Juneteenth Exploratory Mission (6/19)

[Latimeria]

Our company gave us off for Juneteenth.  Not used to having a mid-week holiday, but hell, I'm not complaining.  Sasquatch was off in Spain running with the bulls I think.

Water was a little bumpy and I know they are going to close the deepwater rockfish spots in July.  Unfortunately, all of my good spots are deeper than 300'.

I metered around my secret spots and found a new one!  I decided to use the low-profile line counter on the first fish, then my Rainshadow bay gear on the second one.  I dropped down a small jig and saw that my line counter was off a couple of feet from what my line counter was saying.



First drop and the slow steady reel in to see none other than a big red!



I dropped the little bay rod and instantaneously got bit!  Wow, this is really a special area!



I didn't want to have to release any hoping for a Ling or sheep, so I made the long run to find a yellowtail.  Bait was everywhere and making bait was easy.  Both Greenies and Spanish.

I was slow trolling since a few of the boats were doing it and I know what they were targeting.  I use a 5/0 circle hook and pin on a perfect mackerel! 
Then the SCREAMER happened!  Holy crap!  The right kind!  As I'm taking out the rod out of the holder, gone... f@cking Circle Hooks!!!!!!!!

I trolled and trolled for nada.  I then put down the trolling motor and started casting.  Good god, so many little calico bass!





I caught a dozen before I decided to try dropping whole fresh/frozen squid looking for WSB.

The only taker was a Rattler...



The wind started picking up so I moved a little closer to the inlet.  I mixed it up between whole squid drops and casting the plastics.  Fishing was good.





The only issue is I'm spoiled with these big reds.  Now catching little inshore rockfish seems pretty boring, even though it's nice seeing something other than Red.  lol







Then the wind picked up and time to go.  It was fun catching a variety again, but I can't believe I've been so bad at catching the local tails.  I used to be on it all the time, but things are definitely not the same these days out there.



Thanks for reading... I might need to get a few more reds before they close them off in a week and a half from now.

[vdisney]

Nice reds Tom, I gotta venture out of the harbor

[Tim524]

Nice Variety Pack, mid-week is always nice !

[jrodda]

Awesome reds as always. Too bad about the lost bruiser but we have a long summer ahead to make up for that one.

Is the line counter off because of scope maybe? Or was it short? Interesting to keep tabs on your depth that way, I've been using multi color line to keep very general tabs on where my presentation is at.

[Latimeria]

Awesome reds as always. Too bad about the lost bruiser but we have a long summer ahead to make up for that one.

Is the line counter off because of scope maybe? Or was it short? Interesting to keep tabs on your depth that way, I've been using multi color line to keep very general tabs on where my presentation is at.

I'm pretty sure there was a bow in the line.  I tried it again yesterday in 610 feet and it was only a foot off.  I'm trying to test meter marks in the water column to see what some of those "clouds" on the sonar might be.