Topics

1

Saltwater Boat Fishing Reports / Local mossbacks

« on: March 22, 2024, 04:30:11 PM »

Hit up the jewel with high hopes and low expectations.

Arrived just after high tide and put out two Xrap 40’s as soon as I crossed the MLPA line. Lots of surface activity and about 10 mins in a troller went off! Fought a kelp stringer to the boat and safely released it… did some circling around and realized the kelp in 90ft is pretty thick and not trollable.

Got outside the kelp and put the diver back out and cruised around from bait puddle to bird pile and made my way over to a small floatilla of boats. Lots of bait going off in and around them so I pushed to the outside. Found a nice gap and cut between them towards some birds nobody was working and when I got about 50 yards from it the yellows started blowing up around me. I stopped the boat and tossed the surface iron, about 4 casts in I got a short strike but it was enough force to spin the boat a little and I noticed my troll lines going across the back. Figured I need to pull those before it makes a mess. Got the first one half way in and snagged some kelp… then the kelp started peeling line. Fish on! Cleared the other line while holding the hooked up rod between my legs and it pulling me sideways.
Stuck the gaff near the throat and  it ripped off, lots of blood everywhere. Another 90 seconds of it fighting for its life left it pretty much bled out and second gaff put it in the boat. As I was getting that fish in the bag they started puddling around me again. Grabbed the surface iron rod and chucked it past two boilers and fish on! Short 5-7 minute fight and got a good gaff shot. Bled it out and had two in the bag.

Had one more opportunity to cast on them after that but the other skiffs were on thier toes and everyone was now racing towards fish and pushing each other out.

Got another boat to snap a couple pics for me and then went home. Good 3 hour session. I wish every day could be this good.

I guessed 25 and 28lbs but they went 29 and 31 to my delight.

2

Saltwater Boat Fishing Reports / Bait barge fishing.

« on: February 17, 2024, 11:29:18 PM »

An Instagram acquaintance who’s working the Bart hall show posted on IG asking if anyone in SD wanted to fish. I was about 10 mins deep into trying to entice my GF to go fish WSB from 10pm to sun up and she was not biting…
I messaged him and due to show obligations and lack of gear we decided to hit the big bay…in the inflatable.

We launched just before 9pm and went down to the barge. He used a small squidtrex (1/4 or 1/5oz) and I was using 15 gram reaper jigs I just got in the mail. We both worked them the same, cast far, hit bottom then bounce it and keep a steady retrieve and swoop the baits to keep them from snagging grass, rocks and ropes on the bottom.

I was using a light rod rated 4-10 with 10lb braid and 15lb leader.

It was a slow but steady bite. About one in ten casts got hit and our hookup ratio was in the 90th percentile. Idk how a fish can bite a jig with an assist hook and treble and not get hooked….

Early on I hooked something that felt like a cross between a batray and halibut. Didn’t think it was huge but might be legal…. Got it up and it was a lobster! Measured it and it was legal too! Bummer.

Had a few hours of fun with spotties, calicos and sand bass (I got the big bay trifecta!) and then my buddy hooks up and it’s pinned his 2-8lb rod… big slow swoops on the rod and a heavy pull…. He works it up and it’s a huge lobster! I net it and we take pics then release it.

We saw Josh on his scout slaying the sand bass out there too.

Another hour goes by and we got a couple more bass but nothing great and decided to call it.
Boat on the trailer by 1:45 and home at 2:30am up for little league practice at 7 and regretting it… 34 is rough but fishing is fun.

3

Saltwater Boat Fishing Reports / Grocery shopping

« on: November 26, 2023, 12:37:51 PM »

Launched out of oside with my new Seapower 1200 rigged and ready to pull up some taco meat.

Headed straight out to a spot I hit earlier this year and caught some smaller fish but had hopes that being able to quickly do drops I could pick out a few good ones.
Started in 650ft and drifted the spot that led into another spot in 800ft for nothing.

