Local Fishing

I have been fortunate to get to fish with Jack on his Whaler lately and I really appreciate the opportunity. If not for Jack's invitations, all fishing would be on hold until my knee replacement.

Last week we chased paddies looking for dorado and yellowtail. We headed south on smooth calm seas with overcast skies. About 30 minutes out, the clouds got lower and we had heavy mist plus the seas developed a light choppy surface. This made it difficult to see kelps until we were right on top of them.

We found a couple kelps after an hour that we fished but both were dry. We traveled about 20 miles without finding a kelp until we encountered 4 boats stopped with birds around them. There wasn't any surface activity but it appeared we arrived too late.

We worked our way home finally stopping on a line of kelps. We fished them all and still not a single bite. We got back, cleaned the boat and headed home around 3 pm.

 

This week we fished in-shore and Ray joined us. Ray has been ill and unable to fish in his kayak so Jack invited him to fish on the boat. Nice to have Ray along. He's good at catching halibut.

The seas were calm and the temperature around 69 degrees. The water was green and off color. We had healthy 5 to 7 inch sardines. Very lively. We headed north of the headlands to drift for halibut. We had our baits in the water by 9 am.

We made several drifts then I caught a juvenile halibut. I released it. The birds were terrible - making it difficult to get a bait in or out of the water without hooking a bird. Unfortunately, Ray hooked a pelican then a cormorant tried to grab the bait on the hook in the pelican's mouth and was hooked too. Jack put his rod in a holder to help Ray then Jack's rod went off. I grabbed his rod until Ray's line was free and handed it back to Jack and I grabbed a gaff. The fish was heavy and put up a good fight. Instead of being a big halibut (as we thought) it was a nice shovel-nosed shark which Jack released.

We made a move further north and on the first drift I got hit with what felt like a big halibut until it came unbuttoned. It was 11:30 and we were ready to make another drift when Ray said he was ready to head in. We dropped Ray off and headed back out. It was afternoon and the wind had come up and there was a light chop on the seas but it was sunny and beautiful out.

We made several drifts and we had a couple baits raked but no hook ups. We headed in around 2 and cleaned up the boat. I really enjoyed the time on the water. It was such a beautiful day.

Paddy Hopping

Last week I got the opportunity to fish with Tim Boyer, his son Chris and Jack Voss on Tim's Striper. We made an early departure stopping at the bait receiver for a scoop of sardines then headed off-shore searching for kelp paddies.

The waters were choppy at first but calmed as the day went on. Skies were overcast with some coastal fog that burned off quickly.  The day ended up with clear blue skies with temperatures in the 80’s.

We were searching for either dorado or yellowtail that were rumored to be on kelps in the channel off Dana Point. I was fishing with 25 pound fluorocarbon to a 2/0 Mustad 92667 hook on a Talica10 - no weight. We found our first paddies after about an hour of travel. Unfortunately this kelp was dry.

We threw sardines on 15 or 20 kelps when Chris decided to chop up the dead sardines and chum with them. At one of the next kelps, I decided to fish a chunk of sardine. I ended up hooking something that went straight down and just dogged me. It was a heavy fish but didn't feel like a yellowtail or tuna. With 25 pound line, I couldn't put much pressure on the fish. After 10 minutes or so, the fish surfaced off in the distance but it didn't fight - it was just dead weight. I gradually brought the fish to the boat. At first it looked like a shark, but once it was next to the boat, we realized it was a sunfish (Mola Mola). Definitely not a pretty fish and prehistoric looking at best.  We released it. What a disappointment.

Several of the kelps had small fry on it and we saw one baby yellowtail but failed to see or hook anything else. Chris and Tim traded off running the boat and they did a great job to.

We continued to paddy hop ending up off San Onofre before calling it a day. On the way in, we were treated to a show from breaching whales. We put in a full day chasing kelps from 6 am until 3 pm for one sunfish. It was a beautiful day on the water and I truly enjoyed being out fishing with friends. It's especially appreciated now that I can't long range fish until I get my knee replaced. Thanks so much Tim, Chris and Jack for including me.