Tom is off on some adventure so I thought I'd share one of Alicia's recent concoctions using some of the halibut from last week. Halibut tortellini with mascarpone. It was very good.

Had a company trip with Bongos charters today. At the dock we settled on a game plan to give the yellowtail at Catalina a real quick check-in, and then go look for the small-mid sized bluefin that have been offshore.

Out of the marina at 0500.

A bit of wind churning up some chop through the night but a relatively flat ride out.

Got to the spot at Cat and the fish were around but not hungry. We gave it about 20 minutes, I got the skunk off with a schmedium calico, and then we booked it.

We was lookin', lookin', then the hunters became the hunted.



Thankfully the boat was boarded last week, so they did a quick check on the boat information over the radio and we only lost about 5 minutes.

We put out the mad macs and not 10 minutes goes by before we're bit! We were taking turns cranking with the rod in the holder, I took the first shift and it felt better than the 5-25lbers they were talking about.

Thankfully put the fish in the boat. Solid 50lb class fish.



We get going again then the other rod goes off, ~30lb fish comes over the rail.

Then we got called in to a bite on sardines! We pull up and I was using a #4 Mutu light, as I was told the smaller circles have been getting bit good. Never used the hook before but I was excited to outfish everyone. 2 casts in and I'm the first bit! Engage the lever drag, a few seconds of a solid run and pop! Ay!!!!! I reel in and the hook is f@ckin straightened out. That was dumb. Switched to the boat's collection of thicker gauge circles. I did not get another bite. Kevin picked off a 25#er though. Lesson learned for me!

We ran out of bait pretty quick, and started on the mad mac troll again. We went over a real nice stack of tuna 100' down and at least 20 fish thick, and like clockwork the rod went off 20 seconds later. A 40#er.

We got one more bite that came unbuttoned mid-fight. I was telling everyone before how they shouldn't take for granted going 3/3 on mad macs. 3/4 is still a great day trolling for bluefin.



Back at the dock around 1730. My arm is sore. I have plenty of bluefin waiting to be vacuum packed.

I was convinced since Friday morning that today was Labor Day. I mentioned it being a 3 day weekend to at least 3 coworkers and told Alicia I had the day off Monday. Nobody corrected me...then I woke up at 0900 to 2 calls and 3 texts asking if I'm alive from various coworkers. Should have been in at 0600. I let them know I thought it was Labor Day and they relaxed, so I'm burning a little sick time today. Whoops!

Well, since it wasn't Labor Day, I was hoping there wouldn't be a crowd at the beach. Got to AO #1 and it was loaded with surfers, didn't even make a cast. Headed further down the coast and forked up a little money to fish the city beach. Dogs yes, swimmers no.



I saw a few corbina, and what looked to be bonito chasing bait about 100' outside of casting range. But I got 1 tiny peck for 2 hours on the grub. Too weedy for trebles, as it has been for a year now. It was really nice out though.

I think I will bring in some brownies to work tomorrow to temper being clowned on by coworkers...

1715-1940

Covered a good chunk of ground. About 2.25 miles of walking by the looks of it.

Stray kelp and grass on the inside, too much for trebles but not a day ruiner on the c-rig.

Lasered a 1oz slider straight into a 10-15mph wind the whole time, [small] washing machine conditions.

Pumpkinseed grub got bit best, consistently but short.

Some micro bait popping here and there, but the chasers didn't take to the pearl perch grub (if there were any chasers at all).

2 long distance releases (in the wash) and then one to hand on the last cast. I'm enjoying this poich pic much more than most.



I've had a waterproof case for my phone that has a camera lens cover that's been dulling all my pictures by just a bit for the last couple years. I went mad and drilled out the lens cover from the case this past weekend and I'm so glad I did, mad I didn't sooner.

Here's another pic that's not dull!



Ah how the other half lives.

I also tried a 40 minute striper session yesterday as well which was unremarkable. On a little kick right now.

