Topics

1

Fishing Talk / Kauai Fishing

« on: Today at 11:28:28 AM »

My wife is turning 50 and it's our 20th anniversary. I asked my wife what she wanted for her birthday and she said "A trip to Hawaii"....  Not exactly what I was thinking and a hell of a lot more $$$ than I was expecting, but neither of us have been to the islands before.  After she picked the island and resort, we reserved our time on Kauai at a beachfront resort.  I tried talking her into an air B&B, but she wanted a resort....  Well, I most likely won't be chartering any boats to go fishing with all the coin I'm dropping, but going to do some surf and reef fishing to hopefully get a few dozen new species to add to my list.  I would need 31 to hit the 400 species mark.  That may be a stretch, but I'm arming myself with all of the little critter gear also to help try and make that happen.

Anyone fish Kauai before?  If so, any pointers?  Everything I read so far is pretty standard to how I would go about it, but asking just in case someone knows something that I might not have thought of. 

Thanks!

2

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / SNBF-XVII Mission Bay Edition (4/27)

« on: April 29, 2024, 05:31:29 PM »

Plan was to hit the surf as 3'-4' was predicted and doable, but Squatch made a good point.  Instead of multiple trips dropping off surf gear and picking up the firewood and bay gear, just go bay.  We decided on a spot that Tim H absolutely destroyed them last year at the end of April.  We knew we had some satellite groups around the bay, so we gave it a shot.  Bait and terns were busting everywhere.  Unfortunately, the lines weren't.





Bendo!  (Well, Sasqutch squashed my obvious attempt at deception with a behind the scenes picture)  hahaha



Max joined us, so now we had 3 rods soaking... for nada.  4 hours for only little critter bites.  We then were going to make the move to the Bahia and check that out (What we didn't know was Jerry was already there and putting a whoopin' on a big BSB)

Max did catch a rag that had a crab in it, so possibly a +1.  lol



We just decided to run to the back and enjoy some drinks and soak in the sun while we hoped a bat ray would be around.  We got to the Back when Jerry rolled up and showed us the pictures!  Soaking a chunk of yellowtail, he got a 71" BSB!  Holy Schnikeys!





Well, it doesn't count, but that thing was more than twice, if not 3x the size f the one I caught with Steve!  That one was LEGIT!

Well, it was the typical meet and greet with some of the usual faces.



Jerry the Bat Man?  Nope, Jerry the Black Man!  He needs to update that shirt!  LOL









Roger looked the same size as Dave fishing next to Sasquatch's rod and sand spike!





Steve found something shady in his cooler when he opened it. 



All the mobile homes are gone....



The naked girl wasn't actually naked.  The big lens doesn't lie!



Part of the SD contingent



We had enough wood to last a week.  As Squatch said "You guys are burning an entire forest here!".  lol





Well, I'll revisit this post when I get some more pictures downloaded, but not much more to tell.  I had some tentacle shakers, but otherwise everything came back clean.  Miles had definitely what would have been the winning bat on as he  had an absolute screamer, but his connector knot gave and off she swam.  Miles didn't leave his rod's side for the rest of the evening until they left!  lol

Well, that was it.  We had people come and go, but no Chris, Mike, Josh..... just a generally small contingent that enjoyed the food, beverages, fire, and conversation. 

La got a 11" and VC won it again with a 32".  At least it made the minimum requirement for bats!  lol

Congrats VC!  SD, we need to actually put some effort in next year, even it means no cozy fire.   

3

Fishing Talk / And the Winner is....

« on: April 28, 2024, 12:05:05 AM »

... be right back.


...I'm back.....  VC repeats!  Story and pictures tomorrow.

4

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / Another Team Meeting Down at the Bay (4/25)

« on: April 26, 2024, 08:01:12 AM »

This will probably be my last after the day I had, but the fun parts were fun at least.

I got down early to set up.  Homas was bringing $150 in chicken, lamb chops, and beef for kabobs.  He's from Afghanistan and really cooks up some killer kabobs!  Probably the best I've ever had so I was looking forward to it.

Set up complete and rods in the water.



A front was moving through which made for some killer scenery.



I get a text from Squatch that the Oceanside Peir is burning and I felt really bad for him since that was his go to peir spot.  Such terrible news and I was hoping it wasn't going to burn into the sea.

I decided to cast a swimmy around since my bait rods were quiet and a lot of bait was popping.  I picked up a few nicer bass almost immediately!



