eggot
05-07-2011, 04:41 PM
So here's some quick history. I got into fishing early like most of you around 5 years old back when I was living in the bay. However, unlike most people who get started when their dads take them trout or catfishing, my dad didn't mess around with that. He was strictly about the striped bass and salmon back then and that's what I was forced to start with. I'd remember him picking me up from kindergarten and rushing straight to Benicia to catch the salmon fry stockings because those stockings equaled a striper feast. Fast forward years later, with the dfg cutting that stocking program in Benicia and my family moving to socal ended our striper fishing days. We filled that void with yellowtail, yft, and albies, which made us really forget about Mr. Stripey. I'd see all your guy's striper reports, but it never really got me excited again..Our style up north was some bait n wait, but mostly chucking out hair-raisers, rat-L-traps, and Cordells. Plus we were shore fisherman so I could never relate on the trolling that you guys do. So now onto today...
One of my frat bros from college came up to visit and wanted to fish. Hes more of bait n wait kinda fisherman so I thought with all the action at Pyramid, we should head there. Picked up some anchovies from Gallions and got to Pyramid around 7:15am. We were discouraged to hear that they stopped renting out boats like 7 years ago (shows how long it's been since I've been there and probably explained why the marina number didn't work). Wasted an hour there and made the run back to Castaic. It was a gamble especially since striper fishing is super slow, but I didn't wanna waste the anchovies and there's always LMB to fall back on.
Rented a boat and got into the water by 10. First stop was around the cliffs by the west ramp, just outside of shore casting range. I put a piece of anchovy on a small hook and tiny splitshot on my 4lb. set up and let it drift out and then went about my normal business fishing for LMB with plastics on my other rod. A few minutes later something picks up on my chovy rod and fish on! Several drag peeling runs and longer than a 2 minute fight?!?! Definitely not a measly LMB... After seeing color I was screaming at my friend to get the net and a few minutes later this 20'' beauty was in the boat :Big Grin:. Wind starting picking up so we headed into one of the coves on the ski arm and I resumed my routine LMB fishing. Hooked about 4 LMB on the flylined WR-watermelon senko. Had a nice fatty bass probably in the 4-5 range(definitely pic worthy), but my dumbass forgot to set my drag properly and it broke me off right under the boat :Sad:. Even after hooking that fatty, LMB fishing didn't feel the same so we headed back out and finished our day trying more stripers.. No more love as was expected cuz I really think I lucked out with the one caught earlier.
Anyways we learned a lot today: 1) Shore fishing Pyramid sucks 2)fishing in a rental boat with no anchor sucks 3) fishing for striped bass in a rental boat with no anchor and no fish finder sucks even more. So me and my friend are pretty excited and getting a portable fish finder and an anchor is on our short term list of goals for when the striped bass bite picks up. And hopefully, we're planning to chop on a cheap dingy off craigslist later down the line when we both got funds for it.
Sorry for the long report, I'm just pretty excited to get my first socal striper and look forward to getting several more :Big Grin:. Here's a couple pics.
One of my frat bros from college came up to visit and wanted to fish. Hes more of bait n wait kinda fisherman so I thought with all the action at Pyramid, we should head there. Picked up some anchovies from Gallions and got to Pyramid around 7:15am. We were discouraged to hear that they stopped renting out boats like 7 years ago (shows how long it's been since I've been there and probably explained why the marina number didn't work). Wasted an hour there and made the run back to Castaic. It was a gamble especially since striper fishing is super slow, but I didn't wanna waste the anchovies and there's always LMB to fall back on.
Rented a boat and got into the water by 10. First stop was around the cliffs by the west ramp, just outside of shore casting range. I put a piece of anchovy on a small hook and tiny splitshot on my 4lb. set up and let it drift out and then went about my normal business fishing for LMB with plastics on my other rod. A few minutes later something picks up on my chovy rod and fish on! Several drag peeling runs and longer than a 2 minute fight?!?! Definitely not a measly LMB... After seeing color I was screaming at my friend to get the net and a few minutes later this 20'' beauty was in the boat :Big Grin:. Wind starting picking up so we headed into one of the coves on the ski arm and I resumed my routine LMB fishing. Hooked about 4 LMB on the flylined WR-watermelon senko. Had a nice fatty bass probably in the 4-5 range(definitely pic worthy), but my dumbass forgot to set my drag properly and it broke me off right under the boat :Sad:. Even after hooking that fatty, LMB fishing didn't feel the same so we headed back out and finished our day trying more stripers.. No more love as was expected cuz I really think I lucked out with the one caught earlier.
Anyways we learned a lot today: 1) Shore fishing Pyramid sucks 2)fishing in a rental boat with no anchor sucks 3) fishing for striped bass in a rental boat with no anchor and no fish finder sucks even more. So me and my friend are pretty excited and getting a portable fish finder and an anchor is on our short term list of goals for when the striped bass bite picks up. And hopefully, we're planning to chop on a cheap dingy off craigslist later down the line when we both got funds for it.
Sorry for the long report, I'm just pretty excited to get my first socal striper and look forward to getting several more :Big Grin:. Here's a couple pics.