Long slow day 7/14 out of MDR, but, big BUTT
This is my first report.. It is a bit long to match the long day.
My friend and I headed out of Marina Del Rey Sat, 7/14. Our intent was to go meet up with another friend for some Mako fishing in the channel but after picking up some fresh live bait and heading out to the flats for to catch some macs, my live well pump took a dump and all the bait went belly up. It was a brand new pump too! Back to the docks by West Marine for some new wire and plugs and completely rewired my bait tank front to back thinking I had a wiring issue or bad ground.. Things were looking up and again it was pumping. Back to get more bait and when we made it to the bait doc, the pump dies again. Now, I am pissed. I did have a spare cartridge for the pump but the boat had to be trailered to do it. So back to the ramps and out it went. When I pulled the old new cartridge out, I noticed it was cracked.. Brand new pump with a cracked cartridge. So after a 10 minute swap out and re-launch, back to get bait we go and all is well.
We get out to the flats by Venice pier to catch some macs for shark bait and see a bunch of boats in deeper water so we decided to go check out the crowd. We settle in about 70' of water and set up a drift with live dines.. After a bit of a float, my buddies line goes ape! Zzzzzzzzz like I have never heard it. A big grin and a moment later... Ping. Fish gone..
Minutes later and its my turn.. Zzzzzzzzz like I have never had.. I struggled to keep it close. When it took off, I could only think about the fact that I was about to get spooled. I tried grabbing the spool to slow it down but all I managed by that was burning my hand from the spools friction. Crazy........ I fought it for maybe 5 minutes but my efforts we futile.. Ping and it was gone.. Shortly after that, my buddies line goes ape again.. After a several minute fight, it was at the boat and our suspicions were confirmed.. Bat ray!
Sometime in between the rays or afterwards, my rod goes bendo again. This one did not want to come up but rather just seemed to want to hang below the boat. I babied it which turned out to be a good thing. It was only hanging on by my stinger treble which was attached to his fin. As soon as it came up it was apparent that this was a gaff fish and my buddy got it good and onto the boat it came. It turned out to be a 33� halibut at 15#. This was my biggest flatty and made the headaches of the day well worth it. I think we got him at about 55’ just north of SM pier.
The rest of the day was pretty slow. A bite here and there and my friend managed to land a nice Calico. Mid day, our other friends (the ones out shark fishing) show up from the depths and had a slayed Mako with them. Apparently his gill was cut by the hook and was a bleeder bound to die so he was to become shark meat. I have never seen a fresh killed Mako and it almost made me sad. What a beautiful predator. Well hopefully it is as good eating as it is at hunting because they left us with a 15-20# chunk of it! My wife loves shark but I have refrained from eating them because I have had a variety of sharks as pets.. Here Fido.
That’s all. We started our day on the water at about 7am and got out at about 9:30PM. The afternoon water was smooth and the weather was perfect! We just couldn’t leave. Thanks for reading.
Thanks for reading.
Scott
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