I fished the morning for nothing.  I would have thought the weather change might have helped, but it did the opposite.

Went 0 for 0 in the morning.

I didn't like that skunk, so went back down after dinner to rectify the issue.  Well, I saw a few fish but couldn't get them to bite.  After pitching my bait by some structure, I saw the pop of the line and then it started moving sideways...  Hell Yeah!  Not a monster, but the skunk is gone!



Well, back home to continue the job search.

I took the boat out in hopes to landing one of the big 3 (WSB, YT, or Hali).  I figured at worst, I'd just bass fish the kelp and maybe get a rockfish or two.

Got out at grey light.  Funny, it was much darker than this, but the phone automatically adjusts so it looks a bit later.



I was fly-lining some Ranch 99 squid along the kelp edge.  Amazingly there was a lack of bait stealers until the squid made it to the bottom.  Every one that hit the bottom was a Brown Smooth-hound.  Funny because I thought we only got greys around here, but I'm fairly certain these were all browns.  I was hoping they were halibut...  hahaha



I switched to a weighted line with the squid and kept it off the bottom around 10 feet.  I grabbed my bass rod and started throwing the Yozuri Hydrominnow.  All of a sudden... BAM!!!  ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

I was for certain I had a yellow and used the trolling motor to get it away from the kelp, but it didn't want to go in that direction anyway.  Then it started leaping into the air!  Holy crap!  Thresher!

It was only like 6' with the tail, so a little guy, but a whipping tail and two treble hooks got me on edge, so I just sunk the gaff to harvest him.  Beautiful fish!



I tried to get some fresh shots, but he wasn't having it, so I had to wait him out.  Still, a nice surprise!



I look over and my squid rod line is moving!  This definitely felt like a big halibut!  The entire time I was confident it was my 40-pound butt!  Nope...



This is one shark I don't usually catch from the boat, so I was pretty amazed.



I move back over to the kelp line and drop another squid.  As I was waiting, I cast out the Hydrominnow again.  About 12 more casts and I'm hooked up again!  This must be a yellow!

It pretty much jumped right away and I saw it was Thresher #2!!!  About the same size or smaller but one hell of a fight.  This one was hooked in the tail so I grabbed the tail and removed the hook.  As I was trying to get a picture, he thrashed and was gone.  I got a little nervous about that tail.  lol

I get back to the kelp line and start again.  This time the squid rod goes off!  I thought it was another halibut, but I had a strange feeling...  Well, it was what I thought it was.  A Bigger 7-gill!  I couldn't get him up the last 15 feet and he pushed his weight around on me and swam into the kelp.  The line to the hook got bit off but at least I got my sinker back.

So a pretty crazy day.  I didn't want anything shark, but wound up catching 7...  I kind of wish they were YT, WSB, or butts... but I'm not complaining!

I had to get back and clean the boat before getting on the job hunt again.  In any case, it was fun.  It was a little bumpier than I would have liked, but thankfully it wasn't too far since I was going slow.

Thanks for reading!

A couple nice healthy bass there, I'm sure you can coax that other one soon.

The job hunt isn't going very well but I'm looking every day.  I got a little stressed out the last few days from life in general, so decided to spend a couple of hours down at the lakes looking for bass.

First lake I stopped at, and bass were jumping, but the water was really brown and could not get a bite.  I saw them run up to my plastic but turn the last minute (wake gave them away).

Then I see her...  Big black shadow in the brown water.  I questioned to myself if it was a rock or not but remember when I did that with the Lightning Trout earlier this year and spooked it.  I pitched the worm in front of its face, and it moved so I knew it was a bass now!  double digit bass ALL DAY LONG!  I was about 12' up the bank trying not to spook it and switched o9ut a few plastics to see if I could get her to go.  Then I see some "wiggles with eyes" at the surface (about 15-20 of them) wriggling right by her a "WHOOOSH!"  She friggin inhaled the entire baby school!  I kept trying until I saw her slowly disappear away from the bank out into the big brown yonder.

I decided to leave her be since I know where she is and moved onto the next spot... and next lake....  The bass would give their location up by slamming something at the surface.  It looked like tiny baits, so there might have been a spawn.  Well, I watched my line go "tick" and then started moving sideways!  Fish on!

It actually felt like a much nicer bass but turned out to be half the size that I was expecting.  Still nothing to sneeze at, but I was stoked to get the skunk off.  Only took 40 minutes to get on the board.



I moved to about 4 more spots on this puddle and nothing doing.... So I moved to the next puddle.

I got bit instantly, but missed on the hookset.  Then another bass guy was coming in hot so I just stayed put.
I moved about 50 feet each way and kept trying for nothing and decided to really get the bait in the weeds.  "WHOOSH!"  Immediately on with a bigger bass than my last one!  It thankfully swam out of the vegetation so gave me a real shot at fighting it.  It jumped about 5 times but didn't throw the hook.  Got my thumb on him...



I wanted to leave, but that was one fine adrenaline rush, so I kept pitching baits.  About 10 minutes later and I get inhaled again, but this one shot right into the tulies and broke the line... Ouch...

I had to go at this point, but mission accomplished, and I know where I need to go to get that big girl later.  Hopefully she stays around for a bit.

Down to my last two frozen tails from last season.  My wife is out of town, so I was thinking this may be a good time to eat a lot of seafood.

Unfroze one of the two tails and made probably the best lobster roll I've had in a really long time!



Now it's time to restock my tails when the season kicks off!

Quote from: Latimeria on September 06, 2025, 07:37:32 AM

Quote from: Tim524 on September 04, 2025, 06:54:59 PMAll this Drama calls for a Getaway to Bishop/Mammoth next week

That's giving me ideas....

September is a great time to be up there, kids are back in school and the weather is still great and the fish are waiting 

WTF is wrong with people 

Wow   

Start the radio chatter with fake coordinates where fish are biting and watch them head that way 

Check your boat for a bug, the fleet following you around all the time can't be a coincidence at this point.

A couple nice calicos on the iron still sounds like a nice consolation.

My coworker went out on the New Seaforth on Friday and got himself a 20# yellow.

Damn! That's terrible. People...

The more I look at that rockfish the more it confuses me. Hit up Milton!