I don't get to hang out, let alone fish, with my best bud often but we finally found some time to hit the water. It's been quite a few years since he last got out in the boat and I told him we would definitely get some big bonito, big reds, and potentially a yellow.
We launched at 7:00 and I said we'd be back by 2:00 since he had to work that night for the museum.
There was a little NW bump, but we got to the grounds that I found the bonito last week. The only issue is the bonito were not showing themselves or the bait. Basically, there were wolf packs of bonito swimming around and you had to troll and get blind struck. We used small gear trolling so it made for some fun fishing when we hooked up! Todd had a blast fighting good sized bones!
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We lost a few due to the dumb lure I was trolling, but we ended up with our limit. Well, we got 10 and a few were over the 24" so we could have kept a few more but decided to just look for rockfish.
(https://i.imgur.com/0DCbAcJ.jpeg)
As we left and started running a big whale breached by us, but it was the weirdest looking thing! I came up a few more times and we tried getting a picture, but it was not having it. It had a weird triangular dorsal and was DEFINITELY NOT a Gray or Humpback... Then we saw a big bulbous head! Holy crap! A Sperm Whale! We tried chasing it around to get a picture but it sunk out and we never saw it again. Absolutely unreal encounter!
We took the long run now at this point to get to the denizen grounds instead of chasing a whale.
I told him we would get our limit of reds quick, and he was unsure of "How Quick" it would be. He was fishing at my money rocks afterall! First 4 drops were reds, albeit not huge ones. We descended the two small ones and the new descending device worked like a champ.
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I moved a couple of times trying to get away from the reds and trying to find some periphery fish and we found the, Salmon Grouper... Bank Perch... Barber Poles.....
(https://i.imgur.com/Slw3j0Y.jpeg)
Todd was having a blast fishing with the little gear in 350' of water. Spotlock is the only thing that makes it possible.
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We did manage a few other reds but descended them right away since we were waiting for the BIG one! Todd thought all of them were huge, but I said we need a few 5 pound plus model to fill that last 2 spots. I was gambling on bigger models rather than keeping two smaller ones. Well, the big one's started to bite!
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Then I hit bottom and felt a SLAMMING HIT! I could barely budge it and it fought me every second on the fight up. I had Todd pull the gaff since I was sure it was a big Lincod or possibly a deepwater sheephead. At worst, we still had a live vermillion in the tank and we already released 5 by now.
We both went wide eyed and jaw dropped when it came to the surface! A monster Red!
I was thinking 7-8 pounds for sure! For Todd, that was the biggest Red he's ever seen anywhere!
(https://i.imgur.com/FqqlpjR.jpeg)
We were getting close to needing to go, but Todd wanted a monster red himself! He kept getting little bites and I get slammed again! I gave him the rod and said "It's all you boss!"
It was big and heavy and fought the entire way up. Todd kept saying it felt different, but my mind was set it was a big red or maybe a Lingcod.
(https://i.imgur.com/JgMiekt.jpeg)
But WTF?!?! I never knew you could catch them this deep!
(https://i.imgur.com/rc9ZjPm.jpeg)
This is the third trip in a row I got a shark at this spot in the deep water on a jig... on the Penn 2500 spinner!
First one was a 7-gill... second was a Mako... and now a Leopard! in 350 feet or more!
I didn't take as many pictures that I expected to, but we spent a lot of time catching up and pictures somehow became secondary. We got back in time for him to rush home to get to work. We took guesses on how big the Vermillion was, but were both in agreement between 7 and 8 pounds.
I was certain this was my biggest local Vermillion and put it on the scale. My biggest were definitely from the Channel Islands, but I've never weighed them. I definitely had some 8 pounds or over, but we just didn't have a scale. So, this one is the biggest I've ever weighed for certain...
I got him on the scale and WOW! I have to be honest, I was a little bummed it was only 6.99 pounds. LOL
(https://i.imgur.com/nffKcZP.jpeg)
Well, that was it. I had plenty of fish to clean for the Vacuum Sealer and for the Lobster cages. More trips to be had later this week!
Thanks for reading!
Really nice red! Still trips me out that you are waiting for that little jig to flutter all the way down 350'. It's been paying off though!
And the bonito game sounds pretty cool too!