Burning Old Gas While TJ Also Burns It (2/24)

[Latimeria]

I wanted to get the boat out since it's my last week before starting up work again.  The ocean seemed to be quiet, so I decided to do an easy trip on the SD bay.

The gas has been sitting there for a month, so I needed to burn some....

I get down to beautiful conditions.  Plan was to hit the halibut grounds and hit it hard for a big back bay hali.



I get there and there is already a boat there so I move up the line a little.  I set out the trolling motor and realize my remote control was dead!  Batteries were dead and I didn't have any on board!  Ugh!
I make a few casts and see clouds of fish on the sonar...

It's been a long time since I've seen this many Lizards!



I decided to run back to the truck and look for AAA batteries.  I saw my headlamp and thankfully had 3 in there... Perfect, they work!  Back out to the spot!



First real fish was a Sandy and I got to hit the clicker.



I had a hard time finding them.  It was all lizard fish so I kept working North until I could find a pocket and I did.  Tide was moving and the fish were biting!



They were pretty small, all in about the 10" range with a few about 11".

I decided to troll since the grass wasn't floating yet and yep...  These things were like piranhas.



I'm looking towards TJ and see a black cloud forming.  It was a lot clearer in person than my picture but whatever was burning was big and a lot of black smoke.  The Cartel is at it again!



The water was really dirty and not easy to see down into it so I switched up to a bright swimmy and it actually did better than my natural colored bait!



The bass were even bigger and got one over a foot.



Then I felt a doozie!  I knew it was a halibut and it took me around the boat a few times.  I saw a faint outline of it and it was BIG!  I had it 3 feet from the surface and could barely see it.  It dove down again and gone.  Reeled up my swimmy and everything was there.. WTF....  Oh well, I hit the spot lock and decided to work this area hard!

A few casts later and I hook up again!  This one had more head shakes, but the bite was very hali like.  I got him to the net and success!  Nothing huge but a few inches bigger than my net opening at 18", so I'm calling 20". 



He was all calm so I set up the phone to get a picture and removed the hook in the net.  Then a Three-Stooges moment happened.
I went to pick him up and he exploded forward and hit my trolling motor... then bounced back into my arms.  I was bear hugging it upside down and it slapped me in the face with its tail, bounced off the deck and back in the water.  GRRRRR!!! 

I stayed in this small area for the next hour and caught a good amount of bass.



I switched baits since my swimmy was torn up, but stuck with the chartreuse color.  Immediately got some more bass and a third butt.  Postage stamp sized.



Well, the tide stopped and so did the bites.  The wind picked up and my shoulder was dead from casting, so I called it around 11:15am.  Not a bad total of 31 bass and butts.  I probably also got a few dozen Lizards so it seems like I caught a lot more.



Really weird thing was I get back to the ramp and was greeted by the warden.  I opened all the hatches and cooler, but was thinking "what are people keeping down here, pee-pee bass?".



In any case, It was a fun morning and I have a few more days to squeeze some more fishing in before the real world grabs hold of me.  LOL

Thanks for reading!