Bait, Barracuda and Beaked Dolphins, Oh My! (LJ)
An eventful day at LJ. No YT or WSB but a few interesting moments.
Launched at dawn and stayed inshore searching for bait. Impatience got the best of me and I couldnt resist chasing birds offshore. I brought my rockfish set up so I knew Id be able to make the offshore sprint worth it. Got to the diving birds about 2 miles off shore and bait was boiling everywhere. Unfortunately it wasnt YT but a bunch of Barracuda. It was awesome watching the breach while occasionally getting spooked by a pelican crashing after bait 20 ft away.
I decided to have fun with the Cudas and put on what I know is irresistible...a Yo Zuri diving minnow with a rattle. I trolled that around for 3 Cudas with the biggest at 30. All released. I was able to quickly pickup a few nice green backs and continued further offshore to a few rockpiles I had marked.
Then I was amazed by the biggest pod of Dolphins I have ever seen. I got to see some of them charge bait in a line pushing up a ton of water and then what looked like them slapping them with their tail. It felt like planet earth until my fly lined mack made a couple short clicker spurts and then the clicker goes off. I put the reel in gear and WHAT A FREIGHT TRAIN. For a second I thought it was a YT but not even the homeguard I caught in April ran this hard. I even put it the drag on full (28 pounds) and it looked like I was going to get spooled. With the dolphins all around me I just assumed thats what it was and quickly put my thumb on the spool and the line broke. It was 30# mono.
Since I was offshore I put my rockfish set up to use with a couple strips of squid. Released 4 medium size Reds and kept two. Broke my PB for Vermillions at 5.9 pounds. Alot of work in 250 to land those and descend several so I called it a day and started the long trek in.
Once again LJ gives out another amazing day....tight lines.
Launched at dawn and stayed inshore searching for bait. Impatience got the best of me and I couldnt resist chasing birds offshore. I brought my rockfish set up so I knew Id be able to make the offshore sprint worth it. Got to the diving birds about 2 miles off shore and bait was boiling everywhere. Unfortunately it wasnt YT but a bunch of Barracuda. It was awesome watching the breach while occasionally getting spooked by a pelican crashing after bait 20 ft away.
I decided to have fun with the Cudas and put on what I know is irresistible...a Yo Zuri diving minnow with a rattle. I trolled that around for 3 Cudas with the biggest at 30. All released. I was able to quickly pickup a few nice green backs and continued further offshore to a few rockpiles I had marked.
Then I was amazed by the biggest pod of Dolphins I have ever seen. I got to see some of them charge bait in a line pushing up a ton of water and then what looked like them slapping them with their tail. It felt like planet earth until my fly lined mack made a couple short clicker spurts and then the clicker goes off. I put the reel in gear and WHAT A FREIGHT TRAIN. For a second I thought it was a YT but not even the homeguard I caught in April ran this hard. I even put it the drag on full (28 pounds) and it looked like I was going to get spooled. With the dolphins all around me I just assumed thats what it was and quickly put my thumb on the spool and the line broke. It was 30# mono.
Since I was offshore I put my rockfish set up to use with a couple strips of squid. Released 4 medium size Reds and kept two. Broke my PB for Vermillions at 5.9 pounds. Alot of work in 250 to land those and descend several so I called it a day and started the long trek in.
Once again LJ gives out another amazing day....tight lines.