AngleThis
04-21-2002, 01:08 PM
Yesterday, Nancy and I visited big blue, accompanied by Threemuch. We crossed the friendly bar at about 5:45A, and proceeded south to fish for bottomfish and salmon...bottomfish first. We took 40 black sea bass out of the area a few weeks ago, and so decided to target Lings instead this time. First drop resulted in immediate snags, so we tried again. I rigged two shrimpflies and one large hook below, over 8-12 oz of lead, put a whole herring on the hook and tipped the lower fly with half a herring. After about 45 mins of exploring the deeper end of the reef (110'-150'), we dropped on a new area and imediately hooked up...DOUBLE! DOUBLE!... landed both fish, nice fat lings 12 & 14lbs.
We kept on drifting over this spot, and found one more, which produced keeper lings. In fact, the ratio of keepers vs shorts brought to the boat was about 3 to 1, and I lost track of how many sizeable fish got off or snagged up. With Threemuch not doing any good with salmon, we decided to keep bottomfishing. We picked up 8 insodental blacks, and a half dozen more legal lings, which got lucky that day to be returned to the water (and they did survive). And of course, our foatillamates got a bonus too. With a full box-o-fish, we headed for home at about 11:00...would have stayed longer (no wind and glassy seas still, and under warm sunshine no less) but ran out of herring, which is what all the fish were nailed on except the bass. Picked up lots of crab on the way back, but all short, which suprised me for the open ocean.
Came back in over the bar about an hour ahead fo the high slack and it was pretty bumpy, but I seem to be getting better at rough water; timed it just right and never put even a little water in the boat (surfin USA!!)....Patted the dash...Good Boat!, and made it back to Portland with pleny of time to wash the boat and butcher our bounty before dark.
[ 04-21-2002, 01:12 PM: Message edited by: ********* ]
We kept on drifting over this spot, and found one more, which produced keeper lings. In fact, the ratio of keepers vs shorts brought to the boat was about 3 to 1, and I lost track of how many sizeable fish got off or snagged up. With Threemuch not doing any good with salmon, we decided to keep bottomfishing. We picked up 8 insodental blacks, and a half dozen more legal lings, which got lucky that day to be returned to the water (and they did survive). And of course, our foatillamates got a bonus too. With a full box-o-fish, we headed for home at about 11:00...would have stayed longer (no wind and glassy seas still, and under warm sunshine no less) but ran out of herring, which is what all the fish were nailed on except the bass. Picked up lots of crab on the way back, but all short, which suprised me for the open ocean.
Came back in over the bar about an hour ahead fo the high slack and it was pretty bumpy, but I seem to be getting better at rough water; timed it just right and never put even a little water in the boat (surfin USA!!)....Patted the dash...Good Boat!, and made it back to Portland with pleny of time to wash the boat and butcher our bounty before dark.
[ 04-21-2002, 01:12 PM: Message edited by: ********* ]