Final managed to get some time to go fishing through midterms and homework. High tide was at 12pm, got there at 10am. Little tidal movement, guys at the back said they had caught some baby mackerel earlier. Fished 1 rod with a Sabiki and old shrimp/squid I scrounged up. My other rod with the 6000 ambassadeur decided it didn’t want to cast today, gunked up bearings or something that made the freespool non-existent. Quite windy, gotta make note not to fish when <70F and >10mph winds. Nothing at the end for 2 hours, decided to head to the middle and see if there was anything else. Caught one decent sized jacksmelt and gave it away. Seems it was about to spawn or something, I’d gotten squirted on by some fish semen. Friend showed up and headed to the end again, fished there until 4pm. Saw only 5 mackerel caught among ~15 people at the end. Saw a couple using Vienna sausage for bait. Saw a guy using crab snares with no luck and next to no bait. Also saw some guys with big conventionals and stout rods casting big baits for sharks. Seems like the guys were using half a salmon head or a dead mackerel fished under a big sliding styrofoam bobber like the way salmon fishermen do on Pacifica pier. Damn huge j hooks too. Didn’t take a pic, said it was to protect his invention or something. Looked like a bobber attached to a kingfish slider(a thing Australians use for sliding bait rigs) though. Didn’t see them catch anything. Also saw quite a few crabbers, nothing but the tiny swimmer crabs. Guess rock crabs aren’t too common on the pier. A couple whale watching boats came close to the pier too. Never saw the whale though. Overall a pretty dead day.
