Bonita back?

[fishmounter]

Could be rumors or Facebook BS, but I saw and read that a local Bonita bite is back in SoCal. Anyone know or witness this? Used to be so much fun to have good sized Bonita come into our harbors and near our beach piers. Got a lot of good memories of fishing Huntington, Belmont and Newport Beach Piers for these fighters.

[bowler]

I saw on a friends Instagram he got some bonito at Belmont pier the other day.

[BALLERONBUDGET]

Tons at Catalina. Gotta get bait past them to the yellows instead. However seem
To fight just as well as rat yellows do. Most guys should toss the
Baby rats so atleast they can grow to larger units instead of taking pix with them!!
IMO. So many pix of yellows that look like 12in bonitos. Geeeeeezzzzzz give them a break
To Grow a bit. My deuce cents

[Marley]

I sure hope so, bonito were so much fun back in the day. As a kid I wanted to be one of those guys tossing Scroungers off the bow and hooking up every cast. Long before I ever thought about my first yellow or tuna, bones were the nut. Good times.

[Hoot951]

I was at Newport Pier this morning and I seen about 15 caught so its true. I haven't caught any in the harbor as of yet.

[Viejo]

I sure hope so, bonito were so much fun back in the day. As a kid I wanted to be one of those guys tossing Scroungers off the bow and hooking up every cast. Long before I ever thought about my first yellow or tuna, bones were the nut. Good times.

Weren't Scroungers one of the first popular soft plastic baits? Root beer seemed to always work for Halibut.

[Frankenfish]

Yeah, I have these old originals...the older looking package was a co. Called north american waters in Oceanside...the newer one (still old) was MRI in gardena. They are being remade by Aaron Marten with a very sharp hook similar to gamakatsu, and also another company called lucky strike although I havent seen them in the bigger 3/4 to 1 oz sizes...i think they used to have them up to 4 or. 5 oz. back in the day. There used to be an old 7strand plastic called a "clout" if remember correctly...it was a twintail like a scampi..with an internal leadhead....kind of looked like a hoochie upper body with a scampi tail. I found an old one at a United Anglers tackle sale years back. The older scroungers used to also come with a straight tail like a fat worm body with a spear tail. You can still find them from time to time in old garage sale tackle boxes, ebay, etc... I've caught halibut from shore and pier using them with the old skinny wormking swimbaits as well as original curly tail and bonito from the pier using them with banjo minnow bodies years ago. I bet you you could slay some halibut, bonito, and bass using a scrounger head and a Minda speartail body.

[DockRat]

Went to Rocky Point last week for not much, frozen squid. Few small whitefish, sand bass, calicos.
Buddies little 14' boat, used the hoist at KH.

On the way back put out a 2 LC's and we caught 2 Bonito about 6 lbs near Topaz/Knob Hill.
First decent size Bonito I've caught in a couple years. Last few years the Bonito have been 2 - 3 lbs.
DR

[DockRat]

Heading out tomorrow on my 18' boat at Terminal Island. We are going to head direction towards west end of Catalina. About 4 - 6 miles off PV towards the 270 then sit.
Going to put out some chum and drift for a couple hours with shark rigs. Going to look for paddies too.

[Marley]

Weren't Scroungers one of the first popular soft plastic baits? Root beer seemed to always work for Halibut.

Yup. the grey/silver ones that were always the hot ticket (and always sold out) had the straight tail and flat end. Trick was the jig head, had that soft plastic lip that made the tail wiggle like a fat 'chovie. Never saw a sardine in the tank, always anchovies.

[DockRat]

Could be rumors or Facebook BS, but I saw and read that a local Bonita bite is back in SoCal. Anyone know or witness this?

Confirmed Not BS

Power Plant is running at King Harbor for the last 2 days. The last 6 years + it is only running a few weeks a year.
Went down to check it out a couple hours ago 8/16 Tue 11 am
Guys on the short pier tossing Mega baits/Krocs but no hookups. Small schools of 4" anchovies by the short pier.
Reports from guys of some 4 - 6 lb Bonito cruising, 4lb rat yellowtail caught on the Horseshoe.

Best bet is to fish Samba at the bubble. The hot cooling water is bringing in the bait schools.
Go get um.

[DarkShadow]

Power Plant is running at King Harbor for the last 2 days.

DR,

But is it pumping out hot water? I thought that plant was decommissioned a long time ago and no hot water had been pumped out since the early 90s. All it does now is recirculate the colder water.

Then again, I've never seen it NOT running. I didn't know they stopped it completely.

Those were the days though. I've never had a light spinning reel destroyed by a fish ever, except at KH.

[Beautiful Stik]

Don't know about the piers but Catalina was filled with 3-5 pound Bonita when I went out of Davy's Locker. Everyone was saying its the best Bonita fishing for the past 10 years. Hopefully its true.

[DockRat]

DR,

But is it pumping out hot water? .

They have been recirculating off and on for years, probably to keep the pipes clean.
No steam now but when I posted a this reply a few days ago there was a huge steam plume.
From what I understand is that when steam is pouring out of the smokestack then it is running.
Steam was only coming out of 1 stack, I believe that is maybe 25% ? When steam is coming out the bubble area
is very turbulent. No steam today, Sat 8/20.

Back in the day when Edison would 100% KH would get very warm. I've had friends that lived on boats and space heaters
where rarely needed to keep warm even in winter.

[DockRat]

New proposed KH rebuild, fisherman, locals do not like this.
Keep it a harbor, not a Mall and Condos :Finger:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3AuPq9jT50

[etucker1959]

New proposed KH rebuild, fisherman, locals do not like this.
Keep it a harbor, not a Mall and Condos :Finger:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3AuPq9jT50
Just to play Devils advocate, "isn't the harbor and the surrounding area pretty dead now?" Sounds like some jobs to be had!!!! lol With all the increased productivity in so many professions, shouldn't we applause d rebuilding certain area's to their highest and best use?????