Took off south and metered around Carlsbad canyon but wasn’t seeing anything in the 700-900ft range. Did a blind drop for nothing and went even further south.

Found a little ledge and metered it and the bottom was lit up with blue dots. Did a drop and pulled up a Mexican. Did a couple more and got single and double Mexicans on each drop. Then some green blotches got in on the party.
Kept 8 fish and released 7. I made a little release hook out of a hangar and put it between the weight and leader so I could send the fish down on the same drop as the bait. I’d stop about 100ft above the bottom and reel up a few feet to release it and then continue to descend the baits.
I found one fish floating later on and I’m not sure if it was mine or not. It was being torn apart by birds about 200ft away, I think maybe it spun off the hook on the way up and floated.

4

Saltwater Boat Fishing Reports / Death wish

« on: October 26, 2023, 07:23:20 AM »

Nailed my second sword off an inflatable.
The new rig is much faster. Cruising out around 20mph makes getting to the grounds that look productive much easier. I’m not stuck poking the same rocks within 15 miles of the harbor to have any chance of setting up and getting a full drift in before dark when I go after work.

My girlfriend, Britney, dropped me off so we could avoid that dang parking fee. Luckily the house is only 9 mins from the ramp.

Hooked up at five, 2.5 hours before slack tide on the incoming.
Girlfriend told me the pink and purple skirt I rigged up last night was the one so I put it out first and didn’t have to try another one.

After I took the weight off it dove down and took 900ft of line off the reel. When my buoy loop left the spool I called my buddy and asked him to bring some lights and another gaff because I thought the battle would last into the night.

1 hour fight from hookup to gaff. Slid it in the boat still breathing and bleed it out in the boat. Still early in the season and lots of mako around so didn’t want to take a chance. Called Britney and told her to grab the big kill bag and some ice and meet me at the ramp.

Met my buddy outside the harbor and he took some pics for me.

Tipped the scale at 140lbs. Gilled and gut it on the scale and it went 121 dressed for future reference.
Packed it in a Deckhand 90” cow bag and covered it with ice after the pic.

Video:
https://youtu.be/EFsNZmUCaPM?si=T53DMc8fYaGpr0wO

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Saltwater Boat Fishing Reports / An ulua, inflatable boat and bluefin

« on: September 03, 2023, 08:42:15 PM »

Make for the perfect day.

Went out Saturday and Ditched all the excess gear. Brought only my ULUA 93h with me and a graphite rod to sling smaller baits.
Respooled with 80lb braid and put a 100lb mono leader on after getting bit off twice on Thursday. Seemed to work out.

Takeaways: tuna fishing sucks!
Inflatables don’t let you put much pressure on fish
The plate seats hold up to tuna
Long rods are terrible chair rods
NFIO

Video: https://youtu.be/_ABYPaMlAZ0?si=10v2FswPw_GY0iBT

6

Saltwater Boat Fishing Reports / 1 for 7. Inflatable frustrations.

« on: August 30, 2023, 10:37:44 AM »

Went 1 for 7 on bluefin yesterday. After fishing them briefly Monday evening and figuring out what they want I thought I had this in the bag. Haven’t pulled that many hooks in one day in my whole life. Only one to make it to the boat was on a popper. 20 ish pounds…. If I had more than 2 and half hours to fish I might have limited out 🤣

Ulua 93H bowed up just before bending and pulling the hook for your pleasure.

7

Saltwater Boat Fishing Reports / 7/23 tuna hunt

« on: July 24, 2023, 04:52:11 PM »

Last weekend my buddy messaged me saying things came up and he can’t make a rental charter through SlayDay he and two buddies already paid for. Asked if I’d like his spot and if I’d drive the boat…. Heck yeah I wanna drive the boat!

One of the guys had car issues (drove through an exit only and lost two tires…. 😅) so it was my son, Mike and I ready to find some meat!

With the exception of a few sport boat charters, Mike had never been on a small boat in the open ocean, his thing is chasing halibut on his kayak and chartering trips with the boys.

