Hey everyone, it's been a long time since I posted. I'll be moving to New England in less than a week and I wanted to get in as much West Coast fishing as I could before leaving. I'm very excited to fish up there; it seems like things are a lot more inshore oriented there and it's easier to catch a nice fish without a serious boat, but the no-fish-of-any-species in the wintertime and the Cape Cod canal mayhem (I've already seen multiple videos of fistfights) will take some getting used to. But hey, nobody there will try to argue that an open faced conventional setup with no reel seat is the ideal choice for throwing lures!
First, the reason why I initially joined this forum - surf sharks. I'll admit that I've done very little surf sharking since 2020, but I got back into it last May-June for a few weeks before persistent bad surf conditions put an end to it. Caught a bunch of leopards, and got a nice soupie on the one night where my phone died. The only evidence I had was a video of my scraped up rub leader. Oh well. Still was nice to pull on one for the first time in awhile, I forgot how hard they fight compared to leopards.
Those few weeks of surf sharking also brought the internal conflicts of spot sharing into the forefront. A bunch of my friends also got into surf sharking at the time, and then told their friends, and it soon became a thing where multiple people were at the spot every night for multiple days in a row. They had already known about that spot, and some of them had already fished it earlier that year, but it was a spot that they had all initially found out about through me (I had been fishing it since before most of them moved to San Diego). At one point, I saw a video of my friend with maybe ten other people he had invited. Most of them weren't fishermen and were only there to spectate, but it still got under my skin. As much as sharks are lightly targeted compared to many other species (one can only imagine the chaos if Yellowtail could be reliably caught from shore), it does seem like biting shark spots stop being productive very quickly in response to pressure when compared to a lot of other fish. Shark fishing's also pretty controversial compared to other types of fishing, and relentless shark fishing in a particular area can make everyone look bad if done irresponsibly. I also think that learning about sharking through people on this forum instilled in me a mindset of being tight-lipped about spots and irritated when others aren't. I'll admit that in years past when I was really into shark fishing, it used to drive me insane when I'd go weeks or even months without a shark and I'd see Steve and Tom post multiple giant sevengills every Tuesday. It's still more rewarding to find them yourself, though. As it is frustrating when you put in the time and effort and others get to take shortcuts, especially if they bag a particular fish that you've been working for for awhile on their first try (has happened a lot over the years). There's definitely a fine line between protecting your spots and the fishery and coming across as a selfish asshole who won't share with anyone and wants all of the fish to himself, and I admit when it came to this past spring's bite I was falling more in the latter category.
I also went out in my friend's boat a few weeks ago for a thresher expedition. It had also been a few years since I had targeted them, but since I had seen a couple on research trips earlier in the week and his brand new boat still didn't have a bait tank, it seemed like the best option for hooking something exciting from his rig. We ended up releasing a nice one that put up a great fight on 40lb. The best part was the bite; it grabbed the mackerel 20ft from the boat as I was sending the balloon out and there's nothing like winding tight to one and watching it greyhound across the surface. Looking back, I probably should have kept it, but we didn't have any ice or cooler and at least we gave it a better chance of surviving than it would have had if it had gotten the gaff. Either way, it was my first one in 3 years and it'll probably be a long time until I fish for them again. Definitely a species I almost feel bad for targeting since it sometimes feel like you can't win. You keep one, people get mad. You release one, people get mad. You share where you caught it, you're a spot burner. You don't share, you're a selfish asshole who wants all the fish to himself blah blah blah
I also did a lot of Yellowtail fishing at the Islands and Rockpile from my friend's skiff and a couple of charters. Definitely a great period of fishing. Our first trip there in my friend's boat was a disaster. This other guy who he invited on neglected to inform us that he had a broken hip. The ride out and the first few hours were really windy and bumpy, and right as the sun came out and the ocean became flat calm he told us that the pain was too much and we needed to go back. Left biting fish without putting the right kind in the boat, and when another friend who had gone out on a different boat sent pictures of the Yellowtail he had caught in the afternoon I almost threw my phone across the room. I understand that an injury like that is no joke and we did not hesitate to reel up our lines and take him back, but it's really poor form to make everyone else on the boat cut their day short for anything short of an emergency. Most of us don't get to fish as often as we'd like to, and when you factor in the limited number of days with good conditions and the right kind biting, things like preexisting medical conditions, predispositions to seasickness, and obligations later in the day need to be made upfront about before getting on the boat, not at the grounds when the fish start biting. The kicker is that we didn't hear one single "I'm sorry" or even a "thank you for taking me back" from him. Ironically, he ended up saving our asses since we realized as we were passing the lighthouse on the way back in that the bilge had stopped working and we had taken about 100 gallons of water.
Fortunately, we got redemption the following weeks. I was crossing my fingers and checking the water temp charts multiple times a day, worried that the water would flip before our next shot. Fortunately, the conditions just got better and better. They were biting really well on Rapalas and flyline/slow trolled sardines on 20 and 30lb. Really great grade too, quite a few in the 20-30lb range. Had one really good opportunity to catch one on an iron; I missed a bump and then this other boat pulls up and divers get in the water, scaring off the school. Good thing we caught plenty of fish that day because it would have completely ruined the trip if that was our one shot. In my frustration, I cast maybe a little too close at the nearest diver which I immediately felt bad and hypocritical about, as I've always thought that someone getting too close or ruining an opportunity to catch a fish is never an excuse to potentially injure someone with a chunk of iron. Regardless, some of these divers need to learn when to stay out of the water as they were a hazard on multiple other occasions during that stretch of warm, clear water and abundant Yellowtail. They all love to say "zero bycatch," well if you keep jumping in the water where we're casting jigs or dragging rapalas you might end up being the bycatch.
Long post, but I learned a lot from this forum and it was great to fish with those on this forum that I fished with. I would ideally like to return to Southern California one day; there's a lot of reasons why living here can suck but it's still a great part of the country that I loved living in the past several years. Hopefully if I figure out how to catch fish in New England I'll share some of those posts too!
Here's a link to some of the photos:
https://ibb.co/album/QvQq6t 
