Exhausted from chasing Bluefin Ghosts on Wednesday and I will be leaving on a 2day trip on the Grande Sunday, Lal talked me into a tranquil day of Bass fishing Saturday 06-25-16 on Lal’s 18’ boat the “Rubber Ducky”. Lal had fished with his Grandson’s baseball buddy Buzz on Friday and they had found the big Sand Bass on a serious chew at the Newport Pipe and other areas down the beach.
We launched out of Davies in Los Alamitos at 5:00 am. The water temp in the Harbor read 69.5 degrees, wow! The swells in the harbor were big while the wind was in the 3-4 knot range, forecasted to go to 10-14 by early afternoon. The outside ocean was reasonably bumpy, allowing us to cruise at 18-19 knots. We heard several coast guard warnings about high surf during the day.
We stopped on several stones along the way and picked at a few small Sand Bass. We reached the area of yesterday’s carnage at 6:30 am. The meter was on fire and the fish were still hungry. It was not wide open, yet very consistent. We both experienced a lot of short bites, as some of the Bass were only 8 to 10 inches in size.
It was about 20% Calico Bass to 80% Sand Bass at first. That count evened out as the day progressed. The water temp rose to 70 degrees, and appeared to be a clear blue green.
Lal was first to catch a picture worthy Sand Bass, about 3.5 pounds, although we had already released a number in the 2.5 to 3 pound range. If you read Buzz’s report from yesterday, they had both caught several 7 pounders.
A little later I caught a good size Sand Bass, pushing four pounds:
Lal with another dandy sandy:
Take a look at the fish meter; 58 feet and 69.8 degree water, with more fish on the meter:
By 9 am we had released over 50 fish!
I caught jackpot with this brute which exceeded 5.5 pounds:
The bite slowed, as did the current, so we poked around in various depths finding a bit better bite in the shallower water, with some current, where as it was dead still in the deeper depths.
The Calico Bass we caught were very healthy looking. Lal and had a double going with the bigger variety Calicos for the day, as most were 1-2 pounds:
I got hammered on the wind in on one cast and the fish took 50 yards of line, I thought I was in decent shape as it was my 20 pound outfit as opposed to normally fishing 15 pound bass gear. I began to gain some line back and Lal was clearing lines in order to chase the fish. Not to be, as the big fish took another run and pop, broke me off in the rocks. Darn! Would like to know what it was?
During the rest of the morning it remained a steady bite until at high noon Mother Wind decided to spoil the fun. It was a long uphill run back to the harbor, so we headed north. Turned out the ride back was in the trough and we were able to reach a comfortable pace of 19 knots.
We stopped on a few stones close to the harbor and picked up a couple more mixed bass. All in all, we ended the day releasing between 80 and 90 mixed Bass. We fished exclusively with plastics, without scent or squid strips. Although we both varied our repertoire of size and color of plastics, the most productive remained 4” Clear Red flake and Big Hammer Calico Hunter. Not one single rockfish caught today, weird. Lal and I also got ***** slapped once or twice more during the morning.
A couple more Pictures:
Incredible weather, not a lot of sun, just pleasant seas and outstanding fishing, wow it doesn’t get much better than that! We were on the trailer at 1:45 pm. The sailboats were out in force, given the arrival of the wind; they were enjoying the afternoon and racing each other.
Thanks Lal, what a day, with the rise in water temps; hopefully we will see a local Yellowtail bite soon, and certainly a solid Barracuda bite?
Off to catch some Tuna tomorrow!
Hook up! Cory