Plan-C (7/30)

[Latimeria]

We were supposed to run out to S Cat looking for Bluefin on Sunday, but after a few days of living in a nuclear aftermath, I didn't have the mental health to put in a long day and get up early for work.  Instead we opted to look for stuff locally.

We got to the 9-mile at gray light and was metering some nice fish!  We soaked sardines and then ran some madmacs, but couldn't get anything to go.  We were going to start heading out to the butterfly, when Shaun's son saw a paddy and we stopped at it. He goes, "look at that Mahi!"  Holy smokes!  This wasn't a necktie but a 20-30 pound fish!  It never looked at anything we offered and swam off not to be seen again.

We started moving to another paddy we saw in the gyros, but I saw a whopper paddy off to the north so we switched directions.  Got there to see 3-5 20-25 pound class dodo under it!  WOW!



My bait got it interested and then Shaun cast and as the dine hit the water the big bull slams it!  What an explosion!  Unfortunately, it didn't stay on for long but they kept swimming under the paddy. We tried every trick in the book, but couldn't get them to turn on.  We also didn't want to leave them thinking we could outsmart them, but they got the best of us.   

Then the wind kicked up... HOLY SHNIKEYS!  Plan B.  It was so bad, we were thinking about just packing it up and we're in a 24.6 Scout!  Instead we trolled around the border getting our asses handed to us looking for those marks again.  We were about to call it quits when the wind just suddenly died down... just as the tide was leveling out.

We decided to go to Plan C and deep drop for some cod. We found a GREAT rock that was loaded!  2# weights and a little back trolling made for the 500' descent in fairly quick times.  It was the reeling up that took a while!  My arms were whooped!

Lots of big Green Blotched



Some Green Striped



Big Dabs meant we needed to find the rocks again



Some nice Canaries!



Some tubby Mexicans!



We got out limits in no time!



We got back at the ramp by 3:00 and it was actually nice to be home before dinner.  It helped my head a bunch, until I got home to find more hurt that we're still dealing with.

Thanks for reading as always.  Hopefully the Sea of Cortez can fix what ails me.

[vdisney]

I've said it before, but I'll say it again Tom.  My fingers and toes are crossed that things settle down for you.  Nice batch of fish

[jrodda]

Wishing you the best Tom. Wouldnt be surprised if some more of that gnarly wind chop would give you the CTE to forget everything.

Those big mahi observations are juicy.

[Chris]

I can't wait for the mahi to fill in. Saw some larger models Sunday and it gave me hope. Multiple reports of 20-30lb fish under kelp is exciting.

I think we all had the same idea Sunday and all had the same outcome. Although you put meat in the bag

[Tim524]

Nice rock fish, the Mexican has deep dark colors

[KogaHead]

Rockfish in August just seems so wrong.