8.8 earthquake off eastern Russian coast. ~7th largest earthquake ever recorded.

Similar trans-pacific earthquakes have caused damage in the harbors before.

If I had a boat docked I would strongly consider getting it out of the harbor either by trailer or going to deep water during the peak time (around 1am).

I'm back from a trip and realize I didn't take a single picture on my own phone. I may or may not supplement co-worker's photos later...

The Shimano reel service team grinds out Blackfish Charter's reels for free in exchange for a full day trip or two each summer. So this one took us to San Clemente Island in hopes of yellows, and then a little check on the cow tuna chewing just north of the island.

Boarded the boat at 0500. I immediately dipped into the bunks. 0700 I lost my breakfast...was a little bumpy out there, guess I lost my sea legs after not being out in 9 months.

Got to the island maybe before 0800. Calicos instantly fired up in the chum line along with some yellows showing. We only had anchovies for bait, which made things challenging for the most part. I was planning to use my new Talica 8 all day but quickly realized it wasn't worth a sh!t with a little anchovy to cast. Thankfully, I brought along my surf steelhead rod as a joke. The captain noticed it within minutes and said, "Damn, that's the play today!" and just grabbed it off the rack and started playing with it. I said aight, give it here.

Tied on a #4 mustad to 15# leader (6# braid), hooked an anchovy, and tossed it twice as far as anybody with their baitcasting and conventional gear. It was instantly wide open for me, bit every cast, probably coming tight 1/3 times. Borderline legal calicos. I probably ended up outfishing everyone 2:1 on the calicos due to the casting distance advantage alone.

But the yellows kept teasing us. Then Kevin got one on the iron.



Then Robert got a solid 10-12lber.



Then I got a sizzling drag run on my noodle, and got busted clean off in about 5 seconds. I need a yellow on the perch rod!!!! I got some redemption with a 5lb bonito a few minutes later. I think everybody got at least one.

We moved a couple times, but generally had a steady pick on schmedium calicos til noon, when we decided to head over to the party offshore for bluefin. They had landed a couple of cows earlier in the week on the kite, so hopefully it would be our turn to bring home the meat.





We arrived to the AO with about a dozen other boats of all statures and affiliations, not nearly as windy as forecasted and small spots of tuna foaming. Many kites were up, none coming down. We tried for almost 2 hours, with one short bite that I didn't see, then we headed back in.

I'm pretty beat. Thankfully few wanted their bonito so I brought home a nice big bag that should last a while. Very good day with the boys.

Got some frozen peas and went to Newport jetty to try for a new species. I was not fishing for Garibaldi. On my way out I talked to two people:

Newbie fisherman with his girlfriend: "hey do you know what those orange fish are?"
"Oh those are Garibaldi, state fish! They're protected, can't keep 'em."

Wildlife observer lady: "See those orange fish? They're protected."
"Oh yeah they are, Garibaldi! State fish! I would never!"

There were a number of them, maybe one every 30-50 feet.

I found what seemed like a good pocket between kelp and more than one species around and hopped down the rocks. 3/8oz dropshot on the ultralight seemed like it was scaring the fish so I dropped down to a 1/16oz splitshot, about the same size as the peas. I started flinging some peas in for chum and watched both the opaleye and the Garibaldi move in on the snacks.

However, the state fish would not have it when, by some odd chance, my pea would end up in front of it.

I did get the skunk off with an Opaleye quickly enough. I already count it on my species list but didn't get a pic when I caught a couple 20 years ago.



I pitched behind a stone where perchance a state fish was and I got bit. Uh oh! Set the hook and thankfully something else came up, my first Black Surfperch! I found the blue hue under the scales to be pretty cool.



I managed another slightly larger Opaleye but couldn't find any other willing biters. I tried a few more spots along the jetty but nothing else produced, and the tide was turning, so I skedoodled.

Popped off the birthday weekend fishing a new local lake with Jared. Not exactly allowed to fish there but, to my understanding, I don't care.

