Natural Lefty
08-20-2009, 12:45 PM
Well, first the plan was Taiwan, then Delaware, then Oregon, then the Lassen area, then Morro Bay. Finally, my vacation fishing trip was downgraded to a 2 hour drive from Moreno Valley to San Diego to fish Shelter Island Pier. We needed to pick a convenient fishing spot where chairs and such could be used, because my wife's back was hurting her from all of the physical work she has been doing. My wife said she likes Shelter Island, so after lunch, we were on our way. She will go to Taiwan next week for probably 3 months, so she gets to decide.
We got to Shelter Island around 2:30 which was low tide. Eunice wanted to stop just in front of the store "because it is shady." That turned out to be a good choice, but mainly for me.
At first, I put leftover mussels from Oceanside on a high/low setup on my "heavy pole' which has 10 pound line, the heaviest line I have. Every time, after a minute of so, I would check the bait, and it would be missing. Someting very stealthy was biting. Thus, I set up two other poles with Sabiki rigs, one with really small, size 18 hooks, and another with about size 12 hooks, figuring we would have a better chance of catching something that way. There were about 20-30 other people on the pier while we were there, including a few comings and goings, almost all on the end of the pier, where pierfishers usually automatically seem to go, assuming the best fishing will be there. There was no sign that any fish had been caught, though.
At my spot in the shade of the store, I soon caught a little 6 inch Kelp Bass (quickly released) after switching to a Sabiki Rig with mussels, so I knew this technique was a winner, relatively speaking. Meanwhile, my wife was sitting in her purple fishing chair, reading her Chinese magazine and hoping something would hook itself on her line. By about 3:30, the tide was coming in, so that every time I lifted the Sabiki Rig to jig it, the whole kit-and-kaboodle headed farther under the pier. Good Idea, I thought. I started getting some consistent rat-a-tat-tat bites well under the pier, so I just tossed my line under the pier, and soon had a really strong puller on the line. It turned out to be a good sized Opaleye, the first one I have caught there in about 6 or 7 trips. People in the area kept asking me what it was, so they were unfamilliar with Opaleye. After the first Opaleye, I stopped getting bites for awhile, but then they started again, and I caught another Opaleye which was similar to the first, but slightly larger. Those Opaleyes can really pull. I had to put my Shakespeare Agility pole down below the cement to keep from having my line sawed off as they made various runs. Both Opaleye were caught with the tiny size 18 Sabiki hooks on mussel, and both were kept for another Opaleye meal, as my Opaleye catching success of recent trips has continued. I suspect the bait stealers in the beginning were also Opaleyes, but the hooks on that line were too big to hook them.
After the second Opaleye, things sort of slowed down, but I did get some light bites. I know my wife was, too, but she was too ensconced in her chair to respond to them. Eventually, I noticed the line with the high/low rig, which I had baited with Squid and cast out about 50 feet upcurrent, has become slack and was getting slacker, as though something had grabbed the bait and taken off in my direction with it. I grabbed that pole and reeled in, but as I did so, the critter continued moving straight toward me. Finally, I caught up with it straight down from where I was. I set the hook and felt something fairly heavy, but it did not swim like a fish. I pulled it up, and saw it was a pretty good sized Octopus (over 1 pound I estimate) hooked in one of its arms by the lower hook. I got it up over the rail and onto the pier, then it fell off the hook. It was crawling around while I and several interested bystanders tried to get it into my cooler. Whenever I grabbed its arms, it just held on tight to the pier, so finally, I grabbed it by its entire head, which seemed to disable it and loosen its grip. I have caught or seen caught several Octopus before, but handling them always is an adventure. I have the impression that they could give a person a nasty bite with whatever that is they chew their food with, but they are probably pretty harmless in actuality. This was a Two-Spot Octopus, I believe the name is, which seems to be the common type in Socal, or maybe it's called a Bluespot Octopus. It had two beautiful blue spots on its head. As long as it wasn't a Blue-Ringed Octopus (the deadly kind from Australia) it's cool with me. By the way, I have studied the regs, and it is legal to catch and keep Octopus caught by hook and line (or by hand), although it seems a bit strange. Some of the other Caucasoid people there were saying stuff such as "you can't eat those, can you?" Haven't they ever seen Octopus for sale in the market?
