An Epic Solo Mission - Operation Big Bugs (11/13)

[Latimeria]

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!

[Tim524]

Amazing numbers, very impressive ! 

How is the shoulder 

[Dark_Knight_9C1]

Holy cow! The ocean floor must have been covered with them.
The only time I got that many in a pull was San Clemente pier opening day at 6:00 AM. Had about 15 in each of the two on first pull. No legals. As the sun came up, second pull was zero.

Nice to see their out there.  May have to get out the hoops again.

- Keith

[jrodda]

Beautiful weather, numbers, easy limits, early turn-in, AND live music? Can't beat that.