Tried a 1/8oz KM to start, which I did get a couple bites on. Jared threw a dropshot for a while for a couple bites.

Then I switched to a 3/16oz spinnerbait and got slammed. Really dogged me, then got a good glimpse. Tabby bass!



No other bites. We parked in a place we shouldn't have but we did not get any slaps on any wrists by any HOAs. I will consider returning to this lake as a source for light after-work entertainment. I hear there are grass carp in there.

Interesting place! Caught a cold that started the day before leaving. Morning of leaving, I had a few false starts before I successfully got out of bed. Woof. Would have called out sick if it were work for sure.

7 hour drive, no serious traffic there. 405 -> 805 -> 8 -> 98 -> Calexico border crossing. I've never taken the 8 through eastern SD county so that was a nice change of scenery for me. Acorn casino was awfully busy for Friday at noon.

Mexicali was confusing, thank god for Google maps. Then southeast through a bunch of broken down farm/industrial towns. Passed by a man selling peanuts at the local speed bump.

Then a 50 mile straight highway through desert. Lonely but decent two lane road, easily cruise 70.

Then another 70 miles through desert, winding around a bit, very boring, but keeping speed. A few glimpses of the very top of the Golfo de California. Kinda brown and salty that far up though.

Arrived to our resort, the Bella Sirena, at 4pm. I got out of the car and I was pretty lightheaded, but got us checked in alright.

We walked down the beach to our first dinner on the beach. I was a little too wiped out to fish during the first afternoon.



Set an alarm for 0500, slept in til 0545. Dragged myself out to the beach.

The tides here are wicked. According to Windy they were 0'-14' while I was there. I would believe it if it were even more. I worked an 0900 low tide. Every 15 minutes or so, I would look up and realize the beach had changed just a little bit.

There ran two sets of rocky reefs parallel to the beach, with about 50-100 yards of sand separating them. On this first morning, only the last outside reef was submerged in water. I walked out and started casting, looking for my first bite. I knew if I couldn't get bit here I would be the biggest fool on the planet, but it took switching through a 1oz KM, a 5" white grub, then noticed the schools of micro bait swimming at my feet. So I switched to a 1oz c-rig with a white perch grub to get my first fish, almost instantly too.

Welcome to a home away from home!



Happy to get my skunk off with an extra colorful spotty, but still a bit nervous not to catch a new species.

The bite went wide open with the perch grub. I was getting bit every single cast, catching fish probably every other cast. All micro spotties. Biggest was around 10".



I finished the morning with around 30 spotties to my name, no other species. Fun fishing on the perch setup!

I'm really trying to relay the tide movement here because it's pretty unbelievable, I suppose due to how high up it is in the already narrow gulf.





Did some stuff through the middle of the day. Had some fresh oysters that tasted like a launch ramp at this bayside eatery.



Croaker in a market.




In the afternoon I decided to find some cracks between the Arizonians on the beach to cast. I was now working the top of the tide. The high rocks in the above pictures were completely submerged, and the backside of my casts were working the sandy bottom.



I had a feeling that would open up my species a little bit. There was a lot of loose orange algae in the water which I feared would ruin the session, but my very first cast, I got bit as soon as I hit water. A fun fight and I got my first Leatherjack!



After getting the algae off of the line and the fish released, my next cast was also an instant hookup. This persisted, and I went about 6 for 9 casts. Then as I was handling the last one, its dorsal stabbed me really good. I dropped it and started bleeding quite a bit (I just now was reading that these fish have venom in these fins, which might explain the pain, but it thankfully didn't swell).



Got it back in the water and I didn't have a towel to wipe off, so I went back to the resort to clean up. Spent the rest of the evening resting, as the cold was still taking a lot out of me.



