Rockfishing on the Native Sun 9-7-08
I was very fortunate to be invited to join Dirty Girl and her son Garrett on the Native Sun on Sunday. Got to the landing a lil' after 6 am and said hello to everyone, including the recently promoted manager of Long Beach Sportfishing, Steve (ghetto dad/BBFC/FNN).
Introductions were made and we all joked around while waiting to board the boat. It had been a couple months since my last trip with Captain Jason Rico (chuck'n deuce's/BBFC/fnn) and I was glad to back aboard.
I had a great breakfast sandwich while we chatted with some of the NBU crew on the way out. K3vin "The Legend" Kim was gonna be onboard and he had his entourage from the NBU attending to his every need. Such devotion is rarely heard of these days. Way to go you guys!!!
It was a smooth trip out compliments of a very calm ocean. We fished a number of different spots amongst the rigs on the "Flats" for a variety of rockfish, including Vermillions, Chilipeppers, Starries, Olives, chuckleheads, treefish, sheepheads, short ling(s), a shark, some perch, some mackrel and the ever present Victor Groupers (cappucino fish, aka Boccaccio).
Most of the fishing was done with double dropper loops and 6 or 8 ounce torpedos, or a reverse dropper loop and 4 to 6 ounces of lead. It was a good thing that the current wasn't too strong out there or else there might have been a lot more tangles due to some anglers using 1 or 2 ounce triangle weights. Overall it was a very low stress environment for rockfishing. Some people were using 2 or 3 ounce leadheads w/plastics and some squid for scent. I didn't see or hear of anyone catching anything on the iron. I didn't see a single Lucanus jig on this trip.
Jason moved us around and we kept bringing the fish over the rail most everywhere we went. Some spots had fish on them but occasionally they weren't in the biting mode. When we found them we fished em hard. When the bite tappered off Captain Rico made a quick move to put us on the fish again.
Just prior to setting sail out from Berth 55.
Garrett managed to catch a few dink chuckleheads like this one pictured here. Fortunately just a couple. Can you say DINK?
This poor gal looked like she was about to yak into Bob's hands when he and I began argueing over who's turn it was to bite the head off of the next fish. Bob (LA Smoker) reported having caught a shark of some sort.
People were saying it was a baby Great White, but when I asked Bob if it was a GW, he replied, "Nope".
When Garret turned his back to take the this pic I was afraid he was gonna bite the head off himself!!!
Garrett score a double on a couple nice Boccaccio.
Then he nailed his first Lingcod, just a couple inches too short though. Safely released!
The gaff is not in the fish, it is just inside the gill plate.
A couple of Cormorants ended up being CP&R'd on this trip as well.
Garrett was really happy that they were gonna be A-OK.
We started getting some nice reds after a couple of moves.
Here is Garrett on his first vermillion of the day.
Reppin' the Team57. Some nice reds were caught on Sunday.
Some of the Boca's were a lil' on the dink side though.
We had a lot of elbow room 1/4 of the way back from the bow.
There is plenty of time to fish the stern in the coming months and years.
Garrett and Xy have fished the cattle boats before, but it had been a while.
This was meant to be a low pressure re-introduction to the Moo Moo fleet.
I even got into the act and caught a nice fish or two of my own! Mmmmmm Vermillion!!! My Favorite rockfish.
These are a couple of Garrett's bigger Red's from the trip.
Met some very nice journalists from the Korean/Am Journal on a mission to document a day in the life of K3vin "the man, the myth, the l3gend" Kim. Kai was very pretty, and exceptionally smart. She even got me to say a few words. Dang she must be pretty good if she was able to get me to talk!!! Her partners name escapes me at the present time. Sorry buddy.
It's always a pleasure to see MacDaddy onboard during a fishing trip. Dirty Girl bought 20 tickets and #116 just happened to be a lucky number on this day. A shirt, some real sweet jigs, and a bunch of plastic swimbait bodies along with accompanying leadhead jigs. Since Garrett had pulled the winning ticket he also received some real nice Whams as well. Very Cool Mac. Thanks a lot!!!
Thanks to everyone on the Native Sun and at Long Beach Sportfishing for making the day such an enjoyable one. We had a great time all day and caught a lot of fish.
One_Leg
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Greatjob xy and garett, looks like you all had a blast!!! 
Originally Posted by one_leg
