The plan was a toss up between fishing in 1400' in Newport Canyon for potential sablefish and ratfish, or get going on my plan to bounce ball Palos Verdes to see if I could find some exotics amongst all of its structure. Well, last night I could hardly sleep as I fixated on barn door halibut and tankers coming on board, so my mind had become pretty well made up.
Gave up on sleep before my alarm went off, headed for the ramp. Was on the water about 0645, a bit before sunrise.
North wind kinda f@cked up the ride out, got quite a bit of spray on the second half of the run, the first half being behind the LB break wall.
It smoothed out within a mile of the east side of the MPA, where I would be starting my troll.
The FF wouldn't turn on at the ramp, presumably because of how I have to unclip the battery and that wire may become subject to corrosion...anyway, that definitely put a damper on learning the area like how I wanted to, but regardless I was just gonna follow the relief maps. I just wouldn't be able to pattern it much today.
First bite came after about 20 minutes, big smelt.
The kelp forests had died off quite a bit since I was last in the area about 2 years ago, although there was some growing just out of visibility that I was hooking on occasion.
Ran up onto a pretty wide area of hard bottom and found a few calicos, only one being barely legal.
Hung up on the bottom a number of times but ended up only losing one sinker. But, I later noticed that the front hook eyelet of my Pointer had busted out at some point. Brand new one...still swam fine so maybe I'll seal it somehow and use the back two eyelets.
A mile or two later, a turd.
1030 I decided to head back and bounce along the wall for a bit. Picked up the fish of the day in this 2.5# class sandy.
Tried a few different stretches for no more fish and headed in.
I've got some tweaks I've gotta make to the boat before the next trip. Forgot to put my 2024 stickers on but thankfully wasn't noticed.
