Cabrillo (SoCal) 10-7-2013

I learned three things on today's fishing trip to Cabrillo:

1. Always call the bait receiver the night before.  I didn't do that and all they had were small anchovies.
2. Small anchovies, and probably anchovies in general do not do well in my bait tube.  It works great for squid but all the anchovies died after about one hour.
3. ALWAYS buy or make new halibut trap rigs for each Cabrillo trip.  (Yeah, yeah, I'm a slow learner.    )

That should tell you how today went.  I caught the requisite mess of lizardfish (reluctantly released) and one shovelnose guitar fish (also released).  And something broke me off before I got it to color, but it felt like a nice one.

It was a beautiful day. I was OTW at 7:15 am and it was like glass until a light breeze kicked in at 11 am out of the SW.



Cirque du Soleil has their big tent setup and it's really eye-catching.  (yeah, if you're not catching fish, then take pictures) 



I HATE WHEN THIS HAPPENS:  (Lesson 3: Always buy/make new trap rigs)
Whatever it was sure pulled hard.



After that I re-rigged and in almost the same spot caught this.  Maybe this is what I had. 





I caught more lizards than I care to report -- but THIS lizard hit the white plastic on the high speed troll ... near the surface.   So I have a question for anyone -- Is this lizard TOO BIG to use for bait?  All of the lizards I caught seemed just a bit large to use as bait.  Am I missing a trick here ??  What is the right size for lizardfish to be halibut bait?



How about this one?  Did I throw back a perfectly good halibut bait here?



While I was out, this little handle broke.  I didn't hear it break but I looked down and saw the piece.  This is the handle that pulls the cable to deploy the rudder.



I tried some Krazy Glue on it when I got home.  We'll see how long that lasts.



By 1:45 the wind was blowing it's usual afternoon gale -- out of the southwest. I had to work too hard to fish where I wanted to so I got off the water.  I took lots of pictures but I kind of liked this one -- so I share it here .... 



I think today, if I would have known the bait situation by calling, I would still have fished, but I would have used plastic all morning.  That size anchovy just does not work in the bait tube.  I might experiment with making my own bait -- perch or even lizards if I can figure out the way to catch smaller lizards .... or were those just right? 

See ya out there!

Dave   

Nice report, Dave.  I enjoy following the progression of your Madness.   

Thanks for the great report and pictures Dave.  The Lizard in the picture is "perfect" for Hali and Ling Cod.

that lizard is perfect hali bait. Ive used them up to about 12". I like rigging them on a reverse dropped loop with lots of weight. Kind of like a modified bounce ball set up without the 3 way or dodger.

I will have to look those up!  (I've used a dropper loop ... not sure I know what a reverse dropper loop is.  And I've never used those other techniques either! --- so much to learn!)