Then the guys showed up.  Homa saw me releasing a bass and hook into another.  He came running down trying to prevent me from letting it go as he wanted to grill it up, but I acted like I didn't hear or see him and threw them back anyway.

A couple of them were real slugs and legal bass!



The gangs all here and except for noone bringing non-alcoholic beverages, we were ready for some fishing and bonfire.



I made it perfectly clear that keep your drinks low, but they are good at looking the other way with cans, but NO GLASS!  That's an instant ticket...

Well, as I was fishing, they had this big bottle of whiskey sitting right on the table.  I saw one of the guys throw it under the table and looked up to see the cops walking down to them.  They were issuing a ticket, but said They'd only issue one and save us from 5 more that could have been written, but they wanted someone to write the ticket to.  Well, it was like everyone started getting all squirrelly and the cops were getting noticably annoyed.  I heard the conversation as I was walking up and just said, here's my license.  They could tell that I was falling on the sword for the guys and they decided to take it easy on me by issuing a traffic ticket for failure to observe signage or something like that.  $140 ticket, but it didn't come with an alcohol violation on my license so they spared me.  They had us dump the bottle and took off. 
Only two guys offered to pay his share of the ticket while the others (who I never see) said they'll get me back another time (which was totally a big lie).  Irritated Tom came out and had to explain that I warned them and they did it anyway so I wasn't going to hope to get my money from them before I left since I'm sure I'd never see them again.  Well, everyone chipped in and now I have a traffic court ticket I need to pay for what that's worth.  It really took away from my jovial attitude.

Then all I heard was about them closing our site down and it was inevitable....  I tried changing the conversation to something more fun, but they were hard wired to talk about work crap.

Finally the police started to make their rounds to kick people off the island and I finally got a bite on the bat ray rod.  Only issue was it looked like it was right out of the womb...  Tiny... and got me with it's stinger which added to the pain and I was ready to get home.

On the way it was one lane traffic all the way.... thus not improving my mind...  Then I get home to the garage door not opening.  I squeezed by the boat and went in through the side gate and saw the springs were busted and the cables snapped.  I tried using the emergency release, but it was STUCK and would not open at all.  Now I had to take one thing at a time out of the truck, squeeze by the boat and bring it in the garage all one at a time.  Well, that was my tipping point.

It wasn't a good night and probably my last "Team Building" bay session.  Oh well....  I'm pretty numb about things nowadays.

Well, I have to get on the horn to a garage door guy here now.  I don't want to be packing for the Bat Fight by having to squeeze by the boat when loading the truck.

Thanks for reading and the sleep did me well.

Otherwise, I fear the bats are not back there so not sure what to do for the Bat Fight tomorrow.  Maybe it will all work out and Tim will catch the winning bat!

Thanks for reading my rant! lol

5

Fishing Talk / SNBF-XVII Ribbing Thread

« on: April 25, 2024, 06:28:07 AM »

I realize there aren't many people using the forum and most are using social media, but I thought I'd better throw this up here anyway.  Funny thing is there's this girl in VC that gets worked up easy when poked, so I expect to see some trash talking if VC gets on the board early.  lol

Otherwise, I think LA and OC has just as a good shot as Team AZ of winning this thing.  lol

6

General Board / 20 years today...

« on: April 24, 2024, 07:19:01 AM »

We tied the knot and she's been putting up with me ever since.  I was planning on fishing after work, but for some reason she said "no" this time.  lol

7

Food & Recipe / Rockfish Cakes with a crab Topper

« on: April 21, 2024, 05:09:46 PM »

I needed to do something different with the Vermillion Rockfish on this cook, so made some mock crab cakes.    I topped it off with a pillow of real crab and got the thumbs up from the wifey!

8

General Board / Ed the Woodworker...

« on: April 21, 2024, 05:07:47 PM »

The old wood worker that lived across the street passed not so long ago.  That was one old dude I loved talking to in the neighborhood since he was always tinkering with some type of wood projects while I was tinkering with my fishing ones.

The family gave me his old level from the early 1900's since they were wondering what to do with some of the stuff he had from the past 95 years.  My wife didn't like any of my suggestions, but I found a spot that almost look made for it.  Here's the "Where's Waldo" picture.

My wife literally couldn't find it and told me I was just teasing her.  Nope...

9

General Board / M.I.A for a month....

« on: April 21, 2024, 05:00:49 PM »

Totally thought he was gone.  It's a 5+ inch Bushynose Placo so by far the biggest fish in the tank.



