Had Al Durso, Mike Gasin, and Ryan Helmstetter aboard today for a mixed bag fluke-bottom trip.
Pea soup fog first thing, proceeded SLOWLY out to a few lumps a few miles E of our inlet. First 4 or so drops, nothing but skates, but on the 5th Al bagged a nice 20" fluke, first keeper of the year on the boat. That dried up quickly, just a couple of shorts and more skates on bucktails and dragged bait.
Changed pace, fog got thicker, but ran to a rubble field on the AC Reef. Perfect conditions for drifting, had a .1 - .3 drift over the hard stuff and sent down bucktails, and seabass rigs. Immediate action at first, with some nice fat ling, mixed in w/ some seabass. Real good pick for about an hour, then it slowly dried up as the S wind started kicking and the current started pushing us off the piece.
Went back to fluking on another lump further offshore, put a few more shorts in the boat, and Mike nailed his first two keeper fluke EVER on a fresh spearing/squid combo.
Finished the day with about 24 ling, 6 seabass, and 3 keeper fluke in the box. We probably had 10 throwback fluke, and that many throwback seabass. Good trip, lots of action for awhile until it crapped out w/ the deteriorating conditions.
