Took the 6:30AM Boat from Long Beach. Arrived at 7:40PM rigged up two poles with hi-lo, size 6 bait holder hooks and one larger setup with a 2/0 Circle hook on a dropper loop.
Bite was on the slow side today but slightly better than our last trip. The one new situation was that squid was far less effective bait than on previous trips. I rigged up a whole squid on my larger setup and that would get consistently nibbled at until it had soaked for 10 minutes or longer and then the bites would slow down and eventually I would change the bait and the cycle would start over again.
This means the game today was trying to hook fish on the softer baits we had which was market shrimp and blood worms. A new trick we tried today which was effective enough that we will continue to do it is we would squeeze the orange stuff (hepatopancreas) out of the shrimp head and coat our cut pieces of shrimp in it before casting. This scent was more effective at attracting committed bites and many of the bigger fish I caught today were caught using this technique.
I ended catching 4 keeper sized sheephead with the largest being 17". I also caught a 15", 14" and released a 13" fish. My girlfriend caught a 14" sheephead but in general had a very slow day because she was unwilling to continue to rebait her hooks and her ability to set the hook on the smaller bites is not as developed. She ended downshifting to soaking squid with a bell on her rod but that produced very few bites and even the occasional ones she got did not commit.
Here is a video of my girlfriend landing her sheephead. She gets some nice applause from the crowd waiting for the next ferry.
I tracked my total fish count which was roughly
12 Sheephead (4 keeper sized and 8 shorts)
10 ocean white fish (all but two were small)
8 Calico bass (all shorts and small)
4 garibaldi
1 blacksmith
1 sculpin
1 tree fish (first time catch for me)
Did not see any bonito or opal eye caught from the Mole although a group of guys that came in the late afternoon had fished the green pleasure pier earlier and reported an excellent bass bite including a couple keeper sized fish and a 14" Opal eye as well as a couple trigger fish.
Bite was on the slow side today but slightly better than our last trip. The one new situation was that squid was far less effective bait than on previous trips. I rigged up a whole squid on my larger setup and that would get consistently nibbled at until it had soaked for 10 minutes or longer and then the bites would slow down and eventually I would change the bait and the cycle would start over again.
This means the game today was trying to hook fish on the softer baits we had which was market shrimp and blood worms. A new trick we tried today which was effective enough that we will continue to do it is we would squeeze the orange stuff (hepatopancreas) out of the shrimp head and coat our cut pieces of shrimp in it before casting. This scent was more effective at attracting committed bites and many of the bigger fish I caught today were caught using this technique.
I ended catching 4 keeper sized sheephead with the largest being 17". I also caught a 15", 14" and released a 13" fish. My girlfriend caught a 14" sheephead but in general had a very slow day because she was unwilling to continue to rebait her hooks and her ability to set the hook on the smaller bites is not as developed. She ended downshifting to soaking squid with a bell on her rod but that produced very few bites and even the occasional ones she got did not commit.
Here is a video of my girlfriend landing her sheephead. She gets some nice applause from the crowd waiting for the next ferry.
I tracked my total fish count which was roughly
12 Sheephead (4 keeper sized and 8 shorts)
10 ocean white fish (all but two were small)
8 Calico bass (all shorts and small)
4 garibaldi
1 blacksmith
1 sculpin
1 tree fish (first time catch for me)
Did not see any bonito or opal eye caught from the Mole although a group of guys that came in the late afternoon had fished the green pleasure pier earlier and reported an excellent bass bite including a couple keeper sized fish and a 14" Opal eye as well as a couple trigger fish.