I literally bought a Chinese Algae Eater to fill in the gap by the missing placo and boom...  Literally came out of hiding when he saw someone else eating his algae covered rocks...



Glad he's still alive and still in the tank.  I was ready to blame one of the 5 cats we have that don't mind getting wet.

10

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / Silver Hunt (4/21)

« on: April 21, 2024, 04:57:05 PM »

I was back and forth about getting the boat out but opted to just do some topwater fishing looking for some Corvina.



I kept hearing bells in the distance and pulled out the binos.  Antennae guy was catching what looked to be cartilaginous fish, but even with the good binos, I couldn't tell.



I moved to 3 separate locations and had two absolute blow ups on the spook, but the dummy totally missed.  I finally had one slurp at the plug, but it also missed. 

The bay was crowding up, so I switched to the swimbaits. 



I only managed 4 small bass and had to switch to a bigger weedless head when the wind kicked up.  That weed guard did its trick and kept me from burying the hook.  lol

Anyway, a quick fun run to the bay and back by 11:00 to get some yard work done.

Thanks for reading.

11

Fishing Talk / SD Bat Fight Folk...

« on: April 21, 2024, 04:49:51 PM »

FYI.  A new event just popped up the day of the bat fight.  Also, De Anza Cove is totally fenced off and blocked from the public until further notice.

12

Fishing Talk / New Rockfish Regs Took Effect

« on: April 20, 2024, 03:43:52 PM »

Glad I was able to get my limit of 4 before they cut it in half!

https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=185058&inline

13

Saltwater Boat Fishing Reports / Tom's Knoll (4/17)

« on: April 20, 2024, 01:18:32 PM »

I was literally eating dinner and saw that Wednesday was supposed to be awesome out on the big pond.  Work just informed us the week before that many layoffs are coming soon, so I just planned on taking my Vitamin Sea and giving the boat a shakedown trip since it's been months since I last got it out.

It felt amazing pulling up to the ramp.



As I was heading out the inlet, I realized I was going to have a fog problem...





I decided to stay close just because the fog was so thick, so went casting for bass and other oobly gooblies.







Made a few moves and it looked like the fog might have been starting to clear.  Ended up with 4 calico, 2 brownies and 2 gophers.





Fog was thick but I decided to make a move to Tom's Knoll.  As I was heading out, I heard a voice on the radio that sounded awfully familiar. I responded "Tombo, is that you?".  Sure as hell it was.  He was out getting into some black gill.  We exchanged some intel via phone at this point and hoping I could get into some big red fish of my own!



First drop was on my bait stick.  The second it hit bottom, and I was on.  This place is FULL of nice reds!



I decided to try something different since there wasn't much current, but the sonar was lit up.  I grabbed my Penn 2500 loaded with 12# mono and clipped on a 60 oz jig.  I even left the giant clip on... lol



Look one way and there's fog... the other way and bright blue sky!  Well, I realized that dropping 420' equals just about all of the line...







Let me say that fighting big reds with no line left on the reel is a challenge.  First it was just hard to get them to stick on the hook!  Then every swell raising the boat up used any spare line I had on the reel.  LOL



But man, the next 3 reds were a whole lot of fun! 



I tried using different rigs to see if I could find something else, but after having to use the descent device twice, I was whooped and headed back in to do a little halibut fishing.



I was pretty sure I hooked one, but it quickly turned to feel more like a BSB.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get it 20 feet off the bottom after 10 minutes and the hook pulled.  Pretty sure BSB..

Anyway, I called it the morning and back to the ramp by 12:30.  Not a bad morning at all.  Boat ran well, but I think I need some new hydraulic steering lines as mine seems a little soft. 

I just miss getting out on the water.



Thanks for reading and until next tide!

14

General Board / Forum Updates

« on: April 19, 2024, 05:49:41 AM »

So I finally got a hold of my webmaster to update and fix all the bugs in the forum.  He said he's on it, so I will keep you in the loop if the site has to go down for a bit.

15

Fishing Talk / Bat News

« on: April 18, 2024, 07:59:44 AM »

Rogers been catching them, but they are not in an area we should really be fishing until the evening and there are lots of obstacles around to navigate.  For the SD Crew, what time are you coming down?  I'll be fishing the surf in the morning if it allows me and will run to the bay in the afternoon.  Joe won't be able to lock down a fire ring this year, so would someone else be able to?  Keep me posted and let's get a plan together to bring home a sweet victory for SD this year!