Quote from: Latimeria on May 01, 2026, 07:12:48 AMI'm not sure I ever want to fish up in the OC now.  lol

Good counts on the balloon bellies and let us know how you cook them (Flour, egg, and then bread crumb... Corn Meal... or Beer Batter?)

I don't have the mental fortitude to fish sport boats these days.  I'm not saying anything besides my mental state goes downhill pretty quick.  I don't mind charters where I know everyone but my days of deckhanding are over.  lol

Thanks Jeremy for the post.  I'm being tortured here at work by a bridge troll and just looking to get past my probationary period.  I also have to figure out how to fix my console.  I'll write about that later....

Yeah, I'd stick with SD too if I were you...

I told myself no more cattle boats after an overnighter from 2020 (link below for that story...) but this specific mission and it being basically free was enough to put me over and try. I also knew that I liked the captain, and weekday fishing helps some. Highly conditional...I still don't know that I would pay full price for a cattle boat trip unless it were a good charter like you said, and even then...

Yes, beer batter will be the way. I will try to remember to take pics of the fish fry!


Why I took a long break from cattle boats: https://www.prehistoricsoulforum.com/index.php?topic=3960.msg30378#msg30378

Looks like a great trip even though the trout didn't fully commit. Those ribs in particular are making me hungry right now.

My sister is coming down this weekend and wants to try a local fish 'n chips joint while she's here. I thought for a good long while about where to take her, and realized the best beer battered fish I've had was my own. Which meant I needed to catch something worth beer battering. Really only the best for my sister...so I had to catch some paisans.

I knew I had a hookup somewhere somehow through work to catch some rockfish. I ended up getting hooked up with a trip on the Freelance out of Davey's Locker.

The counts were kind of mediocre but I know where they fish so I figured with the conditions, I could fight for a limit even if the rental rods struggle.

So I hopped aboard and ingratiated myself with the captain whom I've fished with before on another work trip. I told him my mission and he says I'm on the right boat. Simple plan, but other boats already started heading to Catalina to struggle and scout, which I wanted nothing to do with. The Freelance has had 50+ people on board for weekday trips recently so I was fearing the worst, but it ended up being a very reasonable load of about 30, which honestly looked to me like 20. 80' boat helps I suppose.

Weather was great. High tide at 0900 and low at 1500. Warm, no wind til noon.



First stop was tough. Managed a honeycomb rockfish that I threw back. There was comb jelly in the water, aggregating on the line. I thought it was just another gelatinous bullsh!t until I tried taking it off and it stung me, irritation like fiberglass or nettle. Went away after 20 minutes but sometimes the line would just randomly fling it onto my arms in droplets and it would irritate my skin for the next while. Not great!

Second stop next to an oil rig, got my first paisan of the day. Looked up at the pilot house and I saw this seagull aura farming.



Next few stops I started putting together my bag of strictly bocaccio. They do love the fluke more than any other rockfish, though I'm a bit surprised I didn't get any reds or sculpin. The boat started really loading up on barely legal sculpin, and I completely f@cking ignored that bite and stuck to my task.

The bite petered out and I had somewhere around 8-10 paisans in the bag. Then we started shallower for whitefish. The whitefish didn't really wanna play. I got 3, only 1 being barely worth keeping.

I ended with an overall count like 10 bocaccio, 3 whitefish, 1 sculpin, 1 honeycomb. The last 2 hours were pretty much dead.

I was mentally prepared to catch 300 bocaccio for the boat, so I neglected the in-hand pics. Here's what little proof I had that I caught fish:



I had an excellent time. Being solo, I ended up befriending a family of dad + 2 early 20s boys that were total newbs, but very friendly and open minded. I nicknamed them the Bandaid Brigade. First the youngest gets stung by a sculpin, not terribly but needed treatment and continued fishing. Then the dad hooked himself past the barb. Then the oldest gets stung by a sculpin near the fish bags, only lightly. Completely ridiculous. But they held tough!


Solid crew, relaxed day, no thorns in my side (I only ended up in 1 tangle!), sister will be fed fish n' chips this weekend. Nice Wednesday f@cking off from work.

Forgot to add, there was a juvenile grebe swimming around me at one point, then it chased a tiny smelt along the surface right at me, between the pontoons, between my legs and under my seat. It was a hell of a squeeze for it to go through my legs but it somehow did it without touching me and slipped right through to the other side.