Well, after that, the only excitement was when I hooked a fish, got snagged, thinking it was a good one, gave it slack, got it unsnagged, then reeled in the line thinking I had lost the fish. But when I got the line in, there was a little 4-inch California Scorpionfish on the bottom hook of the Sabiki Rig -- another critter to be careful of. Fortunately it was just hooked in one corner of its mouth, so I held it over the water, shook the hook, and the little critter fell back into the water. Both Opaleyes were hooked on the bottom hook or two of the little Sabiki Rig, by the way.
Around 6 p.m., my wife started complaining about her back, so we ended up leaving around 6:30. Aside from us, about 20-30 other fisherpeople caught an estimated 10 or so Mackerel and an undersized Bass or two, so my use of the Sabiki with mussel rig fished under the pier paid off. I find it is usually better to be resourceful and do something different from other fisherpeople.
People-wise, Shelter Island is an interesting place. When we first came, there was an old man sitting at one of the tables with his fishing equipment. Then, he got up, went to the railing, and pushed it as though he was testing its strength -- strange indeed. Next, he went to the nearby trashcan and looked inside. I guess he was dumpster diving. After that, he went fishing at one corner of the pier. I suspect he might have lost some of his marbles, somewhere.
Later, we saw a guy using a Secchi Disk to measure the water visibility at one point, which was 9 feet, better visibility than it appeared. There was a group of Vietnamese who sat at the table next to me and watched me fish -- Grandma, two daughters or daughters-in-law, three little girls and an even littler boy. I wondered why they kept sitting there. Eventually, their husbands and an older boy came back from the end of the pier to talk with them. The husbands and the older boy were fishing while the rest of them were just shooting the breeze. Shortly before we left, there was a high-school age fellow who was talkative, friendly and intelligent, who kept joking around with us. He offered us a Mackerel he had caught, and my wife said okay. The weather was nice there, and so were the people.
So here is the catch: Me -- 1 small Kelp Bass, 1 baby Scorpionfish, 2 good-sized Opaleyes, 1 good-sized Octopus. The two Opaleyes and Octopus were kept, the Bass and Scorpionfish released.
My wife: Lots of relaxing in her purple fishing chair and reading her Chinese literature while fruitlessly waiting for something to hook itself on her line.
Since I am officially on vacation, we brought a camera, and managed to take a few pictures. Here are two of them. 1. I kind of got myself turned sideways with this Opaleye. 2. My wife in her fishing chair. 3. Gratuitous photo of the silvery colored Brown Trout my wife caught in June at Caples Creek. Check out that pink meat.
We got to Shelter Island around 2:30 which was low tide. Eunice wanted to stop just in front of the store "because it is shady." That turned out to be a good choice, but mainly for me.
At first, I put leftover mussels from Oceanside on a high/low setup on my "heavy pole' which has 10 pound line, the heaviest line I have. Every time, after a minute of so, I would check the bait, and it would be missing. Someting very stealthy was biting. Thus, I set up two other poles with Sabiki rigs, one with really small, size 18 hooks, and another with about size 12 hooks, figuring we would have a better chance of catching something that way. There were about 20-30 other people on the pier while we were there, including a few comings and goings, almost all on the end of the pier, where pierfishers usually automatically seem to go, assuming the best fishing will be there. There was no sign that any fish had been caught, though.
At my spot in the shade of the store, I soon caught a little 6 inch Kelp Bass (quickly released) after switching to a Sabiki Rig with mussels, so I knew this technique was a winner, relatively speaking. Meanwhile, my wife was sitting in her purple fishing chair, reading her Chinese magazine and hoping something would hook itself on her line. By about 3:30, the tide was coming in, so that every time I lifted the Sabiki Rig to jig it, the whole kit-and-kaboodle headed farther under the pier. Good Idea, I thought. I started getting some consistent rat-a-tat-tat bites well under the pier, so I just tossed my line under the pier, and soon had a really strong puller on the line. It turned out to be a good sized Opaleye, the first one I have caught there in about 6 or 7 trips. People in the area kept asking me what it was, so they were unfamilliar with Opaleye. After the first Opaleye, I stopped getting bites for awhile, but then they started again, and I caught another Opaleye which was similar to the first, but slightly larger. Those Opaleyes can really pull. I had to put my Shakespeare Agility pole down below the cement to keep from having my line sawed off as they made various runs. Both Opaleye were caught with the tiny size 18 Sabiki hooks on mussel, and both were kept for another Opaleye meal, as my Opaleye catching success of recent trips has continued. I suspect the bait stealers in the beginning were also Opaleyes, but the hooks on that line were too big to hook them.