Sunday morning, got of bed at 0600. Went to the local jetty. No wind, very clear. I saw some aquarium type fishes close to the rocks, definitely sergeant majors alongside possible wrasse and balloonfish. I brought some crappie hair jigs and KMs, but they were uninterested. Maybe I should have kept the last leatherjack for cut bait. I bet that would have gotten me somewhere. My cold really kicked my ass as I was rock hopping and had to walk back a solid quarter mile to the car once in 90º weather to fetch the KMs. The tide shifted enough to move the visible fish during my walk to the car and I couldn't locate them again. Totally gassed, so I left.


Sunday evening, I went out and cleaned up on the leatherjacks with a fair mix of spotties. I probably caught 40 fish, 25 leatherjacks to 15 spotties. The leatherjacks started putting on a show, and would jump a couple times on a good fight. Very fun on the perch gear.




Long road back today. I accidentally drove into one of the many oddly named express-lanes for the border, and thankfully the border agent just told me not to do it again because I was clearly bewildered and knew I made a mistake. Saved a lot of time...

Do I recommend Puerto Peñasco? They say it's "Arizona's Beach" which is probably more the proper audience. I appreciated being able to rent a Tuscan Villa style resort condo for a long weekend at a very reasonable price, fish on the beach, and enjoy some subtropical weather. It is quite a boring 7 hour drive to get there, and while the fishing was wide open, it wasn't exactly big Cabrilla or anything extraordinary. I think the water might have warmed up a little early and pushed out some of the variety, so maybe coming in April or May might be better to see more reef fishes, corvina, and flunder. Overall though, good safe accessible beachfront resort area!

Started getting sick yesterday, hoped it would be a mirage of a cold but alas! Gonna start the 7 hour drive to Puerto Penasco with a bit of a sore throat, headache and fever. No canceling now!

I got a new combo from work, a Tiralejo 10'6" 1-3oz spinning rod and a Spheros 6000. Loaded it with metered 30# 8 strand braid.

Went to the surf to find its sweet spot. I tied on some kind of a fish finder rig. Double dropper with a 5" white Kalin's grub down low and a 1.5" morf grub up high, with a 3oz weight. What ever bites. Just wanted to cast.

1st cast I lobbed it pretty good. 2nd cast I put a little more oomph to it with a pendulum cast and bombed it. Then hooked up! Felt small. Thought maybe a lost little perch or small croaker. Get it in and it's...technically my first WSB from the surf!



Laughed about it and sent it back without laying a finger on it. Not particularly impressive but very good to see.

Might have gotten a few perch bumps here and there but kind of difficult with a big composite rod like this. Also a lot of kelp on the inside.

I've never had a particularly accurate idea of how far I cast in the surf, or really anywhere, but with the colored braid I was able to do the math. 36' per color. 9 colors out on the best casts...about 324'. Over 100 yards! Pretty fun rod. I'd like to tie into a leopard or bat on it soon, feels like a fun bend for the job. 

I took a walk today in the local wetland reserve, highly illegal to fish in. Kept my eye out looking for something cool, maybe some little white seabass in the shallows.

Got to a spot where I saw a striped bass about 24" casually roll up to the edge of the shore. I flipped out and said to Alicia "do you know how rare those damn things are?!?" She just called me a nerd.

Then I saw at least 3 more about the same size, then about four white seabass cruised through the same spot, all around 32". I was just laughing and shaking my head, they're swimming by us like it's a f@cking petting zoo. They know I can't fish for them.

Water was just off color enough that I couldn't get any good pics. They did countless laps for 5 minutes before I got too close and they got shy.

This may be common knowledge at this point that these quality fish are in there but I never believed any rumor that I heard until I seent it with my own eyes.

I've been into sea shanties for a while. Jared as well. He just discovered Stan Rogers and showed him to me. I love when an artist just instantly clicks with your ears. A legend gone too soon, died in a plane caught fire, he tried saving other people and died at 33 years old in 1983. Amazing voice, even better story teller, and a great fingerpicking guitarist. Almost like a burly John Denver of Northern Canada.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0CvSIhF_tA

So far I love his albums Fogarty's Cove and Between The Breaks Live.