I had a paranoia for the longest time about sea lions and float tubes, never would I have dreamt that my crotch would become an ambush point for the diving birds.

Launched 0630. Misting on me when I got out of the car. Not 10 minutes to set up this first time, nice change from the kaboat. Also brought a new (refurbished) combo, Calcutta 100b and a GCX inshore (absolute noodle).



Walked the boat about 100 yards to the beach, put on my neoprene socks and fins, shoved off. Easy!

10 minutes in and I get my first bite, missed. 0fer1. I see Jake and Omar+brother launching.

Jake gets first skunk off. I split to the opposite side of the channel of them. Went 0/4 on bites pretty quick with a 5" fluke before shifting way down in size to a 2" fluke/minnow dropshot. A couple more missed bites and I was properly aggravated as everyone but me had broken the skunk.

Finally I popped a dink spotty, lifted it out of the water next to me and it shook off. I count it! One cast later and all three of the other guys are hooked up and asking why I'm not hooked up. I love fishing with friends! I got one to the boat a couple minutes later, similar dink size.



Everyone starts piling and I fall behind on the numbers quick. Then a pancake decides to entertain me.



At this point it's something like my 3 to Jake's 8 to Omar's 6, then the bite dies down. I decide to wander off a different direction than them, either find my own fish or at least separate myself from the competitive voice in my head for a bit.

Popped one on my own, then decided I had hit the apex of the route and I needed to fight the wind back. Made my way over to docks out of the wind and started getting short bites.

Took a while, but once I started getting close to my landing spot, I got slammed while reeling up my fluke to cast again and it took me for some drag pulls and good dogging. Turned out to be a 16" turd roller. Not a bad sandie and certainly an excellent harbor fish.



Only a few docks from my landing spot and I get slammed again, calling it a last cast fish. I was totally dry all day until this cranky spotty pushed a ton of water with its tail into my crotch.



Landed around 1130.

Jake ended up with 18, Omar with 12, Omar's brother with 10, me with 6. I would have called 6 a successful day on my own but their numbers have me quite salty. But, I'll bring some 3" and 4" flukes next time, finally get my side compartments in the mail for the tube, dial in my tackle trays, and I'll be primed to make someone else salty next time.

The tube was dry, turned well (made a good choice on my fins), didn't get blown around (although the wind wasn't as bad as expected), slow but probably a hair faster than conventional tubes. I realize the main action of my leg muscles is basically a forward kick, so when I go to the gym I should do slow, high intensity bike exercises with my feet strapped in, and pull up on the pedals more than push down to increase endurance. 1.5 miles today has me sore.

The bench is like an inflatable SUP, 7 PSI. Very solid, barely bends with me on it.

No name yet other than Cool New Slash due to Mr. Scadden's insistence, but that will fade. I suppose something feline-like since it's my first of many cats to come.

Ordered the Slash float tube from Dave Scadden Paddlesports last Sunday. Put in the order and the website said I would get my email confirmation shortly. I never did.

It's a small business, so Monday I had the option to call or text customer service, so I texted while at work.



Waited through the week, was excited to try it out on the weekend. Nothing through Friday so texted Friday. I started to get the sense that I am texting Dave Scadden and he is on a backpacking trip.



Nothing Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Jared let me borrow a tube to fish Sunday, but as I inflated it to start the session, I found a large pin hole. So I turned right back and went home.

Monday (today) it arrives after work!



It's a hair bigger than expected, and my storage solution for this is still unclear. Alicia is currently super pleased that it's inflated in the living room for the night to check for leaks.

I'm mostly going to fish harbors with it, but I will certainly use it in freshwater in the Sierras, maybe small SD lakes, and I'm thinking about surf launching to fish a couple bits of structure within a few hundred yards of the beach. I decided to splurge on this since I realized my next real boat is ~2 years out and surfperch have purportedly gone extinct.

And of course it's 10+mph winds every chance I would have to fish for the next 10 days, when we just had nearly 2 months of immaculate weather. So we will see when it gets its maiden voyage.

Some big speckled rockfish at the 14 as well. That's a real nice whitefish. Glad you're able to decompress!

Micromanaging sucks!

