Shakedown Trip and Abbreviations (5/18)

[Latimeria]

After the skunk fiasco in the morning, I realized it was going to be a late start.  Still got down at a reasonable time and found a busy SS ramp and a lot of trailers in the lot.

PB was looking great and got word from my buddy that a guy who rented his boat got a 50# WSB in PL.  I rarely go south, but wanted to see what I can see.  The only thing I wasn't going to fish for today was rockfish.  I wanted YT, WSB, Hali, or bass.  I made plenty of perfect sized bait in PB and headed to LJ.  Muddy waters... Red Tide....  Diarrhea....

I couldn't find any clean water so decided to run up the coast a bit to TP or DM and get away from the LJ flotilla.

Stopped at some locals spots on the way up to DM and caught a handful of bass along the way.



Sun finally burst through and the AF was conducting some low level chopper fly byes!



Ran up to DM reef and found a good number of TR's.



I did hook two halibut while drifting macks.  Both felt like I got hung up on reef and I just slowly cranked in hoping the hook would sink in.  I got one legal up next to the boat, but it was a 26" fish on 60#.  Unfortunately it was just a hitch hiker and opened it's mouth and just swam off.



Next one I thought was a bite, but felt like I was hung up.  I started pulling and it came free.  I reel up my mack looking like it was shredded with deep teeth marks on both sides of the bait!  Damn it!

Oh well.  I kept releasing a slow pick of bass before heading back to the barn. All the water that was clean was quickly starting to change to a TJ toilet bowl on a Saturday night.





So I took one back for dinner since he had a hook in his belly, but the boat ran great and it just felt good squeezing the last of the Covid out of me into the fresh air.

Thanks for reading and until the next Red Tide!

[jrodda]

Good to see you out on the boat. Interesting to hear you go south to PL/PB, nobody really talks about them. Loma makes sense, PB looks a lot more barren on maps though.

Glad you did better than I did today. That water looks nasty.

[vdisney]

Glad you got out Tom, and stoked you're feeling better.  Our boat is sitting out front, gonna give it a go today for the first time since surgery.  Hope I can get out of it