Took the ultralight and hot dogs to Jared's pond with a fresh idea.

Unfortunately I believe the fresh idea puts me on some kind of list.





After the uh, procedure, I put the skin on a dropshot and did very well with the green sunfish, catching 5 and farming just as many. Tack on a green bass for 6 total before I left the guys early for home.







I had a catfish rod soaking the whole time as well but never saw action on that front.

Checked out the beach after work yesterday. I've been trying to gauge the fishability of the wind based on how the palm trees blow at my apartment. I thought I had a window but arrived at the beach and got whipped. Eye watering salty breeze, washing machine, kelpy, terrible structure, and no bites. Gave it 30 minutes then scooted to Trader Joe's.

This time last year I started on an incredibly consistent YFC bite and I'm hoping that comes around. So far it's not looking good. North OC sucks!

Went with Jared to his pond. We were greeted by bass blowing up on fry at the start. Nice! Jared farmed one on the third cast with a dropshot. We headed back to our cars to grab more reaction type lures as we were fully expecting a slow dropshot kind of day. Came back throwing a KM while he threw topwater. Did not get bit. Moved on.

Jared went back to the dropshot and hooked up to something that was making some weird figure 8s at the start of the fight. He figured carp. I put my rod down and got ready to play deckhand. Then he gets a look at it. BIG cat He plays it on 6# for about 5 minutes and then I lip it with pliers. 15.5# and 30" long. His new PB cat.



Got done playing with it and I immediately broke off on a bite at my leader knot. Re-rigged and caught the damn thing shortly after.



More of our coworkers started arriving and Kevin got those surface feeders to commit to his dropshot, going 4/5 before he finally caught up to us. Fish here and fish there for out crew of...too many...6? Good company certainly but it was starting to look like a fish-off. Plenty of space though.

We circled back to the surface feeders and I finally got one to commit to the KM.



After impaling about 5 more baby bass fry with my trebles...I took off for home.

I was in Newport for one thing so I made a real quick 30 minute session for spotties.

Here's a reference shot of where I'm fishing for the sake of the story. Frankly not much to burn in this spot but I also implore anyone to bug the Karen in the story.



So at the red line there is a fence that extends from the hill to the mean high tide line. It has a sign that basically says "welcome to this beach, be aware of the mean high tide line, as below it is public and above is private." There's one house on the end of the beach on the right.

So I decided to try that area. Bounced a fluke along the bottom for a about 15 minutes, very slowly walking toward the end. Then a lady came out of the house.

"Excuse me, do you live here in this neighborhood?"

"Nope!"

"You can't be here, it's private."

"I can be here. Everything below the mean high tide line is public access."

"No."

She went back inside, and I made a few more casts, before taking my time walking back behind the aforementioned fence. If I were getting bit, I would have stayed.

Fished a couple hundred yards of sand without a bump but left relatively quick because I wasn't getting bit and I really had to pee. Pretty uninspiring low tide anyway.

It's far from my favorite spot, but every time I fish that area I'll be sure to give that side a few casts. Feel free to do the same! Besides spotties it can produce croakers and rays too.

1712 made my first cast. 3' of tide but beach seemed pretty far from filling in. Started walking a bit looking for holes but the entire beach looked the same. Checked the time: 1721. Laughed out loud and walked back to the car.

Arrived at second beach ~20 minutes later. Much better setup. A little winder though, probably 10-15. Some grass in the wash but never a real issue.

Ended up with these two jokers. A number of wally bites. This YFC confused me because it actually fought all the way to the sand.





Left at sunset. Still not particularly inspiring surf fishing locally but way better than nothing. Tides look good the next few days to try again or hit the harbor.

Being that I just took home a fish from shore to eat for only the second time ever, it reminded me of the first time. Just felt like reminiscing on this story. I wish I had pics real bad for this one.

