8/23 La Jolla AM

[skrilla]

Feels like summer, finally!

Fish alongside a couple first time LJ kayakers. Couldn't have asked for better conditions to pop the LJ cherry. Grease calm, flat surf, crystal clear water, 75° SST felt like a jacuzzi honestly I pushed for a how to reboard your kayak tutorial as an excuse to jump in.

Easy paddle to the bait grounds. Clouds of spanish mackerel spread out and moving around. Hard to find greenbacks but did manage a couple. Micro bonito making a mess out of everyone's sabiki.

Started dragging our offerings making our way around the corner. Anything worth metering was in the bottom half of the screen. Ran into schools of calico still in spawning colors. Not just 1 or 2 but an overwhelming majority. That's good news for that fishery I'll take it.

Cloud cover burned off quick. Wind was but a whisper. Lots of stuff on the meter but moving fast. Bigger grade of bonito west of the kelp. Had lots of fun on those on the bass rods. They hit anything with chrome and sharp hooks.

Fair amount of traffic with shared results. Heard of one radio fish soon after my first swing and miss. 0-1 for the day and puts me into double digits for the summer. 

More moving, more metering, more bycatch. Filled up on taco meat before dragging our last few baits back in. Chatted with another guy going out as we were heading in. In 40ft of water he notices my rod get twitchy. I give it a count down and go into gear, swing and a miss. Back into freespool it goes and get picked up again. Go for the connect and boom... 0-3 for the day. Reeled up my bait and not exactly convinced. Had the mash marks but also pin holes. Maybe a toothy critter went for the scraps?

Hard to he bummed after such a beatiful day and getting a couple others hooked on LJ. One of them had a swing and miss as well so sharing the laughs later on made for a bitter sweet end to the session.

77° SST back at the launch. Didn't wear a shirt all day until I had to swing by Costco. Smoked tri tip for dinner. 130° internal temp then reverse seared. 

[sasquatch]

 Damn Len. Bad case of the O-fers.

Like my tri tip at 125.

Usually sear it first then get it to temp on the gas
grill.

Sisters special marinade. Box Sangria and citrus off the trees in the yard.

[skrilla]

I'll tell ya what... all these mossbacks evading me is helping improve my pitmaster skills. And since you mentioned it gonna pair the next one with a sangria. Sounds like a good way to end the day.

[Latimeria]

That sounds like a front runner for a 2020 plaque if you keep this up! 

Minus the missing mossbacks, that didn't sound like a bad day.  How big roughly were the bonito?  I could really use some bonito for shark bait soon.  I might have to skip the yellow hunt and concentrate on catching some bait here soon.

(I could almost see Sasquatch's eyes light up when you said smoked tri-tip...)

[skrilla]

The bigger models outside were in the 2-4lb range. They were chasing tiny flyers out of the water at times that's how I was able to find them.