Newport Pier ... Bonito and kelp bass
- Thread starter Ken Jones
- Start date
I can only imagine what was going on at the end of the wedge that week.
I started fishing Balboa pier in the mid 1970s. I remember the giant squid. I remember mackerel and Bonita runs that seemed to never end. I started fishing the end of the wedge when I was 13. I had 2 12 foot sabre rods one with a Diawa GS 90 and the other with a Mitchell 486. i cut lawns when the draft took away the young men in the neigborhood. I saved all my money for the best tackle money could buy in the day. I used splashers made out of baseball bat sections on the pier and splashers made out of oak table legs for the wedge. The wedge had twice the volume and twice the size of bonita than the pier. I now have a pair of Kencor 15 foot rods with penn spinning reels. I have had experiences on the end of the wedge and that pier that no one believes when I tell them. Oh the things I have seen and experienced. I am such a blessed man. I would not trade those days for anything. This article is absolute gold.
I started fishing Balboa pier in the mid 1970s. I remember the giant squid. I remember mackerel and Bonita runs that seemed to never end. I started fishing the end of the wedge when I was 13. I had 2 12 foot sabre rods one with a Diawa GS 90 and the other with a Mitchell 486. i cut lawns when the draft took away the young men in the neigborhood. I saved all my money for the best tackle money could buy in the day. I used splashers made out of baseball bat sections on the pier and splashers made out of oak table legs for the wedge. The wedge had twice the volume and twice the size of bonita than the pier. I now have a pair of Kencor 15 foot rods with penn spinning reels. I have had experiences on the end of the wedge and that pier that no one believes when I tell them. Oh the things I have seen and experienced. I am such a blessed man. I would not trade those days for anything. This article is absolute gold.
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The largest fish I ever landed was a 15 pound yellowtail aside from that, multiple bonita runs where some were easily 10 pound plus-I have hooked into things I couldn't stop or even slow down. By and large I fish on the surface with splashers and there is nothing like overhead casting a splasher with a 15 foot kencor rod and a 10 foot leader 50-60 yards out and watching the boils on the feather when you are only 6 feet above the water. I know I have been into some bluefin years back out there but I just couldn't even come close to putting the brakes on the things but you could tell the way it took the fly and the way it erupted. Yellowtail go straight down, bonita go sideways, the tuna just crash the fly. It has been 30 years since I got into anything that resembled a tuna. 1983 was an incredible year for large runs of bonita that averaged 3-5 pounds. May of 1996 the 10 pound bonita showed for a few days. There are not words to describe the summer and fall of 1997 out there. That one took the cake. I can tell you the boils I have seen out there, the size of the schools and the size of the fish, just amazing. The last good action I had was around 6 years ago. It has not been good since. Hopefully this year and next year will rival those years.
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