Friend from Michigan visit, long report.

[BenCantrell]

Last "weekend" (Wed night to Mon morning, so quite a bit longer than a weekend) my friend Josh visited from Michigan.  He's into catching new species as well, so we did a little bit of everything to help him up his lifelist count.

Wednesday 3/7/18

While I waited for Josh's flight to arrive I fished the rocks on Harbor Island.  It looked like it was going to be a skunk session, but right before I had to pack up I hooked my first barracuda from shore!



Thursday 3/8/18

I worked a half day, and in the afternoon we met up with Binh to fish the New Seaforth PM.  Josh did really well catching a bunch of different rockfish, including a squarespot that is still eluding me.  He also caught two longfin sanddabs, another species I haven't caught.  As far as bringing taco meat home, all three of us did ok, but the fish didn't have very good size to them.



Greenstriped rockfish.



Vermilion rockfish.



Halfbanded rockfish.



Josh's squarespot and Binh and I looking like brothers.



Not pictured: calico rockfish, honeycomb rockfish, longfin sanddab.  Before we drove home we threw megabaits from the rocks for a bit hoping for mackerel, but we didn't get any bites.



Friday 3/9/18

After another half day of work on Friday we headed downtown to pump ghost shrimp.  A guy I knew from Instagram was in town and wanted to see some fish, so we invited him to tag along.  Three people makes pumping shrimp go quickly.



Josh and I had plans to kayak, so we pointed our friend Christian to a good shore spot to fish, and we paddled out into SD Bay.  I had one good hookup trolling, but it came off as I was pulling the rod out of the rod holder.



Out in the bay we soaked ghost shrimp and mussels, but lizardfish were the only thing biting.



When we were about 2 hrs from high tide we went back to the bonefish spot so Josh and Christian could fish from shore.  I've caught enough bonefish this year, so I paddled around to see if I could finally get my corvina.  My first lap around netting me 2 mackerel, which I dropped off with the guys in case they wanted to fish for stingrays.  As I was paddling away for lap two I saw Christian catch his first bonefish.

I used my fish finder to stay around 6-8 ft of water where the eelgrass beds transition to the open channel.  I was paddling along at a pretty good clip when all of the sudden BAM, I felt a hit and quickly grabbed the rod to keep pressure on the fish as I stopped paddling.  It was definitely not a mackerel!

Shortfin corvina (species #497).







I knew I was going to take a while taking photos, so I made the decision as soon as I landed the fish to keep it.  I'm glad I did so, because my grippers pretty quickly tore a hole in the bottom of his mouth.  Dave, one of my kayaking friends, happened to be out fishing as well, so I paddled over to him so he could take a photo of me holding the fish.



Dave was catching the ever present dink spotties.



I paddled back to the bonefish spot to find that Christian had taken off, and Josh was in his kayak in the middle of the channel with a big grin on his face.  He said he had just released his lifer smoothhound and a decent barred sand bass.  Normally I would have been jealous of his smoothhound, but I was on cloud 9 from the corvina so it didn't bother me one bit!

Saturday 3/10/18

Our endurance fishing event continued the next morning when we met up with Eli to fish offshore for deep water species.  We rented a boat, and as usual Eli was our captain for the day.



We followed La Jolla Canyon out, starting with the deepest drop first and then working our way back in.  Our targets were whatever is legal at any depth, which is only a few species of flatfish and I assume species that aren't mentioned in the regulations (weird deep water stuff).  Unfortunately, we didn't get a single bite until we came back in close to the 360 ft mark where rockfishing becomes legal.

I did set a PR for deepest I've touched bottom, 1415 ft.  It was a really calm morning so we were able to use 28 oz torpedo sinkers without any line bow issues.







On the way back to legal rockfishing depths we saw a huge school of dolphins, easily several hundred.  I should have taken a video because photos couldn't do the spectacle justice since at any given moment most of the dolphins are underwater.



Rockfishing wasn't very productive, so we ended the day by fishing the 90-115 ft depth range, looking for anything resembling structure on the fish finder.  Josh and Eli fished dropper loop style rigs, and I used a Megabait tipped with mackerel.  The fish were going nuts over it, and I never switched lures to see if the color or shape/style mattered.

Super colorful scorpionfish





16 inch mackerel.



Whitefish.



27 1/2 inch halibut.







Eli one upped me by catching the last fish of the day, a 35 1/4 inch halibut.  Pics of him holding the fish are on his camera.



Sunday 3/11/18

We ran the San Diego Half Marathon.  Josh talked me into it, and I hope to God that I never do one again. 

Photos if you need proof:
https://www.marathonfoto.com/Proofs?PIN=054332&LastName=CANTRELL

Sunday 3/12/18

Josh toured downtown, the zoo, and Balboa Park during the day, and at night we met up with Tom for some surf fishing.

http://prehistoricsoul.com/forum/index.php?topic=2904.0

52 inch soupfin.  Thanks Tom for the photo.



81 inch sevengill (species #498).  Thanks Josh for the photo.



And that's all!

[BenCantrell]

Also, Josh wrote up a nice report on his blog.

http://lifelistfishing.com/san-diego/

[Pinoyfisher]

That's some marathom fishing! Used to do a lot of those pre-wife and kinds.

[vdisney]

That's some marathom fishing!

I'm jealous 

[1morecast]

I'm need a nap just reading all of that. 

[Latimeria]

I'm need a nap just reading all of that. 

The good thing is he puts up a lot of great pictures, so it never drags on without coming across some great fish porn. 

Great report Ben!