After the second Opaleye, things sort of slowed down, but I did get some light bites. I know my wife was, too, but she was too ensconced in her chair to respond to them. Eventually, I noticed the line with the high/low rig, which I had baited with Squid and cast out about 50 feet upcurrent, has become slack and was getting slacker, as though something had grabbed the bait and taken off in my direction with it. I grabbed that pole and reeled in, but as I did so, the critter continued moving straight toward me. Finally, I caught up with it straight down from where I was. I set the hook and felt something fairly heavy, but it did not swim like a fish. I pulled it up, and saw it was a pretty good sized Octopus (over 1 pound I estimate) hooked in one of its arms by the lower hook. I got it up over the rail and onto the pier, then it fell off the hook. It was crawling around while I and several interested bystanders tried to get it into my cooler. Whenever I grabbed its arms, it just held on tight to the pier, so finally, I grabbed it by its entire head, which seemed to disable it and loosen its grip. I have caught or seen caught several Octopus before, but handling them always is an adventure. I have the impression that they could give a person a nasty bite with whatever that is they chew their food with, but they are probably pretty harmless in actuality. This was a Two-Spot Octopus, I believe the name is, which seems to be the common type in Socal, or maybe it's called a Bluespot Octopus. It had two beautiful blue spots on its head. As long as it wasn't a Blue-Ringed Octopus (the deadly kind from Australia) it's cool with me. By the way, I have studied the regs, and it is legal to catch and keep Octopus caught by hook and line (or by hand), although it seems a bit strange. Some of the other Caucasoid people there were saying stuff such as "you can't eat those, can you?" Haven't they ever seen Octopus for sale in the market?
Well, after that, the only excitement was when I hooked a fish, got snagged, thinking it was a good one, gave it slack, got it unsnagged, then reeled in the line thinking I had lost the fish. But when I got the line in, there was a little 4-inch California Scorpionfish on the bottom hook of the Sabiki Rig -- another critter to be careful of. Fortunately it was just hooked in one corner of its mouth, so I held it over the water, shook the hook, and the little critter fell back into the water. Both Opaleyes were hooked on the bottom hook or two of the little Sabiki Rig, by the way.
Around 6 p.m., my wife started complaining about her back, so we ended up leaving around 6:30. Aside from us, about 20-30 other fisherpeople caught an estimated 10 or so Mackerel and an undersized Bass or two, so my use of the Sabiki with mussel rig fished under the pier paid off. I find it is usually better to be resourceful and do something different from other fisherpeople.
People-wise, Shelter Island is an interesting place. When we first came, there was an old man sitting at one of the tables with his fishing equipment. Then, he got up, went to the railing, and pushed it as though he was testing its strength -- strange indeed. Next, he went to the nearby trashcan and looked inside. I guess he was dumpster diving. After that, he went fishing at one corner of the pier. I suspect he might have lost some of his marbles, somewhere.
Later, we saw a guy using a Secchi Disk to measure the water visibility at one point, which was 9 feet, better visibility than it appeared. There was a group of Vietnamese who sat at the table next to me and watched me fish -- Grandma, two daughters or daughters-in-law, three little girls and an even littler boy. I wondered why they kept sitting there. Eventually, their husbands and an older boy came back from the end of the pier to talk with them. The husbands and the older boy were fishing while the rest of them were just shooting the breeze. Shortly before we left, there was a high-school age fellow who was talkative, friendly and intelligent, who kept joking around with us. He offered us a Mackerel he had caught, and my wife said okay. The weather was nice there, and so were the people.
So here is the catch: Me -- 1 small Kelp Bass, 1 baby Scorpionfish, 2 good-sized Opaleyes, 1 good-sized Octopus. The two Opaleyes and Octopus were kept, the Bass and Scorpionfish released.
My wife: Lots of relaxing in her purple fishing chair and reading her Chinese literature while fruitlessly waiting for something to hook itself on her line.
Since I am officially on vacation, we brought a camera, and managed to take a few pictures. Here are two of them. 1. I kind of got myself turned sideways with this Opaleye. 2. My wife in her fishing chair. 3. Gratuitous photo of the silvery colored Brown Trout my wife caught in June at Caples Creek. Check out that pink meat.