We launched out of LB and I zigged for the big chloro break everyone’s been eyeing and plucking tuna out of. Zigged so hard I almost ran into two sieners between the 14 and 279. They were working a 70 degree break with a hard drop to 68 on one side. So we zig zagged through it and dropped some feathers on dolphins and eventually found ourselves in 66 degree water…. Went back to the warmer water and found a paddy, soaked baits on it for nada, listened to the radio and stared at birds aimlessly gliding and swooping …. This sucks.

Decided to Zag and head to cat and soak live baits for halibut and maybe yellows or just pull on bass while we came up with a plan.

On the way over I hit another drop in temp but this one had kelp and grass. Stopped several times, killed several baits and we all gave each other that look and sigh several times.

Decided to stick with it and see if we could find the other side of the cold water pocket… cruised for around 10 minutes and saw a bunch of birds, then breezers, more birds, more breezers, big breezers, bluefin that aren’t scared of the boat. Another boat also saw this and we cruised up to them and got on either side of a mass of breezing 100lb fish and started throwing everything we had at them… weren’t interested.
A couple more boats come in and kites start going up… I don’t have a kite, but there’s now a dozen big spots of fish within a 2 miles radius.
Let’s pull a madmac around them. So we put out a pink mad mac and do a huge circle around all these busting fish and diving birds and when we’re about to get half way through one decides to eat it.
Mike got on the rod and quickly declared this a big fish. He tagged me in and I agreed.

Spotter plane started circling and I assumed he was  taking pics of boats hooked up, he came in low and circled us several times as well as a couple others. I got ahold of Carl (@airpilikia) later and he sent me a file folder to choose pics from. I’ll have a couple to print out soon.

The boat was supposed to come with “gaffs” so it’s the one thing I didn’t bring… we had one small aluminum gaff.
The fish came up and we agreed that gaff might get lost and one of us might go swimming in the process, instead of debating on who that might be I just kept the rod in my hands and told him to wait for a good shot 🤣

We got the shot, the hook wasn’t big enough to grab much of the head and it pulled out. Got a mouth shot and it shook loose after a few seconds… eventually he got it in the gill plate and I put a rope through its mouth. Taped out at 64” fork.

Mikes new PB and a successful “guided trip” for me 🤘🏽 might make this a career…

I can’t forget that Donovan was steering the boat and recording with an iPhone the whole time. He did an amazing job.

8

Saltwater Boat Fishing Reports / Thresher fishing

« on: July 10, 2023, 01:03:32 PM »

Went out last Wednesday to see if I could find the threshers. Launched at 4:30pm, Didn’t bring bait, just a sabiki and wasted over an hour and half trying to catch Mack’s… lots of small baits around but no Mack’s until I finally ran over a school around 6pm.

Got a few in the bag, spiked them and sent them out for a drift. Did 3 drifts covering some structure and picked up more Mack’s on the drift. Final drift I decided to go in super shallow and start in 35ft rather than 50ish and drift into the beach. 28ft I get picked up, hook up and classic small thresher fight but after 20 seconds and 2 good runs my 100lb mono top shot broke… clean cut with chafe.. not sure what happened there but it was getting late so I headed in.

Next day Britney and I went out about 4pm with the fresh Mack’s (froze them over night) and went right up on the beach. Did 4 drifts with one knock down but no hookup and was getting frustrated. Drifting into 20ft of water and as I was pulling in the float rod the fly line got picked up. Quick fight and Britney had a 47” FL thresher on her lap!

Had to book it out of the surf zone before we got into breakers, got some pics then headed for the harbor.

9

Saltwater Boat Fishing Reports / Shake down trip

« on: June 10, 2023, 04:19:24 PM »

My buddy got his 27ft world cat out of dry storage, updated some electronics and wanted to do a shake down trip…

We pushed off the dock at 9am on Thursday and had to quickly power right back to it because we didn’t have steering… added fluid, bled the lines and after 25 minutes of turning valves and watching bubbles we had steering again!
Only one bait tank wanted to fill up and the other wasn’t pushing a lot of water so we opted to just go poke around and troll some lures.

