Woke up at 0500. I felt quite elated knowing I got any sleep at all, though I couldn't have gotten more than 4 hours total sleep.
Left the hotel at 0520 and got to the ramp at 0530. I was the first in the lot with a boat, so I felt good about my timing.
On the water a little after 0600 and off to find the bonefish territory. Low tide was 0530 so I expected a slow start. When I opened my cooler of ghosties to bait up, I suddenly realized that the guy at Seaforth really hooked me up with the shrimp! He must have given me 30 for the price of a dozen. Didn't realize at the shop since he just handed me a closed up little chinese paper food cup with them enclosed. Very grateful for all that extra bait.
I had some idea from my last trip on where to go, but it proved difficult finding any spots in that 6-10' depth that wasn't a grass bed. I decided to start each drift right on the edge of the grass bed in 9-10' of water and then I'd drift over the holes in the back bay, mostly fishing 10-12'.
The bites were few and far between for the first couple hours. I heard that our bonefish don't really feed coinciding with the tides, so that gave me some hope that even in the slow period with little to no bycatch, I still had a shot.
First hookup came at 0730, and I was surprised to find my first black croaker! Species #115.
I've been hoping for one on trips like this, but it seemed like the kind of fish I couldn't set any expectations for. A nice motley species to knock off. Real cool looking.
Not too long after and I put a bait thieving spotty in the boat.
Got a few more short bites, then went quiet again for a bit. Then I got a tap tap, zzZZZZZZ pop. %$#@#%# again??? Reeled up and my hook popped off. Foolish. Seemed like the right bite.
I had a sea lion following me around from a distance all morning, catching up pretty quickly when I'd move a few hundred yards to reset my drift. But I swear I saw, though can't confirm, a pretty big green sea turtle popping up every 20 minutes or so. I only got short looks at it, but I would notice out of the corner of my eye a squarer face, it had a bit different water displacement than the sea lion, and even noticed the exhaling breath sounded like it was through a bony nostril rather than a fleshy sea lion nose.
While drifting over a deeper area, I suddenly caught a glimpse of some bait puddling and extra splashing. Did a double take and heard the popping of corvina with it. In the day?? I threw my spook at it and got one to go after it but it missed. The terns were also working hard to try and grab the spook, thankfully I avoided them. The corvina dropped out after just a couple minutes and I didn't see them again.
Reset the drift and hooked up again. Another black croaker! With how the morning was shaping up, I was almost expecting another one, but it was still very strange.
The spotties started to roll in from there. Got steady action on them until I piled up 7, then the bites almost completely stopped.
As I was feeling the end of the session grow nearer, I hooked up with black croaker #3! Now THAT surprised me.
Wind was picking up quite a bit, bites were few and far between, and I was on my last couple shrimp. Decided to shoot down to the way back of the bay hoping for a sandy flat at the right depth, but couldn't find anything but grass.
Decided to get in tight to the marsh, just for a touch of bird watching. And what do I see? What do I see??? What the f#@k!
Shaking my head and laughing as I rolled up closer and closer. F#@king ridiculous.
Of course you guys have a flamingo.
Made one more move to drift and throw an underspin for 20 minutes. Got a few bumps but nothing connected. I got my fill. Packed it in, loaded up the car and began my trek through all of SoCal's Friday traffic at 2pm. Really solid, memorable trip.
