I ran down to the puddles in the morning and went to a lake that hasn't been stocked in a while.  It didn't take long before my strike indicator started bouncing!  Pretty much the cookie cutter stocker for these parts at about 2-2.25#.  Problem was soon as I was netting it a guy in a truck started driving by and parked right away setting up right next to me with his kid.



The father and son were really impatient and after 30 minutes of not getting a nibble, they took off.  Soon after a lady dropped off her old dad right next to me and he set up his snoopy rods close by while telling me how I need to fish.  He had that terrible cast with two hands that went into a one hand "hold the bottom of the rod" at the end.  It was tough to watch.  He was so loud when he talked, I realized I wasn't going to get any P&Q so I packed up and moved to another lake while he said "Quitting already, huh? Quitters".  I didn't have the heart to tell him it was all because I didn't have the patience to stay there another moment.

Funny thing was the next lake I was at and the Ranger pulled over to check my permit.  I mean I had it, but I wasn't on even a lake that was stocked for the last month plus.  I'm assuming the Rangers had a bet I was not buying my permit and was ready to get me.  The Ranger actually looked relieved to see it was from today.

I decided to call it quits and get home.  At this point it was "The Walking Dead-Santee edition" with all of the retirees and birders walking in herds around the lakes.  I'll be back later though..

I went home and went on the job hunt.  Not sh!t out there and it's getting really depressing.

I headed back to the Lakes with 2 hours until closing and went back to where I got the trout in the morning.

Two missed bites as I had to run to my rod, and running isn't what my body does anymore so of course they dropped the bait soon as I grabbed the rod.

As I was casting out, I saw a light colored fish coming straight up from the murky water.  I realized it was a dead catfish and I think I saw the moment where the gasses reached the buoyancy point!  I drug it over to shore and it was pretty nasty!



It was pretty nasty smelling, so I cast out and went back to the truck.  The Ranger was driving around letting people know to start packing up when I saw my strike indicator head straight to the guide!  That only means catfish!
It was a great fight compared to the trout and wow!  Another Blue!  I've been catching a bunch of them these last few months!





That was it.... I headed home with my first two fish of 2026.  Not exactly monsters, but not bad either.

Thanks for reading and until next tide!

Quote from: Dark_Knight_9C1 on January 01, 2026, 10:24:48 AM....it's been strangely warm and not windy the entire time. Ocean has been a lake with ankle slippers too.
- Keith

Yeah, it was weird.  With that east wind it was nothing close to land, but get out 5+ miles and the wind touches down on the water.  Weird heading in and having the wind in my face rather than at my back.

I hope you catch them up while you're there Keith!

Quote from: jrodda on January 02, 2026, 05:48:20 AMNice trip! Interesting to get that mako flurry going. Happy new year!

I'm guessing they were following the bonito.  Every year I've caught little makos, I was fishing for bonito.  Seems way too coincidental.

I was going to scrap the last trip of 2025 because the weather window was pretty tight.  I couldn't get out Monday or Tuesday and Wednesday was supposed to be flat in the morning but small craft warning by the late afternoon.  I know how that weather predictions goes on the morning you're supposed to head out.

The morning was rainy and storm clouds were on the horizon.



On the way out I had to do a slalom through all of the tumbleweeds in the bay.



Well, I'm glad I went.  The seas were only about a foot with no wind.  I was cruising on the open ocean at 39 mph and got to my spot pretty quick!  There were a few other boats out there past the 50 fathom line.

The spot was loaded... but with decent sized reds.  I caught my two in no time.



Thankfully I caught other stuff in between.



I had to reel up really slow and the reds would look great at the surface.  I probably descended 8 or 9 without any issue.



I haven't seen a Greenstripe in a while



Then I get SLAMMED!  I actually had a body cam that I turned on and fought it around the boat for 20+ minutes!  It was just heavy and soon as I started getting it close under the boat, it would shoot back down to the bottom in one hard long run.  Because it was slowly going around the boat and felt super heavy, I'm pretty sure it was a 7-gill.  As I finally had it about 50 feet under the boat, the line broke.  Ugh.

It came up with nicks in it, but didn't feel sanded like shark skin.  I'm still certain it had to be a Seven...