So one of the guys on SCSF posted, peculiarly, complaining that shovelnose had completely invaded one of his favorite corbina haunts. He was a respected fly fisherman, always a thoughtful and witty poster. This time he said, "f@ck these things, go to **** beach at dawn with squid and kill as many as you can. Get them out of my sight!!!" I found his frustration amusing and his call-to-action undeniable as a 17 year old. And as a youth seeking approval from the elders, this seemed like a straightforward mission for a social promotion.

For whatever reason, I thought it would be a great time to bring along a friend who had never fished before. Maybe because we always enjoyed putting together absurd missions, like sneaking out and sitting in a local shopping mall elevator all night, just to say we did. Killing a bunch of shovelnose seemed like it would appeal to my friend Twiggy.

I felt like maybe I could teach him in a couple of hours at the park how to cast a conventional reel, but that lasted 1 cast, when 300 yards of 40# mono turned into 50 yards of usable line, fast, in one amazing back lash.

The next morning I picked him up at 0400 so that we could arrive at the AO at dawn. Twiggy had not slept at all, and laughed about it. On the way, a highway patrolman flirted with pulling me over as I was on cruise control at 78mph, as he continuously got on and off the freeway, then pulled up to me. Nerve wracking, considering I was in the "probationary period" of my drivers license where I couldn't drive friends, and 4am was technically outside of curfew hours for the city, something upon being charged with, the police would call your mommy and make her deal with the situation. This happened at least once in our previously aforementioned late night elevator excursions.

We arrived in time at the AO with 2 rods and a pack of squid. The sand crabs were abundant and it was clear why so many wiggles were gathering here.

What proceeded was in fact, the most wide open Wiggles bite of my life, all in less than 20 minutes. I immediately hooked and landed one, braining it and dragging it onto dry sand. I casted again and hooked up instantly, handing it off to my friend. I grabbed the other rod and caught my own, unhooking both of ours, braining and putting them with the first.

The bite left as quickly as it came, and with the morning light on us, we had 6 twitching shovels, 30-42", piled up on the sand.

The two sleepless 17 year old minds, collectively producing no more than a few Monster-addled brain cells, proceeded with plans, or the remarkable lack thereof, that confuses me to this day.

Since to that point, I'd never filleted fish at home, and my parents had drilled into me that it was a no-no at home, I had to figure a way to fillet these beasts, with no tables available to me. I grabbed my dad's sh!tty fillet knife from the garage and started at the local park on a picnic bench, quickly grew frustrated, and headed to Twiggy's house, holding hope that his parents' naiveté would eek out beyond the time it took to slaughter 6 shovels.

It worked. The skins were tough, the meat perhaps limited, but more importantly: the parents clueless.

One of the clearest memories I had from this whole debacle was washing the fillets. As I wetted one in preparation to put on ice for the rest of the day, it jumped out of my hands. I flinched and dropped it into the grass. In a sleepless state I could barely comprehend what happened. I picked it back up and squeezed it, and again it wiggled in my hands! Mr. Wiggles never dies, I realized.

We napped off the morning, and in the afternoon put our inadequate cooking skills on full display, throwing the fillets in lemon and butter in a pan, and then into hotdog buns. The meat was honestly good, arguably one of the best inshore fish I've had, based on texture, firmness, and light flavor.


I think about this day regularly. In essence, entertaining. So many failed parts of a plan, that are so simple. Trying to fillet shovelnose at the local park? With that old dull knife? Freshwater on saltwater fish fillets? Hot dog buns? If I were in the car with my past self and my friend, I would grab them by their ears so many times and lead them a different way, but overall it was a classic instance of boys being boys. And I learned that shovelnose ARE good eats, just hardly worth the effort.

Went to Jared's pond hoping to find some big bed fish to poke. Unfortunately we saw zero bed fish. I did see a decent carp as I was scanning the shore.

I was swimming a new-to-me Big Hammer Ringer Worm at a moderate pace and got a skunk buster. First LMB of the year for me.



The boys had mixed results themselves, a couple caught, a couple skunks. Just nice to see how Tom lives, getting slime on his hands.