The Spromeister and Schultz joined me for a trip to the outside today. Whew...rounding the hook was the easy part. Just past the rips shortly after 6:30 and the swells were 3-4 and building to 5 with fairly long intervals. Felt like I was manning a Huskavarna chainsaw the way the throttle had to be managed. Up one side, easing at the crest and a big time backoff to make it down the trougth without jarring the jaw. Painstakingly we motored to the SH reef as planned. Objective... pull bait through the tough stuff to see if the bigger flatties were around. Had the usual suspects for bait... Asian squid, killie, fresh spearing, gulp etc.
Schultz is the first to connect but his rig is bending in half and he's not sure what he's got on. For every three cranks this fish is peeling a crank back. He's looking for nice flat one but as this fish makes it way to the stern there's that beautify irridecent hue of purple and blue. He beams like a new daddy!
First knuckler of the day and it tapes out a 19". Did not throw it on the scale but my guess is that it was a good 4.5 possibly 5 lb fish. We managed a handful of short fluke 16-17.5" but no keeps. Moved to a section of the snake but 6, then 8, 10 oz weren't holding. The current just seemed to keep building. Moved further inshore and dropped the hook on an area that has produced good bottom fish in the past but only found a ling ding and bunch of short CBs. Schultz was the lucky draw on the ling. Made a couple of adjustments but the bite for the bigger fish on this structure just never materialized. Thinking our day was hosed we ended up pulling anchor and back out to the snake where we did fairly well on the drift earlier in the week. Luck had it the top of tide was making its way. Slack and turn were right around the corner. The drifts settled down and we were back to reasonable 4-6oz and a steady pull of nice seabass. The Spromeister continued to be the silent assasin
. We're crankin away and he's floppin fish on the deck while we hadn't a clue he was on. It was drop and reel for the next hour and a half. We contributed another 8 to the box with easily 60-70 fish released. Many of them at 12" on the nose. Seems like those scientific folk have got their slide rulers working real good when it comes to minimum size adjustments for the regs each year
. Damn... Around one we headed back toward the beach to find some more fluke but they too were just in keeping with last years regs and we never got to experience hearing them flop around the bottom of the cooler. Spoke with AJ of the Peggy Lee on the way in toward shore. Sounded like he was doing fairly well. Tried a couple of spots near the Highland Bridge. In 20-18 ft the bite was there with flat fish but, again, just shy. Couldn't hang there too long for fear that those swells were going to push up alongside some bathers
. Worked one other spot on the way home on the outside middle but the current was rippin there too. It was barn time. With the boat tied down, gear removed and soaped down, we called it a day. Real good time with two excellent guys.
Pleasure to be out even if the seas were confused. Take 'em when you can get 'em.