Then the water became alive!  3-4 pound bonito came up and started crashing hard but would sink out too quick for me to get to them.  I also kept seeing crazy splashing and was pretty sure they were sharks thrashing fish at the surface.  I also had some rockfish ripped off on the way up and knew it had to be sharks... until I saw a mako come up with my red and rip it to shreds!

Next red and he's on!  I slowly reeled it in and was about to tail grab it since it wasn't hooked but just wouldn't let go of the rockfish!  I grabbed the tail and it didn't like that and bolted.  I then noticed about 6 or 7 sharks circling my boat!  I just cast the iron out with a piece of squid on it and hooked up right away!



I tried using the lip gripper on him but message to everyone out there... A lip gripper doesn't work on lipless grinner.  LOL

I tail grabbed him to make sure I got my lure back and it almost flew out of my hands trying to take a picture!  One good shot and over the rail it went!



I was trying to get everything straight and looked out to see all these baby makos around!  I'm not exactly sure if it was the bonito or bait or chewed up rockfish that brought them in!  I cast a bare iron out and slowly reeled it in and other one grabbed it!  It was a little smaller and much easier to handle.

I had my phone set up to try and keep dry so I couldn't take any cool shots up at the bow.  It was raining pretty good at this point.



I threw him back and the sharks were still all over!  I cast out the iron again, but should have retied in retrospect...  Another mako on! 

I get him next to the boat and as I was grabbing his tail, he shook and busted the line!  There goes my custom lure!  Oh well.

I tied on a different lure but didn't want to lose that so I would cast and rip it in.  If a shark came close to grabbing it, I would yank the lure away from him and consider it a catch since I definitely would have kept catching them.  Then I had one beat me to the lure and I lost it... Ugh... I decided to stop at that point and limit my lost lures.

The bonito were gone and I just called it the morning since the winds started picking up... from the East which was really weird! 

Deepwater Rockfish limit!  Well, one was a whitefish...



I have to say, with that whipping rain in my face on the way back, it stung really bad!  I almost felt like I needed a face shield!

Anyway a successful way to end 2025.  Too bad I lost 3 jigs and would have loved to see what that big mystery fish was.

Anyone else get out?  I'd love to see your posts!

It's been a while since I've been down to the puddles fishing, so I thought I'd give it a go.  They usually stock little stuff between the big stockings so I had no urge to get down there but there are still big Lightning Trout to catch from the last plant!

They just stocked lake 2 and you could tell from all of the people fishing that one.  Lake 3 had the next most recent plant, but there still was a few people on that one.  I decided to try the next lake and see what it had to offer.



I didn't get a single bite on the bait rods, but saw a boil within casting difference.  I didn't know if it was a trout, bass or Red Ear, so I cast my spoon out there and got bumped!  Two casts later and I was on!

Not huge, but a legit 2.25# trout!



I watched a kid catch a bass and some guys down the shoreline from me lose a trout but otherwise it was quiet and nothing going on.  I think the Pelicans and Cormies got most of these fish.

I was ready to leave when I saw another boil and re-deployed the micro spoon!  It slammed it on the first cast but gave me a shock when I netted it!  It looks like it might have been grabbed by an osprey.



I went home to grab some lunch but would be back since I paid for a permit and I was literally right around the corner.

I tried another lake to get a feel what was going on.  It was really slow until about 30 minutes before closing.

I got picked up and the strike indicator was in the water, but no one was home.  I put a new inflated crawler on and recast to get bit almost immediately!  Definitely a typical stocker that was under 2#.



But this one had a weird foggy colored head.



I think these guys are the weird ones that don't get all of the genes for whatever strain they are shotting for.

I then have another hit.  I get him all the way to the net and breaks the 2# test right at the shoreline and I consider it a Sportsmen's release.

Now the Rangers are saying last call and pack up so I slowly start reeling in my one rod that's still out there.  Well, I felt the trout hunt it down and slam it!  Last minute stocker!



This one also had an off-colored head.  Apparently, this last stocking was all of Santa's misfits!



