There may be a God after all.
My friends are tired of me whining about the reports of fish north of me and south of me but not being willing to travel for them. Well Wednesday I got a PM invitation to drag my boat to La Jolla today and take out a couple of locals who would show me where the fish are, so I decided I better accept. I called and left a message on the phone number and replied to the PM and said I was up for it. Then I never heard another word. I hope the guy wasn't assassinated for offering help to a non-local.
Yesterday's Western Outdoor News was full of stories about the sport boats limiting on wsb at Catalina, so when I hadn't heard anything more by last night about La Jolla, I recalled that Blaine Morgan had been pushing for a Catalina trip, so I called him and he got a hall pass from his wife. I figured at least I'd get to see some blue water for a change.
We had a nice ride and the water sure enough was blue. On my third drop, just trying to get warmed up, I saw this strange fish while I was hanging at about 20. After a double take, I though "well hell, that's one of those white sea bass like the ones that the 12-year-old kids shoot" so I shot it. It took all but two feet of my 120 foot float line before I stopped it, but then it turned out not to have gone all the way to the bottom, so it was a relatively easy retrieve after I dove several times following all that float line. Since there was no one else in the boat to watch the scale bounce, I got to call it about 42 pounds.
Blaine saw three but couldn't connect, so we moved the boat. On my second drop I was probably passing about 15 feet when two fish swam under me, so I shot one. Why didn't someone tell me it was this easy? This one fought horizontal like the first one, so I didn't even need to cry for help to recover it. Blaine wasn't in the boat again, so I got to call it 52 pounds. The damn scale bounces so much in the boat that it really is hard to be precise, but then who needs precision?
For years I've been saying that I've never bent a 9/32" shaft in a wsb, but now I'm going to have to quit saying that. I was using my Mori adapterless shaft in my Wong 57" hybrid magnum, and it got bent. It could have been bent pulling the fish into the boat, but I'm pretty careful about that, so the fish probably did it. If you don't know what I mean about the adapterless shaft, take a look at the closeup photo. The adapter is welded to the shaft.
I was on such a roll and feeling so cocky that I considered trying to limit, but decided I had plenty of fish. Blaine finally caught on and shot a fish that we decided to call 41 pounds. Of course one reason for that is that I was calling mine 42 pounds.
I put both fish in the bag before Blaine was in the boat, so I don't have any hero shots holding the fish. However, a friend went by and took pictures of me holding the 52 from his boat. I'll post one as soon as he gets back and emails them to me.
It sure was fun to dive in blue water after the crap I've been enduring on the coast, and of course it was sort of fun to shoot fish too. I'll never figure this wsb thing out. Outside of being in water that was clear enough to see them, I wasn't doing a damn thing different from the days when I can't find one to save my ass. They just wanted to swim by me.
My friends are tired of me whining about the reports of fish north of me and south of me but not being willing to travel for them. Well Wednesday I got a PM invitation to drag my boat to La Jolla today and take out a couple of locals who would show me where the fish are, so I decided I better accept. I called and left a message on the phone number and replied to the PM and said I was up for it. Then I never heard another word. I hope the guy wasn't assassinated for offering help to a non-local.
Yesterday's Western Outdoor News was full of stories about the sport boats limiting on wsb at Catalina, so when I hadn't heard anything more by last night about La Jolla, I recalled that Blaine Morgan had been pushing for a Catalina trip, so I called him and he got a hall pass from his wife. I figured at least I'd get to see some blue water for a change.
We had a nice ride and the water sure enough was blue. On my third drop, just trying to get warmed up, I saw this strange fish while I was hanging at about 20. After a double take, I though "well hell, that's one of those white sea bass like the ones that the 12-year-old kids shoot" so I shot it. It took all but two feet of my 120 foot float line before I stopped it, but then it turned out not to have gone all the way to the bottom, so it was a relatively easy retrieve after I dove several times following all that float line. Since there was no one else in the boat to watch the scale bounce, I got to call it about 42 pounds.
Blaine saw three but couldn't connect, so we moved the boat. On my second drop I was probably passing about 15 feet when two fish swam under me, so I shot one. Why didn't someone tell me it was this easy? This one fought horizontal like the first one, so I didn't even need to cry for help to recover it. Blaine wasn't in the boat again, so I got to call it 52 pounds. The damn scale bounces so much in the boat that it really is hard to be precise, but then who needs precision?
For years I've been saying that I've never bent a 9/32" shaft in a wsb, but now I'm going to have to quit saying that. I was using my Mori adapterless shaft in my Wong 57" hybrid magnum, and it got bent. It could have been bent pulling the fish into the boat, but I'm pretty careful about that, so the fish probably did it. If you don't know what I mean about the adapterless shaft, take a look at the closeup photo. The adapter is welded to the shaft.
I was on such a roll and feeling so cocky that I considered trying to limit, but decided I had plenty of fish. Blaine finally caught on and shot a fish that we decided to call 41 pounds. Of course one reason for that is that I was calling mine 42 pounds.
I put both fish in the bag before Blaine was in the boat, so I don't have any hero shots holding the fish. However, a friend went by and took pictures of me holding the 52 from his boat. I'll post one as soon as he gets back and emails them to me.
It sure was fun to dive in blue water after the crap I've been enduring on the coast, and of course it was sort of fun to shoot fish too. I'll never figure this wsb thing out. Outside of being in water that was clear enough to see them, I wasn't doing a damn thing different from the days when I can't find one to save my ass. They just wanted to swim by me.