The Spitfire

Trip Report – Sat. May 19, Spitfire

I went fishing locally (Santa Monica Bay) on Saturday with Capt. Jeremy and crew on the Spitfire.  My buddy, John Anjard, drove up from San Diego.  I was hoping to showoff how I’ve gotten better at throwing my jig stick, but Cuda Madness mysteriously vanished after we got on them Wednesday.  The large bait balls of anchovies, the bird activity marking them, and the cuda eating them…POOF!…disappeared.

Scarred dab

Plan B was rockfish and sculpin.  The official count was 400 rockfish for 52 anglers.  Essentially it was limits of sculpin, and all the smaller chilis and belindas you could catch.  Tough fishing day, but “the Spit” scratched out a day to make the anglers happy…sending them all home with fresh fish filets.  I took home 5 sculpin and one nicer starry rockfish.  A nice size red (3lbs?) won jackpot, edging out a decent bocaccio.

Chilipepper rockfish on the Butterfly

I missed my shot at glory on this sand dab.  Notice the rake down his back.  There was one on the belly side also.  I felt him wiggling down there and started to reel him up.  All of a sudden my line got heavy.  I tried to just slowly reel through it, but whatever it was…guessing it was a ling…decided to skip that meal.  Lucky him.  It would’ve been a rad hitchhiker story.  Oh well.  I did have one first though…catching a fish using the Shimano Butterfly jig.  It’s always good to try something new.  It was a beautiful day on the water spent with friends.  I’ll count that as a win any day.

John’s New Marbling

Custom Calstar 100J

John brought up a new jig stick with him…a Calstar 100J…where he modified the grips and marbled the rod above and below the reel seat.  He’s getting really good at it.  Using the colors on the existing wraps as a guide, he added the marbling to match.  The upper marbled section blends into the first set of wraps seamlessly.  It looks really cool.  He said he’ll trick out my Terez rod for me (the one in the Butterfly pic).  A lot of the anglers on the boat ended up getting his contact info to do it for them.  If you’re interested, leave a comment or email me and I’ll put you in touch.

Islands Are Heating Up

Getting multiple reports of both yellowtail and white seabass out at the Islands.  I talked to Darlen Lee of Freedom Sportfishing Sunday afternoon and Capt. Tommy had gotten limits of seabass for the anglers aboard, with 2 yellows kicked in for good measure.  My Facebook stream (Hit that Like button!) is filled with pictures from the overnight boats to Clemente, Catalina, Santa Barbara, etc.  There’s a lot of squid out there that hasn’t reached us locally yet.  It’s sparking a nice bite.  If for whatever reason, yellows and biscuits aren’t on the menu, you have halibut and big calicos as a fallback.  Oh darn.  I’m going to get out on the Freedom next week on the 30th (leave Tues night).  There were a couple spots left when I made my reservations.

I’m working on getting back out on the Pacific Islander as the big ‘buts seem to be starting to come in now up north, and WSB should be coming in with them.  I also want to get back down south.  The Coronado Islands’ yellowtail bite has slowed down a bit, but I’m still seeing consistent 20+ days in the counts for the 3/4 day boats…good enough reason to go.

Lots of good stuff going on out there on the water.  Get out and enjoy it.  Tight lines!

 

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