Jackpot Jimmy
10-02-2011, 08:56 PM
We headed out of the harbor Sunday morning, greeted by calm winds and almost calm conditions. Captain Steven informed us that the water had dropped along the kelp line, so we would be fishing rockfish and sculpin for the better part of the day, and trying for some structure bass in the afternoon.
I was eager to try a new set up – Curado E7 with a Crucial 711H, loaded with 40 pound power pro and a 25 pound test top shot. I rigged up with a single dropper loop and a torpedo sinker as I’ve found that you have a better chance of getting reds or bigger rockfish with the single dropper loop, especially this time of the year.
http://i391.photobucket.com/albums/oo358/Jackpot-Jimmy/002-77.jpg
We made several drifts throughout the morning covering pretty big areas. We caught some really nice honeycombs and starries (those don’t get too big but they were nice for the species), with a few medium sized reds here and there. The bites I was getting on my new set up were pretty violent which I liked as it maximized the fight, unlike fishing straight mono. I caught maybe six to ten of these honeycombs, starries, and a couple reds along with a nice rock sole.
Around noon we headed inside a little bit to fish some sculpin. We picked through a few shorts but the legals that came up were nice ones. I found that sometimes the sculpin would get picky on old squid, so I would replace the squid after catching one and drop back down. This worked pretty well for me for a limit of quality sculpin. I also recommend fishing a torpedo sinker with a leadhead/plastic combo on a dropper loop so you can get to the bottom faster, and put the loop at the same level as the sinker as sculpin cannot come up off the bottom.
After picking some nice sculpin we headed up the beach a bit to try for some bass. Bass fishing was pretty slow except for a couple short calicos. I don’t know if the slow bass fishing has to do with the recent passing through of jumbo squid – probably not as the Highliner had a pretty good day on the bass, but they had live squid, which they passed along to us for Monday’s fishing – thank you Gary! Once again, for these structure bass, it’s imperative to keep your offering right in the structure – that’s where the bass live! Especially with the cooler water, they are hunkered down in the structure and rarely suspend (except for calicos in some cases).
Not a bad day overall, but I guess there’s a storm coming, and I hope it doesn’t put a damper on fishing, and I hope bass fishing will pick up after it passes through. Stay tuned…
http://i391.photobucket.com/albums/oo358/Jackpot-Jimmy/001-83.jpg
http://i391.photobucket.com/albums/oo358/Jackpot-Jimmy/002-76.jpg
http://i391.photobucket.com/albums/oo358/Jackpot-Jimmy/003-81.jpg
I was eager to try a new set up – Curado E7 with a Crucial 711H, loaded with 40 pound power pro and a 25 pound test top shot. I rigged up with a single dropper loop and a torpedo sinker as I’ve found that you have a better chance of getting reds or bigger rockfish with the single dropper loop, especially this time of the year.
http://i391.photobucket.com/albums/oo358/Jackpot-Jimmy/002-77.jpg
We made several drifts throughout the morning covering pretty big areas. We caught some really nice honeycombs and starries (those don’t get too big but they were nice for the species), with a few medium sized reds here and there. The bites I was getting on my new set up were pretty violent which I liked as it maximized the fight, unlike fishing straight mono. I caught maybe six to ten of these honeycombs, starries, and a couple reds along with a nice rock sole.
Around noon we headed inside a little bit to fish some sculpin. We picked through a few shorts but the legals that came up were nice ones. I found that sometimes the sculpin would get picky on old squid, so I would replace the squid after catching one and drop back down. This worked pretty well for me for a limit of quality sculpin. I also recommend fishing a torpedo sinker with a leadhead/plastic combo on a dropper loop so you can get to the bottom faster, and put the loop at the same level as the sinker as sculpin cannot come up off the bottom.
After picking some nice sculpin we headed up the beach a bit to try for some bass. Bass fishing was pretty slow except for a couple short calicos. I don’t know if the slow bass fishing has to do with the recent passing through of jumbo squid – probably not as the Highliner had a pretty good day on the bass, but they had live squid, which they passed along to us for Monday’s fishing – thank you Gary! Once again, for these structure bass, it’s imperative to keep your offering right in the structure – that’s where the bass live! Especially with the cooler water, they are hunkered down in the structure and rarely suspend (except for calicos in some cases).
Not a bad day overall, but I guess there’s a storm coming, and I hope it doesn’t put a damper on fishing, and I hope bass fishing will pick up after it passes through. Stay tuned…
http://i391.photobucket.com/albums/oo358/Jackpot-Jimmy/001-83.jpg
http://i391.photobucket.com/albums/oo358/Jackpot-Jimmy/002-76.jpg
http://i391.photobucket.com/albums/oo358/Jackpot-Jimmy/003-81.jpg