Left DP harbor at 10am

Stopped on several empty paddies until we reached the 277 then found one with about a dozen Mola and some rat yellows. Saw a boat about a mile away sitting still for about 30 minutes while we messed around with this paddy and decided to roll over and see what they were doing without blowing them up on the radio. Stopped short about 300 yards and continued at idle when the guy in the tower started throwing up his hands like we were about to run him over… or his kite 200ft in front of us 🤣 apparently they were putting up a kite and we did not see the white kite and balloon against the white/grey clouds and I saw their bait go 20ft in the air and realized what was going on.
Oops.
Looked south and seen a bunch of terns and bluefin blowing up so we hooked north around them, put the mad macs out and cut south to get in front of the fish. We got one hit on the orange mad mac but it didn’t stick. Just ripped some line out.
Saw some breezers and birds in another spot close by and set up to pull across them when a center console came hauling ass into them and pulled up next to 2 spear fishing floats… no flags anywhere, so I had to re adjust to not snag some spear fishermen (saw their video later and they killed it though).

Wind picked up and we wanted to be In by 4 so we trolled back towards the 277, saw lots of birds and paddy’s, didn’t stop on the paddy’s but seemed like the ones west of 277 were holding. No hits and after we got east of the 277 we pulled lines and hauled ass back to DP.

The fish are here. Little far for the inflatable but if you have a larger boat get out there!

10

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / Our bat fight

« on: April 16, 2023, 02:58:01 AM »

I really wanted to be able to join the crowd and hang out for the evening gathering that usually happens but with baseball and an ear infection that popped up overnight I had my hands full. By the time we were able and ready to get on the road SD didn’t have a fish on the board and the biggest was a measly 32.5”…

I wasn’t able to pre fish south SD like I had in the past but I knew there were bats closer to home… unfortunately they weren’t in the mood to play today.

We did get on fish though and the big leopard I thought for sure was a 40” bat. I’m out of my game and can’t even tell a fish by tip action anymore lol.

Donovan was the main character for us tonight and got a 42.5” butterfly ray, 56” leopard (with stub tail) and a brown smooth hound. We also had a few bait stealers and short strikers which made me fish in freespool the majority of the time.

I’ll post pics in the bat fight thread but here’s a video I wiped up!
Also, I know he’s using some language that’s questionable and I’ve talked to him about it. But when a bunch of boys get together on and off a field they pick up on stuff each other say. I also whole heartedly talk sh!t to every fish I hook whether he’s with me or not so it’s partially my fault too.

Hope you enjoy

https://youtu.be/jvbB9qoIZfg

11

Tackle Talk / Oompa Loompa ULUA

« on: March 31, 2023, 12:47:56 PM »

Picked up an ULUA ESM blank at the seeker sale and dropped it off at my buddy Ronnie’s to get wrapped since my wrapper will only accommodate up to 8ft right now

Split grip, tiger wrap and plate seat were my only requests. I picked up the guides from island tackle and had the seats shipped in from the east coast (popular on beach rods). We got the measurements and then he did his thing. Turned out pretty awesome IMO! He made it match a SPJ rod he built me last month.

12

Tackle Talk / New kayak kill bag!

« on: March 29, 2023, 09:19:24 AM »

Oh no, not another kayak bag!

I had a pretty big part in getting this bag to market and had a lot of input from kayakers in the California and gulf region. This company is literally right up the street from me and I said “hey, can you make this better and do this?” And they said yes
Prototype is out and pre orders are being taken now.

https://deckhandsports.com/products/36-kayak-multi-species-insulated-fish-kill-bag

36” model right now but there will be other sizes and styles depending on what the feedback is given. Yes it looks similar to reliable, mako and buffalo but there’s only so much you can do with the overall shape and stitching.
Main key features are:
1” insulation (most are 1/2” besides Opah which is 2” and bulky/heavy)
1” drain (not found on others this size)
Top access flap (easy access to slide fish in)
Rear and side mesh
Top mesh (secure wind breaker, landing let, life jacket etc)
Shoulder strap to carry to the car and not rip the handles
Welded seams so it won’t leak!
And it’s only $180.

