Hurricane swell is coming, so Friday looked to be the best day from the Marine Forecast to get out and get some bonito! I wanted 5 small shark size and 5 of the bigger models, well that was my goal prior to launch.
Plan AConditions couldn't have been better and what a great full moon on the trip out! The camera phone pics didn't do it justice!
A little texture in the morning, but it would smooth out to grease soon after this picture.
On the way out, my buddy wanted a few calico if I got any so I stopped and dropped. No bass on the meter, but I got this beautiful rattler! The colors from the sunrise made this sucker pop!
I went on a hunt for bait... and finally found some. It wasn't everywhere, but there were good balls of sardine and mackerel around! The mackerel were all 7-12 inches with a few bigger ones in the mix.
Then the smaller shark bait sized bonito started to show! Plan A was working and got easy limits of perfect bait sized bone!
These are perfect sized one's, but I had to stop after my 5th and it was killing me! lol
I had to think of a
Plan C as I wasn't sure what I wanted to do besides find bigger bones to fill a 10 fish limit and I had tons of live bait available. I saw a bigger swirl and wasn't really sure what it was so I tossed my surface iron and instantly hooked up! I got it to the boat and it was a good 5-6 pound calico! I went to bounce him, but I underestimated how big he was and half way up and a quick thrash by him sent him on my gunnel and back in the ocean. hahaha, oh well.
I did some power drifting with the trolling motor and got a bunch of bass, all shorts. (Calico and Turd rollers)
Greasy Waters!
I then get thumped and know what I have... a legal halibut! Plan B has now focused to Plan C! A Butt Hunt!
I weed through more turds and then get right back into the Butts!
This one was a good sized bigger then the first one.
I then have a really decent one on. I get it to the side of the boat and it's in the 11-12 pound class of fish when a quick head shake 2 inches from the gaffs sends him back down! Ugh, but I'm not done yet. I probably had over a dozen halibut bites, as the one's I missed, all came back looking like this..
I get another boat side and can't tell if it's legal or not, but looks aright around the right size. no net, so i decided to bounce him and we all know how well trying to bounce a possible legal halibut into the boat will turn out. Note to self, don't bounce a halibut as you'll never get him in the boat!
I then get another! This is crazy! This one was definitely a short, but probably 20". I tried to tail grab him, but he didn't want any part of that and bolted while leaving my wet at the gunnel.
I was ready to start thinking about looking for bone when I got my 6th Halibut, another legal! A NorCal Limit!
Time to get back to
Plan B...
I really was heading home, when I came across these weird wakes in the water. Turns out they were big balls of big bone! I started throwing the big megabait on my bass gear and just had a field day!
Hundreds of 7-8 pound fish swimming all around the boat in this flat clean water was surreal!
That was about 30-40 minutes of some absolute fun fishing! My arms were sore and I needed to get back so packed up and made the run.
I was so glad for a day like this and now planning on making crab stuff halibut tonight for dinner! Grocery shopping at its finest!
Thanks for reading!
