My pal with the boat had to cancel because his achilles is giving him trouble, so I tried again for threshers today. Launched out of Huntington Harbor for the first time. In the water about 0730 and out of the harbor by 0800. 66º water temp, flat water, no sun all day.
Tough finding the life out there. A handful of dolphins meandering here and there, terns flying in no particular direction. After 10 miles I finally spotted a good size bait ball, and the bait looked like it was getting pushed from underneath.
Caught a mackerel on the troll just short of it, threw it on and circled the shoal for a while. Then another one or two large bait balls popped up so I bounced from one to another. Looked like all of them were getting bigger over the course of an hour. No birds were interested in them though and I wasn't seeing any good marks on the fish finder. And I wasn't catching macks off the school, I think they were small/medium sardines.
Broke away from that after my due diligence and searched a little more before throwing in the towel on the threshers. I figured I'd either try Izor's reef a few miles away and see if the bass or barracuda are around, though all I had were 3 dead mackerel and surface irons, or work my way back up the coast and try some drifts for halibut. I figured everyone and their extended family would be at Izor's so I opted for the latter.
Didn't really pay off. Bounce balling wasn't really working with the gear I had on hand, so I went and checked out a couple boulders in 20-30' of water, and drifted around them.
I noticed some perch schools below the boat and just had to get an ID on them, so I tipped my sabiki with mackerel fillets and got one of them right off the bat. Halfmoon, new species #114.
One of those fish I'm kinda surprised I haven't gotten before, so it's nice to scratch it off, but arguably regrettable with the copious amounts of s#it it uncorked into the boat.
While unhooking it I suddenly got hit with a lot of wooziness, then realized that the wind swell had picked up so I was bobbling around quite a bit. Wasn't into it so I headed in. Got soaked in that 20 minute ride back.
Back at the ramp, an older gentleman was watching the boats launch and land. He complimented my rig and then mentioned that people were getting log barracuda at Izor's today. Agh! I'm sure he just talked to like one person who caught one barely legal cuda, but the whole drive home I'm shaking my head and wishing I went and threw some iron over there. Oh well, grass is always greener. Threshers soon.
