i.imgur.com/PsS7Xa5.jpg)
I caught more yellows this year on this little bass stick than all my other rods. It has the magic apparently! The funny thing is, even though it's a nice yellowtail, it is still almost 30 pounds lighter then the last one I caught! LOL
Anyway, i called it early and saw the crane gettiing towed back to Long Beach. My shoulder felt like it was on fire, so I needed to get home and put it on ice! I wish there wasn't an opioid issue because that's the only thing to make my shoulder feel better! LOL
Thanks for reading... and Oh, the water was 74.9-75.6 where i was fishing. It warmed back up in a hurry!
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Awesome fishing report!
I bet you didn't notice your shoulder as much when you were hooked up with that yellowtail.
-Keith
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You keeping the sealions occupied with the volleyball while fighting that yellow?
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You keeping the sealions occupied with the volleyball while fighting that yellow?
I found it floating out in the great blue. You should have seen my surprise when i turned it over! hahahahaha
(https://i.imgur.com/rSP3qRu.jpg)
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Hahaha.
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Very nice, light tackle Yellow fishing seems really fun, as long as it's not putting your through excruciating pain! Those golden bass are pretty cool too!
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Sorry about your shoulder Tom, hopefully you'll get it straightened out some day. Nice fish on the bass rod.............
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Looks like a red sky in the morning is the way to go, I guess now you have to worry about one at night ;D