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.