Heard there was a strong presence of threshers locally so made another concerted effort to find them. 0600 launch, made a friend at the ramp whose Livingston 14 I was eyeing.
Quarter mile visibility for the first couple hours.
I knew the area I wanted to really investigate, but stopped on every puddling bait I saw along the way. First few miles it was just little tiny flurries of bait. Put a few fresh mackerel in the bag, but looked like most of the bait mass was sardines, a change from anchovies in the winter and spring.
Found a bunch of terns near the beach that looked like they were disappointed for a usual area to not have more bait. Decided to follow the terns in their direction offshore. The terns came up on dolphins, decided to switch trains and follow the dolphins. The dolphins were happy to take on the hitchhiker and after a few hundred yards they found some bait. They thrashed that for a minute then moved on, so I followed them some more. Found another little flurry, played with it, then moved on. Kept following them. Then after almost 5 miles, they found a sweet school of bait on the flats, 30 yards wide or so. Thanks pals! Visibility had opened up a bit and looked real similar to the spot I saw a thresher caught from the other day. Picked off a sabiki mackerel and put it on a 7/0 octopus and sent it out to drift, while continuing to fill a bag with 5:1 sardines to mackerel.
Spent an hour or so on the school, switching out weights and species of bait, drifting vs slow trolling, alive/dying/dead. Wasn't getting me anywhere so moved over a quarter mile to another big school. Similar thing for another 15 minutes. Was slowly hopping my way back toward home from one big school of bait to the next but never seeing my target.
For my last bait I finally tried out a rubber band bridle. Needle through the top of the eye socket, hook through both ends of rubber band, twist it up, and secure by putting the hook underneath the twists. Kept this horse sardine incredibly lively for over 15 minutes. No more nose hooking for me if I can help it! Might have helped to have a smaller hook but I was originally planning on all mackerel for the day.
Eventually found myself over the top of Izor's reef, so rigged up a couple dropper loops with mac fillet and a fluke and sent it down. Didn't take too long before I got a sheephead.
Tried releasing it, swam down 20 feet then floated back up. Ugh...then trying to get it back in the boat to decompress it was a nightmare with no net. Sheeps really don't have any good grip points. 5 minutes of trying to get it in the boat, popped it, threw it back out, same thing. Swam down and popped back up. Okay fine you're coming home with me. Same song and dance, tried the gaff but so little body weight and such thick skin it was still impossible. Finally got it in the boat. Hard earned couple tacos that I didn't really want.
Always interesting to just follow the life around and see what happens. Would be nice to be rewarded one of these days. Might try the same thing on Friday, we'll see.
