npdes
08-05-2007, 03:39 PM
I went out on the 3/4 day Victory out of Long Beach on Friday. After reading all the great reports by JapanRon, I thought I'd give it a try. Long Beach is about 20 minutes further than San Pedro for me so I had to get up a little earlier than normal.
The landing was very professional, and the boat was in good shape. The load was a little bigger than a typical Friday (at least for the other boats I fish on) but there were a couple big groups of buddies and kids. I got a decent rail number and the people to my immediate left and right were pretty cool so I didn't mind much.
We fished the Flats pretty much all day. We moved around to avoid seals and mackeral but kept in the same general vicinity. The first stop was pretty good. I caught a couple bass (one calico and one sand) both on the anchovy with a 1/4 oz egg sinker. Then the barracuda started hitting. I tried using jigs but they weren't going for mine. So I went back to the anchovy. I had about five of them on, only to lose them. I guess my 20lb test was not good enough against their teeth. I brought in two and lost five. Lost a lot of time re-tying my stuff as well. Another complaint was the mackeral kept getting in the way. And there were so many one-day fishing licenses, these people would hook onto a mackeral and either not know how to reel it in properly or just wanted to see how many people they could wrap around their lines. More lost time as we had to untangle all the time.
We moved on to another spot and they rotated rail spots. I ended up on the rear, great spot. I was doing pretty good catching and releasing a couple sandies. Then the barracuda started up again. This time, they were hitting my jig (blue and white). Pretty much every cast I would get a hit, or see one following my jig in. It was great! I ended up with at least a dozen barracuda for the day (given away to other fisherman), 8 sand/calico bass (keeping 2) and kept 5 mackeral to be used as catfish bait.
Great day, great boat, great crew, only complaint, too many newbies who tangled people all day. The deckie did a good job but he needed about three more deckies to help gaff and untangle people. One major negative, this was my first time out of Pierpoint and I parked in spot 62, went to the machine and thought I had paid for the day. However, when I returned, I got a $35 parking ticket. Oh well, you live and learn.
Here are a few pics of the trip.
Here are my barracuda...
http://fishingnetwork.net/images/tmp2/barracuda8-3-07.jpg
Here is the crew cleaning fish, a long time taken to clean all the fish...
http://fishingnetwork.net/images/tmp2/fishcleaning8-3-07.jpg
Here is my biggest sand bass of the day....
http://fishingnetwork.net/images/tmp2/sandbass8-3-07.jpg
The landing was very professional, and the boat was in good shape. The load was a little bigger than a typical Friday (at least for the other boats I fish on) but there were a couple big groups of buddies and kids. I got a decent rail number and the people to my immediate left and right were pretty cool so I didn't mind much.
We fished the Flats pretty much all day. We moved around to avoid seals and mackeral but kept in the same general vicinity. The first stop was pretty good. I caught a couple bass (one calico and one sand) both on the anchovy with a 1/4 oz egg sinker. Then the barracuda started hitting. I tried using jigs but they weren't going for mine. So I went back to the anchovy. I had about five of them on, only to lose them. I guess my 20lb test was not good enough against their teeth. I brought in two and lost five. Lost a lot of time re-tying my stuff as well. Another complaint was the mackeral kept getting in the way. And there were so many one-day fishing licenses, these people would hook onto a mackeral and either not know how to reel it in properly or just wanted to see how many people they could wrap around their lines. More lost time as we had to untangle all the time.
We moved on to another spot and they rotated rail spots. I ended up on the rear, great spot. I was doing pretty good catching and releasing a couple sandies. Then the barracuda started up again. This time, they were hitting my jig (blue and white). Pretty much every cast I would get a hit, or see one following my jig in. It was great! I ended up with at least a dozen barracuda for the day (given away to other fisherman), 8 sand/calico bass (keeping 2) and kept 5 mackeral to be used as catfish bait.
Great day, great boat, great crew, only complaint, too many newbies who tangled people all day. The deckie did a good job but he needed about three more deckies to help gaff and untangle people. One major negative, this was my first time out of Pierpoint and I parked in spot 62, went to the machine and thought I had paid for the day. However, when I returned, I got a $35 parking ticket. Oh well, you live and learn.
Here are a few pics of the trip.
Here are my barracuda...
http://fishingnetwork.net/images/tmp2/barracuda8-3-07.jpg
Here is the crew cleaning fish, a long time taken to clean all the fish...
http://fishingnetwork.net/images/tmp2/fishcleaning8-3-07.jpg
Here is my biggest sand bass of the day....
http://fishingnetwork.net/images/tmp2/sandbass8-3-07.jpg