04-14-2006, 05:48 PM
Hey guys,
Went out yesterday on the Premier. Carl was running the boat, with Manny in the galley with his outstanding breakfasts. Targeted the local rockfish at the 'shoe'. Lite load with only 12 anglers on the boat.
Short Report: 12 anglers caught 100 rockfish and 60 sculpin. Oh ya ...... and .... a ton of sand dabs. Released many, many, many short fish. No lings! No whitefish. Had a pretty good flurry of lizard fish!![[Image: icon_smile.gif]](http://www.fishingnetwork.net/forum1/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif)
Unfortunately one poor, innocent shark. Same guy keeping the sharks! ![[Image: icon_sad.gif]](http://www.fishingnetwork.net/forum1/images/smiles/icon_sad.gif)
Long Report: Quality of fish was generally good with few big fish. Rockfish included .. starrys, some nice sizded reds , a few average-or less salmon grouper, small starrys, average chill-peppers, and a bunch of bass I didn't bother to confirm their model. Fresh-dead squid was the bait today for the trip. Mostly fished strips. Fished depths of from (in my estimation) 180 feet or so to 250 or more later in the day.
Anchored to target sculpin initially while the majority of fishing for the rock fish was done mostly drifting along certain stretches .. mid-distance on the 'shoe' about straight out from Cabrillo. There were quite a few sporties, off at a distance, dotted here and there just about wherever we fished. We did anchor on a couple of spots later in the day too but conditions for drift-fishing was just too good to pass up with the wind staying down. For once ..... the current was moderate and ...... da da .... the swell and current and whatever wind we had were in concert!
Carl worked the spots picking up a few fish per angler per drift then .... moving to another stretch of hard bottom. A better grade of fish, outside of one really nice red ..... was not to be ours today. Everyone got their legal 5 rattlesnakes pretty quickly on the first couple of anchored spots so I was doomed to rock fishing for the rest of the day.
I again tried my plastics for the first few stops and got wayyyy behind on the sculpin catching! (due to like ..... not getting one single, solitary, under-sized or otherwise fishy on the rubber) It went this and that plastic, then plastic with squid strip, then leadhead with whole fresh dead and STILL not a hit.... forget the catch!
The weather was warm and sunny all day long. Again he wind stayed down, there was a decent current, and nothing more than a gentle, almost non-existant swell and breeze. Couldn't expect better rockfishing conditions.
Not many critters, few birds, not much bait other than small 10 inch macks.
As always ...for the rock fish, I fished squid strips pinned on two turned-up circle hooks, (size 1/0 to reduce the short fishys .... not!) for drop-shot rig, threaded on a 4 foot length of 20lb test flurocarbon leader with a 12oz torpedo at the end.
Aside: Although we got a bunch of sanddabs, I, or anybody else for that matter that I saw, didn't fish the lings with them. For one thing, we didn't bring up a single short ling ... at least while I was watching anyways ....... soulda, coulda, Doh ! I guess just because the dabs are there doesn't mean the lings are ... if the structure ain't right. Ever heard the commercial catch-phrase ... 'a little dab 'll do ya'?
Another aside: The fishys were stacked with the macks ranging from the surface to mid-depth, sculpin on the absolute, without-a-doubt, lower-jaw-scraping bottom, and the various rockfish not much higher above the sculpin! At least last week there were some whitefish to add interest in the water-column-search for fish!
Yet Another aside: Using this and that for positiong hooks along my 4 foot leader, I've pretty much settled on the clear plastic Carolina stops that you must pinch to open up the slit in order to thread your line through. I you try to cut down their size to make them slimmer, they are no longer clear. I wish they made small diameter ones!
It was a normal Wednesday-lite trip with a few hardy K of C'ers (club members) and regulars! Everybody's bag was full of all kinds of fish and there was only one guy (me) that didn't have a bag of fillets when coming off the boat! We got back to Pierpoint a little early around 3:30.
JapanRon
[signature]
Went out yesterday on the Premier. Carl was running the boat, with Manny in the galley with his outstanding breakfasts. Targeted the local rockfish at the 'shoe'. Lite load with only 12 anglers on the boat.
Short Report: 12 anglers caught 100 rockfish and 60 sculpin. Oh ya ...... and .... a ton of sand dabs. Released many, many, many short fish. No lings! No whitefish. Had a pretty good flurry of lizard fish!
Unfortunately one poor, innocent shark. Same guy keeping the sharks! Long Report: Quality of fish was generally good with few big fish. Rockfish included .. starrys, some nice sizded reds , a few average-or less salmon grouper, small starrys, average chill-peppers, and a bunch of bass I didn't bother to confirm their model. Fresh-dead squid was the bait today for the trip. Mostly fished strips. Fished depths of from (in my estimation) 180 feet or so to 250 or more later in the day.
Anchored to target sculpin initially while the majority of fishing for the rock fish was done mostly drifting along certain stretches .. mid-distance on the 'shoe' about straight out from Cabrillo. There were quite a few sporties, off at a distance, dotted here and there just about wherever we fished. We did anchor on a couple of spots later in the day too but conditions for drift-fishing was just too good to pass up with the wind staying down. For once ..... the current was moderate and ...... da da .... the swell and current and whatever wind we had were in concert!
Carl worked the spots picking up a few fish per angler per drift then .... moving to another stretch of hard bottom. A better grade of fish, outside of one really nice red ..... was not to be ours today. Everyone got their legal 5 rattlesnakes pretty quickly on the first couple of anchored spots so I was doomed to rock fishing for the rest of the day.
I again tried my plastics for the first few stops and got wayyyy behind on the sculpin catching! (due to like ..... not getting one single, solitary, under-sized or otherwise fishy on the rubber) It went this and that plastic, then plastic with squid strip, then leadhead with whole fresh dead and STILL not a hit.... forget the catch!
The weather was warm and sunny all day long. Again he wind stayed down, there was a decent current, and nothing more than a gentle, almost non-existant swell and breeze. Couldn't expect better rockfishing conditions.
Not many critters, few birds, not much bait other than small 10 inch macks.
As always ...for the rock fish, I fished squid strips pinned on two turned-up circle hooks, (size 1/0 to reduce the short fishys .... not!) for drop-shot rig, threaded on a 4 foot length of 20lb test flurocarbon leader with a 12oz torpedo at the end.
Aside: Although we got a bunch of sanddabs, I, or anybody else for that matter that I saw, didn't fish the lings with them. For one thing, we didn't bring up a single short ling ... at least while I was watching anyways ....... soulda, coulda, Doh ! I guess just because the dabs are there doesn't mean the lings are ... if the structure ain't right. Ever heard the commercial catch-phrase ... 'a little dab 'll do ya'?
Another aside: The fishys were stacked with the macks ranging from the surface to mid-depth, sculpin on the absolute, without-a-doubt, lower-jaw-scraping bottom, and the various rockfish not much higher above the sculpin! At least last week there were some whitefish to add interest in the water-column-search for fish!
Yet Another aside: Using this and that for positiong hooks along my 4 foot leader, I've pretty much settled on the clear plastic Carolina stops that you must pinch to open up the slit in order to thread your line through. I you try to cut down their size to make them slimmer, they are no longer clear. I wish they made small diameter ones!
It was a normal Wednesday-lite trip with a few hardy K of C'ers (club members) and regulars! Everybody's bag was full of all kinds of fish and there was only one guy (me) that didn't have a bag of fillets when coming off the boat!
We got back to Pierpoint a little early around 3:30. JapanRon
[signature]