I Smell A Rat (7/13)

[Latimeria]

Plan was to get Andrew out for some yellowtail, White Sea Bass, or Halibut since he's never caught any of them before.  The topper was to watch some great whites and I even brought some big bonito heads to make them show up.

We didn't see a whole lot going on, but there was a crapload of boats in LJ. We decided to find our own fish away from the crowds.

There was some weird bites we were getting, but tough to hook.  I had one coming up about halfway but fell off and thinking it was a sand dab or something.  We kept getting these weird bites when I rigged Andrew with a smaller rig to get him a new species as he's never caught a dab before.  There wasn't any fight to it at all and we had a new species is on board!  I've always heard about the ratfish from Dave and always looked/hoped for them.  Now I have an area where they are caught and will actually target them once in a while!



Weird and really slippery with some f@cked up dentition!



That was a really awesome catch and made the entire day no matter what happened at this point. Unfortunately, we kept getting weird bites and they were falling off on the way up, so we moved a little to pinpoint another spot for rockfish.

Well after the short move, we found some shallow water rockfish, and some good ones!





I'm actually a little stoked as it's been a long time since I got a Salmon Grouper (Kogaccio).



Well, we got our limits and decided it was time to look for Bigger Game.  LJ was just packed with boats, so I took the long run up north to look for bait and birds.  Plenty of mackerel.  No Great Whites... No WSB...  No Yellows... No Halibut...  Time to move to capitalize on the remaining time and get some fish in the boat.

We ran back down to some local reefs and spot locked the hell out of the reefs.  We made multiple moves and catching along the way.  I didn't get the pictures of all the fish, but it was Gophers, Browns, Treefish, Honeycomb, Whitefish, Sculpin, and Butterlips of all things.









Much bigger model!





Then we turned out attention to looking for bass and halibut.  No Calico, but plenty of San Bass!







I dropped down a giant mack on a big ball sinker hoping for a big butt when the rod doubled over and started dancing!  I was pretty sure I had myself a legal butt!  I even said to Andrew to get the little gaff ready in case.   Nope... Not a butt, but a big bass!  Greedy 5# bass inhaled an almost 2# mack!



At this point, Andrew wanted to drop a mack also, so started to DD it.  Rookie mistake though and he didn't watch the bait rod until 30 yards wound into my trolling motor.  Damn...  I had my fingers crossed the 65# didn't get through the shaft seal and it was locked in the braid. 
Funny thing, We went to drift the old school way to fish small areas and that way SUCKS!  How the hell did I ever do it in the past?  Unfortunately I'm spoiled now though, but we called it the day with quite a few fish and new species to boot!

Tine little 14" red would have stoked me out prior to owning the Spot Lock, but now look like a munchkin to a 4.65# red.



20 yards off and 10 to go.  Thankfully the line only went in one wrap on the shaft and after I cut it all out, it seemed to be in working shape.  Time will tell on its next trip out.



Also bought a new pump for the hydraulic steering as my current pump is trashed and I'm turning the steeing wheel nonstop for 8 hours.

Thanks for reading!

[jrodda]

Congrats on the ratfish! Duly noted about their bite. I've been told of a few potential spots for them locally (from a shaky source). Great variety day overall.

[Tim524]

 The light rod is Full Bendo ! Looks like fun, the Ratfish is cool too !!