So I was fishing from an NRS Gig Bob, 8'4 by 6'6, 44lb frameless pontoon. To call it a float tube is quite a stretch but my only propulsion was my feet so it's the same experience. I had a ton of trouble turning, could have been the size, could have been the dive fins I had. I liked being high and dry, I was only wet up to mid-calf and wore normal shorts for the day.

I'm probably going to try a co-worker's Cumberland U-shaped float tube real soon and compare experiences. I will have my bum in a couple inches of water for that. My thing about that is it will eventually necessitate another pair of waders that I have to buy and I'm extremely tight on space, barely enough room for a float tube purchase.

After researching a ton yesterday, the perfect fit for me might be the Dave Scadden Slash, which is a tiny pontoon type, 6'x4' and 18lbs, sits real high, 500lb capacity. But at $600 on sale right now and $900 normally, might be tough to justify. If it's my primary fishing style for the next year or two then maybe. Probably will become more of an annual thing once I get another boat. Or if I don't mind being a little wetter, I might try the 350lb capacity GoPlus on Amazon for $120, which might still keep me dryer than other tubes.


And I did get a good burn on my knees! Couple applications of Aloe Vera and I'm doing okay.

Dave was poring over information on halibut after the trip and brought it to my attention that California Halibut are not "true" halibut. I had to double check, and it appears true.

These fish are distinguished by their massive size (often exceeding 400 pounds), a distinct diamond-shaped body (rather than round), and forked or concave tails. They are almost exclusively "right-eyed," meaning that as they mature, their eyes migrate to the right side of their head.

Which leaves only the Atlantic Halibut and Pacific Halibut, in their own genus of Hippoglossus.

Every now and then it bugged me that people would say they target flounder in SoCal and now I see that I was foolish to feel at odds with their naming of things. Foolish!

Does a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Does a butt by any other name smell as stinky?

It's back!!!!!!!!! Ordered 2000m of 30# rainbow 8 strand for $55. I got a Tekota 800PGA that apparently fits 1200 yards of 50, so I'm gonna see how much 30 it will fit for mind numbingly deep deep-drops.

I've been getting bugged by everyone at work to try float tubing. I've told them that I'm afraid of sea lions, sea lions killed my family, and I don't like sea lions. Really, I was probably putting it off because if I like it then that means I need to buy more sh!t. Finally I said yes.

It was supposed to be myself along with 4 other guys, but that plan seemed to disintegrate in the atmosphere, just as Artemis II did not! Just me and Dave. I borrowed Dave's inflatable pontoon and flippers, and he was on his Hobie yak.

I arrived around 0700. Having grabbed the pontoon off Dave the day before, I inflated it and prepped. Realized I forgot sunscreen...



Dave showed up around 0745 and we launched into Newport by 0800 or so.

I started with a fluke on a swing head. Dave said something about some kind of JDM soft plastic. He was on 'em quick and went 3 for 4 in the first hour. I was still trying to figure out how to turn at that point.

It took at least 2 hours before I got my first bite. Felt nice and it stole my fluke(!). Put a fresh one on and on the next mooring I nailed my first fish in what feels like 10 trips.



We were at the apex of our trip and finally the bite turned on a bit for me. I ended up getting 3 spotties and this ~16" halibut in 30 minutes or so.



Dave wanted in so I gave him the same lure. 5 minutes later, he gets hooks up. "Oh it's just weeds...[zzZZZZZzzz]!!!"

Ended up being his first legal halibut at about 26". He was about to gill it and keep it for dinner when...it made good on its name. It floundered, as it never floundered before, out of the yak, and slipped away...burgers it is.



Finished a little after 1100 I believe...what started as yet another cursed trip turned into something much more memorable!

I am, of course, researching float tubes now.

My predictions have been wrong every year for the past 5 years so I give up. Maybe I should stop predicting black marlin.

I don't remember a Spring this warm, full stop. Which makes me think this could be a ridiculously warm year.

Or it flips, we have a cold May, temps settle back to normal, and we forget all this ever happened. I feel like something like that happened last year or so. Warm spring, then water temps dropped below 60 at the end of June.

A yellow from the jetty would be nice though! Even just some consistent bonito would be great.

Boat looks great, so does the mustache!

Didn't know there was a boat show in Anaheim this weekend...that could be fun!