Arrived at 5:30AM and headed to the end of the pier. End was peppered with people fishing for threshers and others fishing for mackerel on sabiki rigs. It was a pretty slow and sleepy morning fish-wise. Just a handful a small mackerel being caught and no bites for the thresher folks. I started out fishing a ColtSniper 21g Green Mackerel color. I ended up catching 2 small mackerel with the lure which is pretty good given what everyone else was doing with more hooks and bait. So I was pleased with the performance of the lure.
It quieted down even further around 7AM, so I changed stick baits to a silver glow Pline Laser Minnow. 30 minutes of no bites had me switch to a Hayabusa Sabiki mixed flasher size 12. This rig was catching a ton of larger mackerel yesterday at Newport. I baited them with a tiny bit of salted shrimp which was the only bait that I brought (trying to keep myself from resorting to this rig and instead fish the coltsniper). Only a few nibbles on the shrimp. Some guys gave me some fresh mackerel and when I switched baits I immediately caught a nice medium sized mackerel and hooked up on a couple more although they dropped off on the way up (time to sharped those hooks).
It was getting close to the time where I had to leave but I kept saying one more cast cause I really wanted to try to catch a bonito. Around 8:15AM a school of medium sized mackerel arrived and you could see the small bait fish at the top jumping and evading them. I cast out 3 times and each time immediately hooked up with multiple medium size mackerel. I already had a couple keeper mackerel so I gave them to a couple guys wanting live mackerel for thresher bait. I know the bonito were coming but I had to leave. It seems like the fish were following the same schedule that EgoNonBaptizo reported from 9/8.
A guy fishing for threshers said that the bonito have been arriving around 9-9:30AM for that last few days. I reluctantly left at 8:50AM. Had a great time and felt more comfortable back at my "home" pier emboldened by my experience fishing at Newport Pier the morning before.
I'll be back Saturday and maybe Sunday to cash in on my bonito raincheck.
It quieted down even further around 7AM, so I changed stick baits to a silver glow Pline Laser Minnow. 30 minutes of no bites had me switch to a Hayabusa Sabiki mixed flasher size 12. This rig was catching a ton of larger mackerel yesterday at Newport. I baited them with a tiny bit of salted shrimp which was the only bait that I brought (trying to keep myself from resorting to this rig and instead fish the coltsniper). Only a few nibbles on the shrimp. Some guys gave me some fresh mackerel and when I switched baits I immediately caught a nice medium sized mackerel and hooked up on a couple more although they dropped off on the way up (time to sharped those hooks).
It was getting close to the time where I had to leave but I kept saying one more cast cause I really wanted to try to catch a bonito. Around 8:15AM a school of medium sized mackerel arrived and you could see the small bait fish at the top jumping and evading them. I cast out 3 times and each time immediately hooked up with multiple medium size mackerel. I already had a couple keeper mackerel so I gave them to a couple guys wanting live mackerel for thresher bait. I know the bonito were coming but I had to leave. It seems like the fish were following the same schedule that EgoNonBaptizo reported from 9/8.
A guy fishing for threshers said that the bonito have been arriving around 9-9:30AM for that last few days. I reluctantly left at 8:50AM. Had a great time and felt more comfortable back at my "home" pier emboldened by my experience fishing at Newport Pier the morning before.
I'll be back Saturday and maybe Sunday to cash in on my bonito raincheck.
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