13

Saltwater Boat Fishing Reports / Slow pitch bass lessons

« on: March 26, 2023, 08:51:32 PM »

Hopped on a buddies boat in search of yellows and T’s. We went out to find “clean green water” which was in 1500ft of water. Found lots of bait. Filled the meter from 150- 1,000ft down. Giant biomass.

We trolled deep driver, jigged deep, jigged shallow, drifted live Mack’s and decided there wasn’t any fish, at least none willing to bite.

Went in and cruised the beach and trolled a bit around birds and known structure for nothing. Decided to go look for bass and put some numbers on the board. Found calicos and sand bass at one of the pipes.

Nothing huge but did get a few legals, all released.
Showed Donovan how to work the jig and he killed it!

Video:
https://youtu.be/2sod6QqMYU8

14

Saltwater Boat Fishing Reports / Water test

« on: March 11, 2023, 11:35:32 PM »

My little 9.8 tohatsu started acting up.  Had to do some maintenance and tear apart the Carb but wasn’t able to do a sea trial for several weeks due to scheduling and weather.

Finally made it out today.
Launched out of oside around 10:45am. Found birds working anchovies in 50ft of water. Trolled deep divers and dropped the iron on some possible marks for nothing.
Headed south.
Just before Carlsbad i Found more anchovies being worked by dolphin and birds. Mack’s underneath. Saw a floating squid. Trolled around and dropped on a few smaller marks for nothing.

Went south
Got to Anderson pipe. Lots of life. Good bass marks, anchovies up top, hooked a couple Mack’s on the iron.
Pushed south.
Got to Cardiff. Two big threshers working bait in front of chart-house. Big long tails and solid slapping sounds. Can’t fish the MLPA and they didn’t pose for photo.

Due south.
Torrey pines: lots of small Mack’s in All depths. Few birds. Dolphins and seals past 150ft.
Blacks: dolphins and bait in 20-40ft. Seals and birds working bait past 100ft

La Jolla: dirty water. Spotty bait. Birds taking double takes at bait in 130+ . Nothing really going on.

Went back north and found good marks off Torrey in 115ft under some Mack’s. No bites on the iron.

Pushed further north and right around sunset found lots of baits being pushed up into birds at Anderson pipe. Marks looked like bass. More sea lions and seals around this time.

Back in the harbor before pitch black.

15

Salt Water Shore Fishing Reports / All you can eat salad with a side of soup

« on: January 07, 2023, 10:32:19 PM »

Met up with Tom around 4:30 to scope out a spot with a little daylight left. Looked choked full of weed but had some promising water. My son and girlfriend also joined us for the adventure.
Must have drug in enough grass to feed all cows up in Chino but we did get some bites!
Tom hooked up first and said it felt like a Black seabass. Just by watching the rod I could tell it was dragging him across and into rocks and giving him a decent fight. He confirmed with verbal narration during the event. Eventually he broke off a few feet up from the leader and decided the line must have rubbed a sharp rock or got pinched.

Maybe an hour later I was up next with a few small taps, slack, reel down and fish on! Decent fish pulling drag and then I could feel the line rubbing rocks and the fish head shaking or twisting. Eventually it changed direction and came up out of the rocks and I was able the get it close enough for Tom to leader.
We really showed how long it’s been since we wrangled a shark and probably looked like total googans trying to grab the tail and get a rope on it.
Eventually she was secured, got pics and sent her on her way. She was pretty big. 70”+. Tom guessed 74, I was trying to catch my breath.

Few more balls of grass, my son got soaked by a wave and we called it a night.

It was good seeing you Tom! We need to make this a more regular event.

It’s the same fish but looks like two different ones.