Well, I say it was a limit with the C&R broken line, but I had 4 fish for the smoker... or actually one for the hoop net.  lol

I was planning on going back this morning, but decided to sleep in instead.  Maybe I'll try again tomorrow.

Thanks for reading!

I kicked off the first day of winter with a little "professional networking"—and what better way to connect than by hopping on the water and stacking up some fish? I met up with Quy, who owns a validation company. We've known each other for about 12 years, and he launched his business five years ago. He's always wanted to fish with me, and the timing finally lined up. Plus, I was curious if there might be a chance to work together down the road.
Quy's still pretty green when it comes to fishing—he's only been on a boat a couple of times—so I made sure he took his Dramamine. He showed up about 15 minutes late, but you could tell he was fired up. When I saw the white sneakers, I handed him my spare boots. Had to get him boat-ready.



The plan was simple: load up on bonito, then run to the "Red Grounds" to finish the job. After an hour of trolling through nothing but grass and kelp—and a blank meter—we bailed and headed straight for Red Rocks. Word on the radio was that the fleet down in Point Loma was wide-open on bonito.

I was hoping the rockfish would make up for the slow start. As we got close, another boat was drifting on my usual spot, so I slid over to a different waypoint. I set Quy up with the line-counter reel and grabbed the little spinner for myself.

First drop—bam. Solid red.



Quy's first fish wasn't huge, but he was fired up.



A little later, he got quiet and said he wasn't feeling great—maybe something he ate. I told him, "Over the rail or into the pail!" He ended up chumming, but after that he rallied and was good for the rest of the day.
The bite picked up, and it wasn't just reds. We were getting some quality "other" cod, plus a few dinks that Quy seemed to specialize in.



I handed him the little rod since he kept finding the smaller ones.



He stuck a nice barber pole—his first. Honestly, almost everything was a first for him.



I picked up a solid whitefish during the flurry.



And then my own barber pole.



Quy added a few whitefish to the count.



We hit our limits on coppers.



Then Quy hooked into something with a little more weight.



Turned out to be a nice red.



We caught more barber poles than I've seen in a long time—and some really nice ones.



Quy showing off his two-fish limit.



We kept at it until we were nearly limited out on groundfish. Then I hooked something heavy. At first, I thought it might be a shark, which made Quy a little nervous. But there were no tail slaps, and it fought all the way up from 360 feet. Turned out to be a chunky lingcod with a serious belly. Took three tries with the lip gripper to land it.



With a couple spots left, we picked up one more big barber pole before heading in.



Final tally:
•    4 Vermillions
•    2 Coppers
•    6 Barber Poles
•    4 Whitefish
•    4 Green Spotted
•    1 Ling
•    ...plus a few shorts released, for 17 groundfish total.

On the way in, we looked for bonito but only found birds. Still, the trip was a win for Quy—he got to see a gray whale, a pod of dolphins, and a couple of Mola Mola.

We cruised in at 40 mph with the wind at our backs and stopped in the bay for a few more photos.



Fat-bellied ling:



All in all, Quy went home with a pile of fresh fish. We talked a bit about work opportunities, but I hope he remembers the trip first—and maybe something will come of it down the line.

I'm lagging.  I've been working hard to find employment in my sector and all of the open positions are outside SD county or another part of the country.  I did some "networking" with an owner of a small validation company yesterday by taking him out fishing and he caught a ton!  Unfortunately, it didn't end with a job offer.

Oh well, the post is coming up soon. The deepwater "trout-rod" struck again!

10-12 inch perch are friggin nice!  It's been a while since I've been on them at that size.  One thing is for certain, the swell will be up, and the rain will be falling this week.  Probably make some new beach structure and hopefully get the bite to keep picking up.

Bravo boss!

Pail handles always outlast the bucket they came on, so hopefully it lasts the salt water too.

Do you still have to squeeze through a fence to get on that beach or is there access now? It's been 20 years since I've fished it.

Thanks for the report boss. The silver lining in the trip is more than worth it.

That's one nasty looking knee! Holy crap!

Heal up boss! You have fishing to do and a Pontoon to buy Janie!

Koga's keyboard got too sticky from the NAMBL website and all the keyboard keys frozen.

Yeah, I have to deal with bird dude on my lakes also. Friggin idiots dragging the birds over my line all the time.

