Not a kayak report, but cool nonetheless, Huge Sheepshead

Hey all,

Here is a report from my trip down to San Diego this last weekend.  Enjoy!

All,

I took a sweet trip down to SD this last weekend, as you have no doubt heard about already.  I have some sweet pics, but I want to relate the whole weekend so bear with me.

I have been anxiously awaiting the completion of the Seether.  I am a grisled veteran of the Predator, so I really wanted to see what Trix was gonna do with the new boat.  Clayton leaving SD and moving to Oregon and the farewell BatFest was all the prodding I needed, so I packed up the pathfinder and drove down.

I left Friday morning around 10:45 Santa Cruz time and jammed down the coast making great time until I hit LA.  Of course it is not to smart to hit LA at 5:30 on Friday…..

Got to my buddy Lurker Scott’s place around 8PM and ate a burger.  We went to sleep early seeing as how we needed to be at Trix’s place at 5AM.

It’s all good.

So, I meet up with Trix and we drive to SI and meet up with the lurker.  We get the boat in the water quickly and head to the jetty to work out the kinks of the trolling motor and get our line wet.  

Let me just say this now.  The Seether is a sweet boat.  It is all about fishing.  That is it’s purpose, and it does it well.  Trix just has a few small things to do and the boat is finished.  3 people fished very, very comfortably from the Seether.

At any rate, here is the picture.  Trix with the new boat, me, and the Lurker, who hasn’t fished in over 2 years.  That’s right, not once in two years……But you’ll see it didn’t slow him down.  We jam up the coast a tad and Trix punches us into a huge kelp mat:




I’m looking at this like….whoa.  That is some thick hidely hoo.  However, armed with Trix Jetty Worms we attacked the kelp.  We listened to the lessons of the learned master Creasy and let our jigs fall all the way to the bottom mixed in with pothole pitching casts.  It was effective.

Here I am with one of my Saturday calicos:




Here you can see some of the kelp with some alleys in it:




These places we also hit with swimming style baits at times.  I kept true to the TJW and in swimming situations I swam the jig.  That method brought me 7 calicos over the weekend.

While I caught a number of nice bass, the Lurker was on fire!  2 years off was no hindrance to this guy.  He was fishing with a pitching stick and a curado SF spooled with 20# line.  TJW were the bait of choice.  Here is one of his 4# fish (he had several):




This fish was caught bouncing the TJW on the bottom.  This method produced all of the big fish that we caught on Saturday.  Sure, we caught fish swimming and potholing the baits, but all of the big fish came off of the bottom.

Here is Trix netting the Lurker’s big fish of the day:




And boy was he a happy boy.  5# even on the weight and the biggest fish he had caught in many, many years:




While the bass fishing was hot for the lurker, I sent my jig to the bottom on a suicide mission at the edge of a thick mat.  I jiggled the bait for about 20 seconds and it gets hammered.  I knew immediately that it was either a big bass or something else.  It takes several very quick runs at the beginning of the fight and then a couple more during the middle and I am freaking…..Trix used the trolling motor to get the boat a bit further into a open area and we netted……A red?  No, The glorious Blingcod.  Bright red!  Legal too! (6# and 25”worth)








Trix was not to be outdone on the day and brought in some nice calicos….All on TJW of course.






After a great day of 47 or so fish between all of us we went home satisfied and very happy with the new found success with bottom tapping.  We succeeded in getting a legal ling and an 18# sack along with a bazillion Johnny bass.  Nice!

The Bat fest was cool.  Good to see the Crease after I stiffed him so many times recently.  Saw lots of folks both old and new.  I didn’t fish, but I did lose the line competition to Carpkiller.

Let all who read this know that 4# Yozuri Copolymer is stronger than Stren original 6# test.   We gave up quickly on the line experiment, as it was just more fun talking to each other.

Trix put me up Saturday night and we planned to repeat the deal from Sat to Sun.

We launch together at around 6 the next morning and head straight to the kelp that we fished on Saturday.

The fish were less willing on Sunday.  Oh we caught fish.  I ended up with 15 fish a mix of johnnies and calicos but it was slow pickings.  We kept up with it though.  Trix and I would talk about how it only takes seconds to change a slow trip to an epic trip.  Seriously, this is what we were talking about….

So we are deep, deep, deep in the thick stuff and Trix is bottom bouncing his jig.  I had just pitched out and was letting my jig sink to the bottom when I seen Trix get hit.  He sets the hook and his rod is instantly SERIOUSLY bendo.  The very second of the hookup I am reeling my rod up as fast as I can so I can get on the net, I knew it was a big fish.  Trix was yanking the fish off of the bottom pretty quickly early, but soon the fish realized what was what and took off.  I haven’t seen line leave a reel like that from a calico…..Trix says “Dude, this is the biggest fish I have hooked in the kelp.  If this is a calico, I’m done…I’ve done it all if this is a calico”.

Soon, we were both convinced it was a white sea bass, it was WORKING Trix.  As it came closer to the boat I was instructing Trix not to horse it….he said “Whatever, I’m bringing that fish up!”.  And he did.  Unfortunately we were in the thick, thick mat and I couldn’t see the fish as it was all tangled up in a huge bunch of kelp.  I reach for the kelp and we are both thinking “Don’t touch the line, don’t touch the line” and I get enough of it away to get a scoop with the net it.  I net a bunch of kelp and some of a fish.  I didn’t realize what it was so I kept scooping.  We both still can’t tell what it is but most of it is in the net when be both realize at the same time “It’s a Sheepshead!!”…and it is frickin’ huge!!!!!!!

Here it is in the net.




What a toad!!!  Unbelievable!  High fives are thrown around and sodas toast beers.  Here Trix is with the trophy:








Check out the nuts teeth these fish have!





We were drained by the experience and chilled for 3 or 4 minute before we got back to seriously fishing….Gotta get another one ya know.

We finish the day with far less fish than we did on Saturday, but it was a day I will never forget.

MolBasser

Great report, nice fish too. My wife is convinced I only know how to catch rockfish and lings. I would love to catch a sheephead.  Congrats!

That last pic is awesome.  Excellent report, looked like a fun trip.

That last pic is great, lookslike the buzzard from the old bugs bunny cartoons.

[http://www.animationusa.com/wb81.html][/url]

The cool thing about this trip was learning to fish right in the middle of the thickest gnarliest kelp and succeeding.

I can't wait to try it out of santa cruz on the west side....

MolBasser

Wicked.... Nice sheepy!!!!. Yum.

Yeah, it was super tastey.  Light with a hint of shelfish flavor.

The lincod was excellent as well.  Fish tacos rock.

MolBasser

Nice report, nice fish.  We normally have kelp like that around here, but its just not here this year.

That is a beautiful fish.  It has crazy color.