For whatever reason or reasons, the last 2 weeks has been spectacular for bugs (for about everyone) so I needed to get out again.  I took my usual partner in crime out since his lower unit blew up and he's been missing his favorite season of the year.

We hit the spot that I did so well at on Thursday.  It was way ROUGHER out than what the forecast predicted so I'm glad I had a second person to keep an eye out on things.  The sunset was awesome, but the NW winds at 10-15 were not.




I only brought 7 hoops because with the extra person and extra hoops, I leaned more to safety than making sure I had 10 hoops.

The first pull of hoops were strong, but nowhere near what it was last week.



First set and we pulled 60 lobster with only 4 legals.

We had some great strucrure aound so moved the pots around according to what was in the net when we pulled.



The second set was quite a bit better with 70 lobster pulled and 7 legals.



The third set went WAAAAY Low... definitely tide swing/current related.  We only got 24 with 2 legals... one short of limits.

At this point all of the other boats were leaving and the wind kept picking up so we decided to pull the last string right away and take whatever we got and hope we had one more to get our limits.  The tide was getting just about right, but we both had to get back early enough anyway.

First three hoops with a 20-minute soak and a big goose egg.

Next three hoops and we got 18 lobster with 3 legals so two went back and we kept a dandy to finish our limit.



Pulled up the last hoop and WTF???  12 lobster with 7 legals in it.  All of the bugs were roughly the same size so we counted and released before stacking and heading back to the ramp.

As we were heading in, the inlet was lit up like a Christmas tree with all of the hoop lights.  As I was heading back, I noticed bright truck lights in an area that I know usually has tweakers or people getting their high on.  Only issue was these were bright LED lights and not the usual dull yellow headlights of a Hooptie.

We get to the ramp and pull the boat out when a truck comes racing in!  It's the Warden.  We weren't worried since we were legit from head to tail, but the warden seemed a little bit on edge.  He made a THOROUGH inspection of all of the hatches and measure all of the bugs as well as checking that our licenses were filled out and we had our Go ID on all of our buoys...  I mean the full 9 yards.

After he was satisfied that we were on the up and up, he relaxed and thanked us for having everything in order.  He said we were the first boat tonight he didn't have to write a ticket to and there was a lot of "Funny Business" going on tonight to which gave credence to why he was on edge when he rolled up on us.

Well, it was good to know he was out there, and we headed back home 30 minutes later than we expected due to this inspection.

In any case, another limit of bugs!  I barely ever go back-to-back with limits, let alone my first two trips of the year so I am a happy boy!



Attack of the Kaiju pic.



Well, time to take a lobster break.  My body is killing me after having two trips in a week.

Thanks for reading!

You and I have seen those guys a bunch of times while waiting to shark fish.
That was a cool read.

Quote from: Dark_Knight_9C1 on November 18, 2025, 06:00:51 PMThe Real One... make it so!

I've been trying.  Steve and
I used to hit the lakes pretty hard looking for the "One".  I've seen him in Jennings, but the damn thing sat there like a log and never took the bait.

The job hunt continues and so does the fishing.

I thought I was at least going to limit on Cats if not catch a trout or two.  Turns out that only one small stocker was going to be my only catch in 4 hours of fishing.



The white pelican's and cormorants were on the hunt and making the trout scatter and swim for their lives so getting them to take a lure or bait was near impossible.

I tried 4 different spots and only one had the one bite.  I did hear a few noisy ass ospreys above me and they were so concerned with each other, they didn't care about me.



That was it.  Tomorrow is a new day!

I needed some exercise and walked around 5 of the lakes this morning before getting back on the job hunt.

The water levels were easily up a foot and every lake was muddy or green at this point.

I didn't see a single fish in any of the shorelines.  When I got to lake 2, there were about 40 people fishing and nothing on their stringers.

I finished my walk back to the truck and as I was passing the last 20 feet of shoreline, there he was.  a decent triploid rainbow just cruising about 20 feet out.  I cast the spinner fly out and he dipped out of sight... until the line went tight and I was on! 

Not a bad stocker bow at all and probably the average sized trout for these lakes this year.



That was it.  I walked to my truck and headed home to resume my job hunt.  I might come back this afternoon, but will probably just wait until tomorrow and give it a good soak while I get soaked.

Quote from: jrodda on November 15, 2025, 09:16:32 PMSounds like a lot of fun! Still haven't gotten a blue cat and those look nice and healthy.

The big blues should be on the chew now that the trout stockings have started.  My biggest is only 22-24#.  I'd love to see a 'Real One".

I spent Friday recovering from sore muscles all day from the Thursday Evening bug trip.  I saw some good rain for Saturday and knew they stocked the ponds on Thursday, so perfect timing!

I didn't get out at the opening today, but made it down before 7:30.  the lake in which they stocked was PACKED!  First of all, that was a lot of people for a normal weekend, let alone really rainy day! 

