By Carl Lee

     Morning: The day started with a concern for the big swells forecasted. Should I take some motion sickness pills? I decided to wait and see as I got out to the harbor because I do not like the feeling from these pills. When I got there, it did not matter the harbor alongside Long Beach's Shoreline Village was as flat as lake. This began what was a beautiful, successful day of sand dab fishing of the So. Californian coast.

This was only my second time out for sand dabs. My last trip was aboard the Sea Angler out of 22nd St. Landing in San Pedro. This time I went aboard the Pierpoint out of Pierpoint Landing. These are the only two landings that target these fish. Soon more landings may join the fun with the scheduled closing of rock cod fishing in the first few months of 2001. From either of these landings the sand dab fishing grounds will take about an hour.

The ocean was flat even as we started to leave in the late afternoon.

The ocean was so flat on this trip that the one-hour ride felt like I had traveled over land. In contrast to the Sea Angler trip, this Pierpoint trip was on a weekday with fewer people. The other weekend trip was packed with 47 people and many did not believe that a heavier sinker will keep the line taut on its decent down despite the skipper announcing it to everyone to use heavy sinkers. As expected many tangles happened throughout the day. These tangles were wicked with several anglers involved and were mostly snipped. The problems of that trip were further compounded with thick schools of mackerel hitting the gangnions and causing even further tangles. My advice is to fish on the weekdays if you can. Otherwise, expect some heavier crowds and tangles on the weekends

The Pierpoint trip had all the conditions for success. Smaller crowds, everyone using heavier sinkers and best of all there were no currents or mackerel encountered. There were some swells through out the day but it is currents that can cause tangles and not swells. Swells are just water displacements on the surface of the ocean usually caused by storms. Currents are movements of water throughout the depths and can cause several lines to gather at one place and tangle.

On the Pierpoint the fear of mackerels diminished when none showed up and the sand dabs started biting. I got three on my first cast and was quite pleased. I dip my cut squid in Baitmate fish scent in the blue color. I found out from the last trip that this scent attracts bigger sand dabs. My classmate, David got the idea when he bought a bottle at Big 5's after Thanksgiving Sale. I did not give it much thought but was willing to try it because I remembered Anise fish scent attracted Johnny Bass over at Santa Barbara Island. More large sand dabs seem to be caught when this scent is used. Some sussequent casts resulted in empty hooks - all the bait gone. I was a bit shocked. So I asked David who had fewer empty hooks on how he had hooked his bait. He double hooked the squid and thereafter, I confirmed that double hooking (re-hooking the squid again pushing the hook through the squid once) increased the hook up percentages. Single hooking the squid may save time but these little fishes can snake a single hooked squid piece right off. I got no more empty gangnions after double hooking the squid pieces.

On a drop, my line was bombarded by the sand dab bites. Then the line got heavier and heavier until the flurry of bites stopped and only tiny twitches of the line remained. So I decided to reel up guessing that my hooks either had a fish or no bait. The gangnion came up with seven dabs (my most is eight). This is the biggest if not the only thrill of fishing sand dabs - to see how many dabs you can catch per cast. Some of you may think I broke the no more than three hook regulation but there are no regulations concerning sand dabs whatsoever, according to Captain at 22nd St. Landing. One can use as many hooks as one can handle. Afternoon: All through out the day it went pretty much like this with several sand dabs filling up the gunny sack each hour and I ended up with 54 of them which was better than 21 previously [on a later trip I even did better with 67 ].

More sand dabs than these four on a gangnion happens often. Despite what this picture shows the angler actually had 9 sand dabs on. The rest could not fit into the camera's scope.

Fishing for sand dabs is not an adrenaline thing. It's not like you have to get your fly-lined sardine right on that boil before they're gone. It's sort of like going to a Starbucks' CoffeeHouse, sitting down with you friend(s) over a cup of coffee and see what comes up in the conversations. It's also like putting your fishing line into a well full of small tasty fishes and just bringing them up when it's time. Simply put it's fishing you do with a drink in one hand, sort of speak. Fishing Tips: Here's what I learned from these trips[by no means am I implying I have the final word on sand dab fishing, I welcome others' suggestions; remember I am new to this fishing myself]: When to reel in the fish - there are two cues to watch out for: 1) The sand dabs bite in flurries or waves. When all flurries or waves cease except for an occasional small twitch of the line it means each hook is either hooked with a sand dab on or its bait is gone. This is a good time to reel in. Do not reel in at whim because the fishing depths range

Typical size sanddab. Bottom side

from 190 to over 290 feet. So try to get the most out of every cast, else you will be very tired at the end of the day with very little fish to show for. Much time is wasted in between actual fishing: you lose time by reeling up, by removing fish caught, by re-baiting hooks, and by casting back down to the bottom.

2) Cue number two has to do with the weight of the gangnion. As you are hit with several bites and you have been setting the hook, the weight of the line should be getting heavier and heavier. A heavy load means you have fish on. Try to record in your kinetic sense the weight of the load when you had 9 dabs on vs. 1-3 dabs. The weight of the load should give you an idea on how much fish you have on and how soon you are to reeling them up.

Use the two cues combined and you will get an idea or a feel for when to reel up in order to get the most out of every cast.

Gear      The thinking for sand dab gear is generally the lighter the better due to the frequent, repetitive reeling involved. I see people using all kinds of reels; Shimano TLD's, Penn Jigmasters, large Calcuttas, Tiagras, Sealine 50H's, Penn 3/0's, large spinning reels, etc. The reel size generally ranged from a Penn Long Beach to Penn 6/0 Senators. I prefer using anything that will not break your knuckles after a day of fishing. My first trip's Jigmaster ringed my knuckles. It's not really the size of the reel because these fish even with 10 on do not weigh more than 5 lbs. What matters is the reel handle size: the smaller reel handles will painfully tweak the knuckles. I had no problems using a Daiwa 910 Rockcod Special Sealine reel with it's special handle. A Penn 4/0 with a 6/0 handle is good enough. A sensitive-tipped rod is recommended since these fish are small biters.

A Daiwa 910 Rockcod Special Sealine Reel fitted on a Calstar Codstick. Notice the big handle.

Continued...