You need to catch a trout! They're just dumb pool raised trained fish. 

Quote from: jrodda on December 15, 2025, 08:10:52 PMLooks good! I have the similar style and I generally like it.

Here I thought I came up with a new idea from this smaller one I was using the past couple of years... but I just did a search and see that it's only an original idea from my head but not everyone else's.

I don't get to hang out, let alone fish, with my best bud often but we finally found some time to hit the water.  It's been quite a few years since he last got out in the boat and I told him we would definitely get some big bonito, big reds, and potentially a yellow.

We launched at 7:00 and I said we'd be back by 2:00 since he had to work that night for the museum.

There was a little NW bump, but we got to the grounds that I found the bonito last week.  The only issue is the bonito were not showing themselves or the bait.  Basically, there were wolf packs of bonito swimming around and you had to troll and get blind struck. We used small gear trolling so it made for some fun fishing when we hooked up!  Todd had a blast fighting good sized bones!



We lost a few due to the dumb lure I was trolling, but we ended up with our limit.  Well, we got 10 and a few were over the 24" so we could have kept a few more but decided to just look for rockfish.



As we left and started running a big whale breached by us, but it was the weirdest looking thing!  I came up a few more times and we tried getting a picture, but it was not having it.  It had a weird triangular dorsal and was DEFINITELY NOT a Gray or Humpback...  Then we saw a big bulbous head!  Holy crap!  A Sperm Whale!  We tried chasing it around to get a picture but it sunk out and we never saw it again.  Absolutely unreal encounter!

We took the long run now at this point to get to the denizen grounds instead of chasing a whale.

I told him we would get our limit of reds quick, and he was unsure of "How Quick" it would be.  He was fishing at my money rocks afterall!  First 4 drops were reds, albeit not huge ones.  We descended the two small ones and the new descending device worked like a champ.





I moved a couple of times trying to get away from the reds and trying to find some periphery fish and we found the,  Salmon Grouper... Bank Perch... Barber Poles.....



Todd was having a blast fishing with the little gear in 350' of water.  Spotlock is the only thing that makes it possible.





We did manage a few other reds but descended them right away since we were waiting for the BIG one!  Todd thought all of them were huge, but I said we need a few 5 pound plus model to fill that last 2 spots.  I was gambling on bigger models rather than keeping two smaller ones.  Well, the big one's started to bite!





Then I hit bottom and felt a SLAMMING HIT!  I could barely budge it and it fought me every second on the fight up.  I had Todd pull the gaff since I was sure it was a big Lincod or possibly a deepwater sheephead.  At worst, we still had a live vermillion in the tank and we already released 5 by now.

We both went wide eyed and jaw dropped when it came to the surface!  A monster Red!

I was thinking 7-8 pounds for sure!  For Todd, that was the biggest Red he's ever seen anywhere!



We were getting close to needing to go, but Todd wanted a monster red himself!  He kept getting little bites and I get slammed again!  I gave him the rod and said "It's all you boss!"

It was big and heavy and fought the entire way up.  Todd kept saying it felt different, but my mind was set it was a big red or maybe a Lingcod.



But WTF?!?!  I never knew you could catch them this deep!



This is the third trip in a row I got a shark at this spot in the deep water on a jig... on the Penn 2500 spinner!
First one was a 7-gill... second was a Mako... and now a Leopard!  in 350 feet or more!

I didn't take as many pictures that I expected to, but we spent a lot of time catching up and pictures somehow became secondary.  We got back in time for him to rush home to get to work.  We took guesses on how big the Vermillion was, but were both in agreement between 7 and 8 pounds.

I was certain this was my biggest local Vermillion and put it on the scale.  My biggest were definitely from the Channel Islands, but I've never weighed them.  I definitely had some 8 pounds or over, but we just didn't have a scale.  So, this one is the biggest I've ever weighed for certain...

I got him on the scale and WOW!  I have to be honest, I was a little bummed it was only 6.99 pounds.  LOL



Well, that was it.  I had plenty of fish to clean for the Vacuum Sealer and for the Lobster cages.  More trips to be had later this week!

Thanks for reading!