Bit of a late night last night, so scratched my initial plan to find some local rockfish, and instead decided to doddle around the Newport Harbor. Wind would be up so I figured find some decent angles to drift on, bring spotty stuff and some bait, and adapt to the situation.
Arrived at the ramp about 1230. Pretty obnoxious in-your-face wind, probably 10-15mph, one that would normally kill my day. This spring has made me want to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, so off I went.
Set up a c-rig with some store-bought mussel and started around the peninsula area. Made my way to the jetty without a bite, decided to peak outside the harbor to see what I was missing. Not as bad as I thought, but a pretty quick drift out there. Tucked back in and started for the very back of the harbor. My lady was working a wedding on the harbor cruise and I'd been waiting to see them cruise by me, but they were still dockside by 1430. Got to her boat and saw the groomsmen lined up on the rail, then set up for a drift. Started getting whacked pretty quick and busted the skunk.
She called me over and talked to me for a moment from the bow of the boat. The little 3 year old flower girl also tried to get a word in with me. Then their engines started and they finally left the dock, so I reset my drift.
The jacksmelt swallowed the #5 baitholder hook, so cut the line and released it. I was really on the hunt for a new species, like some perch or goby kind of critter, so despite the smelt creating havoc with the #5 I switched to a #10 octopus. Shortly after I got a similar sized jacksmelt. Then a sand bass.
I was drifting pretty tight to the docks, but decided to do something different and go to the middle of the channel. While stuffing my face with ritz crackers I got another similar sized sandy.
About 20 minutes later, I was pretty much in the epicenter of the harbor when I got another bite. And it was a pleasant surprise!
Salema, species #116 for me.
I felt accomplished with the new species under my belt, so I switched tactics to flipping docks for spotties. I flipped about 30 pilings for 3 short bites before I looked at the time and saw it was peak high. I didn't plan to be out this long and I didn't wanna go any further out of my way so I called it quits without adding a spotty to the day. Got back to the ramp around 1830 and gave the rest of my mussels to a teenage couple who were collecting mussels off the bottom of the marina dock to use as bait.
The wind was obnoxious at times, but it generally worked in my favor for good clean drifts along the docks with only small corrections to be done with the motor. Drifting mussel was stupidly simple, and I would guess that it was more the tide window than my location that made for getting bit, and the number of short bites from the spotties around the docks was encouraging enough that I'll give it a shot next time the wind doesn't look fun outside the harbor. I've got too many ideas for fishing this area and not enough time to do it as of late, but glad I could have a small success with the salema finding me today.
