Went back to the Encino Public Fishing Area in Carlsbad last night to get some of those largemouth blennies for a guy who works at the Scripps institute.
It was low tide, and the hordes of opaleye weren't around, so the blennies were much easier to catch. I ended up with six of them, and one was a colored up male!
If you held them under water, the cirri on their heads would stand up.
The annoying fish of the day were the garibaldi, which did not leave at low tide like the opaleye. They're beautiful fish, and I released this one unharmed after taking a quick photo, but I hate catching them because I always feel like someone is going to yell at me.
There were California scorpionfish mixed in with the blennies. As I caught the blennies I would swing them out of the water towards my hand so I could grab them in case they flopped off the hook, but I pulled my hand away pretty quickly whenever I saw one that looked different!
There were hordes of small bluish black fish that did not show any interest in my bait (small pieces of fresh mussel). Blacksmith perhaps? You can see a garibaldi in this photo as well.
As the tide started moving in, schools of small silvery fish showed up. They were a giant pain to catch because the water was moving at a pretty good clip, and I was using super tiny baits, but eventually I got one. At first I thought for sure I had a new lifer, but once I looked more closely I realized it was probably just a juvenile topsmelt. Are there any smaller silverside species it could be?
Ruoxi and I grabbed some dinner and went to the beach just south of Oceanside Pier. I had my first cast about a minute before the sun set. In hindsight I wish I had started earlier, because it got dark quickly and the tide was coming in hard. I really wanted a spotfin croaker or a corbina. The waves pushed us off the beach a half hour later, so we set up on the rocks about ten feet above the sand. Soaked some cut opaleye with my MH rod hoping for a leopard shark or smoothhound, but it didn't get touched. Threw a chunk of mussel with my ML rod, and it got two hits - a yellowfin croaker and a round stingray. Didn't take photos of them. The waves were brutal, many of them going over the rocks and soaking us. Went home feeling humbled by the surf but feeling good that I didn't skunk out!
