When I was looking at the report yesterday, I saw that the winds were going to pick up, but they were calling for very light conditions out there. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to take the Boma out looking for Bluefin, so I took the day off and met Squatch down at the ramp. He had a case of the "Fishing Flu" today also.
The wind was HOWLING from the south and the waves and swell were at least 2 to 3 times bigger than the forecast the day before. I kind of knew this wasn't going to be the day to look for Bluefin, but I was hoping we could get some bait and at least get a yellow or two. On the way out the inlet, we passed a few dozen tuna crab swimming with the current. We tried to scoop a few, but they were quicker than they look!
Once again, the bait was scarce. I had one lucky drop after metering a small meatball on the sonar and pulled up 5 large macks on one drop. We had 6 macks total and decided to make the run to the yellowtail grounds. On one of the drifts, we had a se lion pop up and eat one of my baits... down to 5 now...
We ran at a slow pace here and there trying to meter stuff before we decided to just drift some big macks on the dropper loop out deep. I metered what I thought was a nice school of macks before I left and my tine sabiki got walloped. I thought I had a stringer of macks on, but it was only this stinky Salmon Grouper that I kept for one of my neighbors. lol
Greedy bastard!
At this point we got a few rockfish in the cooler and I had some numbers that I wanted to run to. On my first drop with the big mack, I get hit. It turns out there was a mess of these things down here, but it was hard to get the hook stuck in them when they were choking on the mackerel.
I got back to back legal lings and the fish finder was all lit up!
Steve finally got one and it looked like a beauty until we realized he snagged it in his belly.
We burned through our few baits quickly and must have had 8 or more definite ling bites, but only managed to boat 3.
The current and wind was ripping and I had some meat in the cooler, so we decided to do some VERY shallow water calico fishing and try and get out of the wind. I must say, that was pretty fun! We didn't catch a ton, but we both got into them as well as had a bunch of followers and a bunch of missed fish.
Well, we decided to call it and in the nick of time also. The wind kicked up from the SW like a bitch and we missed the worst of it even though we were soaked by the time we got to the inlet.
I went to open it up when we got in the inlet, but the motor kept bogging down everytime I opened up the throttle!? WTF? I tried a few more time with no success, so I just decided to take it slow back to the trailer. When I got her on the trailer, I was getting nervous that my motor might have poo-poo'd on me. I kept it out of gear and revved the motor just to hear her sound like a million bucks! I put it in gear and used the trailer tongue to hold me there. My fears are now thinking my lower end is shot as I could not generate any power when putting it in gear... Great, the Boma is temporarily done even before the season started! grrrr.
Anyway, I got back home and washed her up and cleaned the fish. The ling were just stuffed as their bellies almost couldn't hold another thing!
Mack
Oobly Gooblies
Well, I got a few rockfish and 2 ling in the cooler, so I couldn't ask for more due to the conditions. I seared up the cheeks tonight in butter and garlic... it is worth the trouble cutting those things out.
Stay thirsty my friends!