I moved on to Lake 3 and it looked like a pond full of YooHoo...

I moved to Lake 4 and it was the cleanest of the ponds, but there were people fishing in all of the spots that I wanted to fish.  I walked the shore and saw nothing so I moved on.

I finally just decided to just set out a few rods since the rain started to drizzle a little bit harder and the radar was showing some heavy stuff arriving soon.



I go to my truck and look back to see my 2# rod doubled over and saw a huge splash!  Holy crap I'm on a big one!
It definitely wasn't a cat and I was stoked to see the size of this trout since the splash I saw/heard was pretty damn big!

WTF?!?!?!?  Not a trout, but a husky 3+# bass!  Well, on 2# test, that was a bad ass fight!



I went back to the truck after releasing him and threw on my rain jacket since it started to pour.  I turned around to see my tiny rod doubled over and the SI pinned to the eye!

It wasn't too big at all, but even on this micro rod, I knew it was a catfish, and a pretty small one to boot.



I had to retie this leader since he swallowed the hook and as I finished tying the rig, I saw the other rod doubled over and knew it definitely was a much bigger model.  It fought much different than a channel as it stayed at the surface quite a bit and I realized why.  Nice Blue!



It then was instantaneous bites back to back to back... All of the fish were in a 20 square yard spot and bit the minute you cast at it.  Next two were nice Channels...





Followed by another blue!



Then it just got stupid.  I think I caught 9 total cats and 1 bass.  Some of the cats were small and it was raining hard, so I just flicked them off and recast right away.





I ended up with 3 blues which was really cool since I can only remember catching about 10 blues here the last 20 years. 



These guys must have been from a recent plant in October since they were bright and had some great black lines on the anal fins!  I don't remember the black lines there on any of my last ones, so it must have been from a breeding stock they were growing this year.

I realized one of my old coworkers wanted fish and I sent her a message asking if she wanted any catfish.  I released them all to this point, but it was easy fishing... until now.  Of course she said she wanted the catfish and I couldn't get another bite at that point.... Of course...

I saw 3 trout rats walk by and one had a decent Lightning Trout on his stringer so the trout were here but the cats apparently beat them to my bait... or they were still car sick from the trip down from Mt Lassen.  lol

Oh well.  I went home for a Lobster Lunch and went on perimeter patrol from all of the rain.  I reset all of my trout gear since I felt certain reels would be better on some of my other rods and got everything dialed in.  I'm ready for tomorrow!

Quote from: Chris on November 14, 2025, 09:53:43 PMThe little cotter pin will break after a few times taking it off so stock up.

Also a good time to run a file on the blades

I don't have a cotter pin for the prop. I have a locking washer that lays flat and won't be able to bust off, but at least I can check on its condition.

As for the prop, it's younger than the motor and it's edge is still in perfect shape. I'm going to bring it in every 4-5 years to get tuned. My buddy tracks his gas usage and said a good tuning from the shop is a must. I've always done it myself but I've also never had a HP prop before.

I hope all is well down in Florida Chris.

Man, I shouldn't be having the motor feeling all wonky at only a few years old.  I saw something not too long ago about taking off the prop and checking for fishing line.

Well I didn't have fishing line... I actually took off a bunch prior to taking this picture so you get the gist of the issue.  I actually needed needle nose pliers as this grass was some really tough stuff!



I'll probably check more frequently now, but it's always good to get a fresh look what's behind your prop.

I was planning on going out fishing, but my freezer is full of yellows and the thought of fishing for rockfish wasn't exciting for some reason.

Since Tombo was catching the snot out of them, I decided to give it a shot.  I decided on a solo mission because my shoulder is still torn and f@cked up and decided if I was out there by myself, I could take things at my own pace.  My buddies who I usually bug hunt with are much more intense about getting the hoops up fast and I knew that would really mess it up.

My plan was to only fish the inlet until 9:00 pm and just call it whether I get them or not.  I also needed to start clearing out the bait freezer since my fish freezer is now almost full already!  I've had quite the season of harvest this year!

I grabbed 5 hoops (3 were actually the home-made Prehistoric Soul heavy hoops) and the other two regular Promars.  I was thinking that I might need to handle the light ones if the heavy ones were too much for the shoulder.

I get down to the ramp and one side had some NASA guys using remote controlled "Sail Boats" of some weird sort and the other side had someone lip synching with the music blasting while recording it on a drone.  BTW, the music and lyrics were terrible and I was with these NASA people just perplexed and amused at his "Performance".  I decided to launch off the NASA side...



It was flat calm and I was thinking if I wanted to venture out into the ocean or just fish the inlet.



I had prime spot and was the only person out there.  I kept thinking what the hell was I going to do and decided to run to the OB pier and give it a shot.  I know there are usually a lot of people been hitting it lately, but I didn't see a single boat so I made a run.

I placed my 5 nets according to the current hoping to get the smell where I wanted it to go.

