Sodium Therapy (10/8)

[Latimeria]

These days I can never find any alone time....  Between a constant full house... and a wall-less desk at work...   I needed some salt therapy out on the big pond.

My plan was to make the most of the small seas and warm water.  I figured if anything, I would just get plenty of fresh air (but also decided to maybe switch up for rockfish if needed since my last few trips has not put anything in the fridge.)



Water was clean on the outside of the ridge and a little dirty on the inside, but 71.9 degrees all over and it looked like the bay 14 miles out!



It was like a lake out there!  There were long lines of paddies parallel to the coast so you would just hit one, then drive a half a mile to find the next one.


Every paddy was loaded with bait and I even managed to catch a couple of small spanish macks on one of them.



Nothing but bait... I even took GoPro video to look later and I just confirmed that no one was home.



I started trolling because every paddy wasn't holding any bigger game.  This is also the first trip that I never metered a single fish... nothing except bait.... and a mola.



I saw some great fin whale action offshore...



I hit over a dozen paddies west of the ridge and needed to make a change.  Instead of heading further out, I decided to look on the inside of the ridge and found another long line of even BIGGER kelps!  Like big as a cattle boat or bigger!

I plucked some balloons off the water...



Empty Paddy after empty paddy...



I did some micro fish and caught (and snagged) about 5 Blue Perch....





Empty Paddy...



Empty Paddy...



Empty Paddy...



I hit another dozen paddies on the inside for nothing more than some micro blue perch.



I was ready to head in when I came across another paddy and saw a bowtie dorado on it!  I put a mack on, and it grabbed it!  It also ripped it off the hook and bolted.  I didn't see any other sign of bigger life.



I moved on to the next and last paddy of the day.  I saw another bowtie dodo on it and put out my last mack.  It ran over and grabbed it, but plucked it off my hook again!  I'm now out of bait, so I grabbed my bass gear and started casting the yozuri bass plug.  The bowtie dodo hit it again and just fled the scene.

I Just kept casting since I knew I was about done for the day when 4-5 super charged lit up big dodo came rushing from under my boat!  They slammed the lure like 6 or 7 times and hooking up just to lose them on jumps and running right back grab it again!  This time, I saw that I had it hooked good and watched it jump about a dozen times trying to throw the lure!  This thing on bass gear was fun and scary at the same time because I had trolling gear all over the boat!



I missed on a swipe with the gaff and off it went again!  It would not stop jumping and I was very certain that it was going to throw the bait at any moment.  It didn't and I got another chance at it with the gaff!

WOOO!  Biggest of the season!





I didn't take too many pics since it was trying to break everything on the boat, but I thanked Poseidon and made about another 30 casts and called it the day.

I don't know where they came from, but I think they just showed up and I was in the right place at the right time.

Anyway, it was a great morning for my mental health and I actually got to bring back dinner!  I was super thankful for that.

Anyway, enough of a post for a single fish, but it was a hard earned one.

Thanks for reading and until next tide....

[xjchad]

What a great ending to a relaxing day!  Beautiful fish Tom!
I can't imagine what a fun fight that was!

[Tim524]

 Go fishing to relieve stress and get stressed trying to land the fish Glad it panned out for you, I was nervous just reading It was great conditions Saturday and Sunday

[skrilla]

I get the same problem recently with local game using single inline hooks. They don't inhale it like they used to. Switched back to Owner Stingers. Must be a change in the local forage and feeding habits?

[Latimeria]

I get the same problem recently with local game using single inline hooks. They don't inhale it like they used to. Switched back to Owner Stingers. Must be a change in the local forage and feeding habits?

I might switch back also, but I really like the single hooks for kelp situations.

[vdisney]

As always Tom, great read.  Glad you got away and stoked you hung one.........

[Chris]

Those dorado haven't been too tight to the paddies from my experience. They'll be anywhere from 50-100 yards off. Trimming the motor up and doing circles around the area at 8-10mph creating a big wake will get them fired up and jumping behind the boat. From there it's game on.

That's a solid dodo though. Nice way to end the day