For whatever reason or reasons, the last 2 weeks has been spectacular for bugs (for about everyone) so I needed to get out again.  I took my usual partner in crime out since his lower unit blew up and he's been missing his favorite season of the year.

We hit the spot that I did so well at on Thursday.  It was way ROUGHER out than what the forecast predicted so I'm glad I had a second person to keep an eye out on things.  The sunset was awesome, but the NW winds at 10-15 were not.




I only brought 7 hoops because with the extra person and extra hoops, I leaned more to safety than making sure I had 10 hoops.

The first pull of hoops were strong, but nowhere near what it was last week.



First set and we pulled 60 lobster with only 4 legals.

We had some great strucrure aound so moved the pots around according to what was in the net when we pulled.



The second set was quite a bit better with 70 lobster pulled and 7 legals.



The third set went WAAAAY Low... definitely tide swing/current related.  We only got 24 with 2 legals... one short of limits.

At this point all of the other boats were leaving and the wind kept picking up so we decided to pull the last string right away and take whatever we got and hope we had one more to get our limits.  The tide was getting just about right, but we both had to get back early enough anyway.

First three hoops with a 20-minute soak and a big goose egg.

Next three hoops and we got 18 lobster with 3 legals so two went back and we kept a dandy to finish our limit.



Pulled up the last hoop and WTF???  12 lobster with 7 legals in it.  All of the bugs were roughly the same size so we counted and released before stacking and heading back to the ramp.

As we were heading in, the inlet was lit up like a Christmas tree with all of the hoop lights.  As I was heading back, I noticed bright truck lights in an area that I know usually has tweakers or people getting their high on.  Only issue was these were bright LED lights and not the usual dull yellow headlights of a Hooptie.

We get to the ramp and pull the boat out when a truck comes racing in!  It's the Warden.  We weren't worried since we were legit from head to tail, but the warden seemed a little bit on edge.  He made a THOROUGH inspection of all of the hatches and measure all of the bugs as well as checking that our licenses were filled out and we had our Go ID on all of our buoys...  I mean the full 9 yards.

After he was satisfied that we were on the up and up, he relaxed and thanked us for having everything in order.  He said we were the first boat tonight he didn't have to write a ticket to and there was a lot of "Funny Business" going on tonight to which gave credence to why he was on edge when he rolled up on us.

Well, it was good to know he was out there, and we headed back home 30 minutes later than we expected due to this inspection.

In any case, another limit of bugs!  I barely ever go back-to-back with limits, let alone my first two trips of the year so I am a happy boy!



Attack of the Kaiju pic.



Well, time to take a lobster break.  My body is killing me after having two trips in a week.

Thanks for reading!

Interesting!

You and I have seen those guys a bunch of times while waiting to shark fish.
That was a cool read.

If you've seen these guys on the beach, here's what's going on.
https://today.ucsd.edu/story/california-beach-widths-show-resilience

Quote from: Dark_Knight_9C1 on November 18, 2025, 06:00:51 PMThe Real One... make it so!

I've been trying.  Steve and
I used to hit the lakes pretty hard looking for the "One".  I've seen him in Jennings, but the damn thing sat there like a log and never took the bait.

The job hunt continues and so does the fishing.

I thought I was at least going to limit on Cats if not catch a trout or two.  Turns out that only one small stocker was going to be my only catch in 4 hours of fishing.



The white pelican's and cormorants were on the hunt and making the trout scatter and swim for their lives so getting them to take a lure or bait was near impossible.

I tried 4 different spots and only one had the one bite.  I did hear a few noisy ass ospreys above me and they were so concerned with each other, they didn't care about me.



That was it.  Tomorrow is a new day!

Those would be some Big Blued at 22 to 24 lbs!
The Real One... make it so!

That's amazing...
One and done. Can't get much simpler than that.

I needed some exercise and walked around 5 of the lakes this morning before getting back on the job hunt.

The water levels were easily up a foot and every lake was muddy or green at this point.

I didn't see a single fish in any of the shorelines.  When I got to lake 2, there were about 40 people fishing and nothing on their stringers.

I finished my walk back to the truck and as I was passing the last 20 feet of shoreline, there he was.  a decent triploid rainbow just cruising about 20 feet out.  I cast the spinner fly out and he dipped out of sight... until the line went tight and I was on! 

Not a bad stocker bow at all and probably the average sized trout for these lakes this year.



That was it.  I walked to my truck and headed home to resume my job hunt.  I might come back this afternoon, but will probably just wait until tomorrow and give it a good soak while I get soaked.

Quote from: jrodda on November 15, 2025, 09:16:32 PMSounds like a lot of fun! Still haven't gotten a blue cat and those look nice and healthy.

The big blues should be on the chew now that the trout stockings have started.  My biggest is only 22-24#.  I'd love to see a 'Real One".