Getting Trigger Happy (3/15)

[Latimeria]

Finally saw a rainless day on the weather apps and made the call to Sasquatch to harvest some groceries.  My supply of fish over the winter has dwindled low, so we had to restock especially now when food stores are nuts!

The first thing our the grocery list was rockfish.  I was hopeful to find some macks so I could restock on shark bait, but never saw a single mack where we were.  Instead clouds of red crab!

First drop and I feel something weird pulling back.  The weight went away and I reel up this.  I must have clunked it in the head to have it hit my iron!



It was a slow pick as every rockfish was plugged with red crab. It was hard to get them to bite.



We moved from spot to spot getting a few here and there.  I bledthem and floated them to make sure I had super clean taco meat.



It was hard getting away from the whitefish.



The front was moving in from the west and it looked windy and cold!



I switched up to the 12# bass gear and started tossing a 18 gram iron.  I caught a couple of small calico when I get slammed hard!  This thing kept ripping line back down every time I got some line back.  Thankfully, I got him up.  My first legal ling of the year on the small iron!  Wow!



Not long after and I get slammed again, only this time it was bull dogging me hard all over the place!  It had to be a trigger....  I get it up to see a huge trigger, but it was snapping at me as I tried to boat it by hand.  I decided to keep it and use my new sharp gaff, only to have it bounce off the gaff and into the boat.  I grabbed the pliers to get the hook out when I hear a loud "SNAP", just to see it bit right through my hook!  f@ck that noise!  Steve got a few picks, but I was worried if he would bite through my kill bag or get my boots. 



We played around and got a few more bass before packing it in.  The front hit us and the wind started howling.  Time to go.
The Calm Before the Storm



The groceries...



Almost 6 pounds of angry trigger!  I was trigger happy!



The final product.  Lots of prep and work to get this level of quality from your fish.



Thanks for reading!  Until next tide.... or should I say weather window to fish.  Be safe and remember these COVID precautions are mostly to help others out.  My daughter is very susceptible because of health issues, so I'm being as cautious as I possibly could.

[jrodda]

Looks like a fun day, and that's a toad trigger. What all goes into that prep for the extra clean fillets? I think I'm gonna do some bottom fishing from the yak again Friday and I'm gonna see if I can stock up on meat.

[sasquatch]

Happy to help you fill the freezer.

[1morecast]

Dang, that trigger looked angry! White fish is better than rock fish in my book. Glad to see it was semi-productive day.

[vdisney]

Works for me, nice trip guys..........................

[BenCantrell]

That's awesome that you keep getting those triggers!

What's the rockfish in the grocery pic on the bottom between the treefish and starry?