Cool picture spot anyway and was hoping I made the right choice.



It was about 40 minutes until dark, so I decided to do some fishing while I waited.  I caught 3 sand bass, but didn't find anything big.



I then saw huge matts of grass and kelp running into my lines and decided to just pull the hoops to get them out of the way of the impending doom.  As I pulled the first hoop while it was still light, I felt something heavy in the net.  Holy sh!t!  20-minute soak and I had 15 bugs in there including 3 legals!  I moved it down 20 yards and redropped.  I decided to start pulling because all of the boats started coming out to the pier and I wanted to make sure I checked all the nets before the scent starts to get everywhere from everyone else's hoops.

The next hoop was a mirror image of the first...

I had my note pad and sharpie that I started keeping track of the bugs.  3 more legals!



Next hoop and 4 legals!  At this point I'm already culling legals and I didn't even get the 5th hoop up yet!



The last hoop and it was loaded also with more legals!  I was looking at my numbers and I was dumbfounded that I had 77 lobster in the first 5 hoops!  I should just go home, but it's only 6:00 PM... and I did have the game on.  lol

Now boats were dropping all over the place, so I decided to just pull right away and put my "Recharge" tube in now since I spent all that time packing them at home!

Holy crap, they are all loaded again!  80% were less than a hair from legal to short roaches and the rest were all legals!  I kept track of all of the ones I was throwing back and decided to just pull them all right after deploying the last one so I could get home at a REALLY reasonable time!



This was insane...  I started pulling after a 20 minute soak and I finally get to one hoop where I saw a monster in it!  4.8# beast in with a bunch of other legals!



I pack it up and head in.  The last set of nets with a 20 minute soak and about 60 other hoops around had some of the lightest amounts in the nets (about 8-12) but I also had a handful of hoops with over 20!  In any case, it was 236 total.  I thought it was a 14 bug a hoop trip average, but I apparently couldn't do math in my head.  The easy part was seeing I kept my 7 and released 18 legals with a dozen more that could have been legal but folded the shell with the gauge so I'm not sure how they treat that.

I got home and saw my wife bought me a McRib which just made the night even better!  What an incredible evening... and I was home by 8:00pm!  That never happens!



Thanks for reading and until tomorrow when I'm back out trout fishing since it's trout weather!

That is a cool visual to grasp what your looking at.  I don't think I've noticed carp like that except in Lake Henshaw quite a few years ago.

Great session Tim and hell of a nice Hali on the soaked bait!  I've gotten a few big legals that way, but it is not as often as I would like it to be. lol

Keep that gear lubed up as the bat fight will be here less than 4 months from now and I expect one of your boys to win this thing!

Doubles and triples?  WTH!?!?  That seems crazy to get them like that!

Well done once again Keith, pretty epic bow fishing if you ask me.  I can't believe they are showing up there like that in November!

Quote from: Tim524 on November 10, 2025, 08:21:52 PMWow, fishing in Antifreeze

That's about what it looked like.

Conundrum.... Fish for the Bruiser Yellows up in LJ?  Or go with the invite to get on the possible last BFT trip of the year?  The BFT hit hard yesterday and most boats were done by 10:00am with limits pretty close to home.

I decided to jump on my buddy's boat and get some tuna.  My wife really wanted tuna over yellowtail any way.

We met at the docks at 4:30am and quickly got 2 scoops of incredible sardine!

We got about 14 miles out and the fog/clouds were starting to crack a little.



The winds were straight from the north at a constant 10-15 with some higher gusts.  Birds were everywhere but the water temp was awfully cool.  We didn't meter anything so continued on our journey.



We finally had a beautiful sky, but couldn't find bait or anything where they were catching them the day before.



Tombo is an offshore king in both skill and intel from a huge circle of anglers.  We stopped at a few big paddies with no one home.

We were fishing within 3 sporties and everyone was doing the same thing and just trolling around and looking for fish.



Then the wind picked up... Like really picked up.  It was blowing 15-20 from the north and made the trip unbearable at time with the short period wind waves and short period swells.

I was a late minute add to the trip, so I said whatever they wanted to do, I'll be good with.  They floated rockfishing, Island Fishing, Running South.....



We decided to troll the spreader for a while, but the winds ripped up paddies and floating strands were everywhere.

Tombo had waves breaking over his gunnels that has never happened before, so they decided to call it and just do the LONG slow drive into the wind and waves home.



They decided to cut behind the islands and see if we saw any yellows, but that North wind was unescabable.



We found enough calm to grab a bite and take a piss without worry of falling overboard.  LOL



At this point it is a straight charge home.  Oh well, just the wrong day to be out there and should have been out yesterday.





The aircraft carrier was loaded with weapons of war... I wonder where it is heading?



Well, it was an expensive boat ride.  I have an interview on Wednesday, but need to find time to make things right and catch something big!

Until next tide!