half moon bay, 10/27/08

got a pm last month from a guy named ted (aka stickfish) on the ifish.net board.  he was asking about fishing options in the san francisco bay area.  i figured that this would be the best bet. 



welcome back, gentlemen, to the "triangle of death!!!!!" 



meet stickfish!  he was pretty much hooked the entire day on 3 and 4 ounce s.







i also had the pleasure of fishing with bob, who lost more than his share of hardware today, ......


and his son, jason, who spent the day getting fishing lessons fron his dad!!!!!!!!!



we stuck a quarter limit of fish right away and were then joined by captain bob ingles of the queen of hearts .......



.... and dennis baxter of the new captain pete.  nice to see the rails full!







to give ourselves a little more room, we fished the 37.15 line in 60 feet of water near pescadero.  no special spots, just set up on the 37.15 line, cut the engine and drifted.  it was a great day.  i didn't have to clean the fish.....



we caught an easy limit for everyone ........



and once again, i rule!!!!!!!!!!!!

yakattack, looks like fishing was pretty hot!  you had one fish on a shrimpfly, one shrimpfly empty and a china following a plain lead weight to the surface.  good thing there wasn't a bar or something else with a hook in it at the bottom of that double shrimpfly rig, because a 3 hook rig is now illegal in california.  yup, fishing is great when a rockfish will follow up a plain lead weight. 
 

At the risk of (me) sounding like a moron, and an obnoxious moron at that, it does look awfully like that Ling bit on a.........plain lead weight........

Nice ling Alan.

Jedmo

sorry the photo is deceiving.  the rig as two shrimp fly hooks and a plain 10 ounce lead ball at the bottom.  the ling hit the bottom shrimp fly and spit the hook the moment he was gaffed.  then the weight got wrapped up around the gaff.  i do have some shrimp fly leaders that have only a single hook.  that allows you to use a single bar with a treble hook.  you are correct that a 3 hook rig is illegal in california.  what i've found is this, though .....

smaller rockfish will certainly hit a teaser shrimp fly above a bar, but if a guy is skillful enough to be able to work a bar, he is generally not interested in dealing with the teaser.  i think that you can work a bar the best if it is straight tied to the spectra.  the mono in between just gets in the way.  when i have noobs and the drift is slow, a bar tipped with squid works best.  i can quickly teach them how to whip the bar out of the rocks, or just pull it out.  the 1/0 bronze mustad treble will bend out (and back), so you loose a minimum amount of gear.

in this case, we had a VERY fast drift.  ted lost $40 worth of hardware (8 of the 3-4 ounce bars).  poor bob lost over $120 worth of hardware.  he insisted on fishing with mono and these expensive shimano jigs.  i opted for my home made 2 hook shrimp flys tipped with squid and a cheap 10 ounce ball sinker.  i was working the iron at the beginning of the morning, but that left me unable to do anything else.  i decided to switch up to shrimp flies when i saw the size of the fish and the relative speed of the drift.  doing this, i could drop a shrimp fly to the bottom and work the 10 ounces, or give it 5 cranks and leave it in the rod holder.  the ling hit the bottom shrimp fly when the rod was in the holder. 

...another lesson learned here! Thanks Alan, you do rule!
CANyouPMmeTHElocationOFthisTRIANGLE?
I won't tell a soul!    

A mini-epic from the ambassador!   

You're getting due for a kayak trip, Alan!   

 

Just had to mention it, y'know, pictures aren't always what they seem.

  Alan, it seems the party boats recognise you and know that you know where the fish are!  They seem to show up everywhere you fish!

Just had to mention it, y'know, pictures aren't always what they seem.

dude, that is absolutely no problem.  better to get called here on a mistake then to have dfg point it out to you.  and if it was intentional, i would have absolutely deserved to get busted. 

...another lesson learned here! Thanks Alan, you do rule!
CANyouPMmeTHElocationOFthisTRIANGLE? I won't tell a soul!  

we actually had better fishing at the 37.15 line, just off pescadero, in 50 feet of water.  just set up on the 37.15 line in 40-60 feet of water and let the wind and currents carry you.  the entire area is fishy, and there's quite a variety.  the triangle is nice because it's on the way, but the party boats have been hitting it pretty hard.  i stumbled across the place a couple of years ago.  i'm sure i wasn't the first, but it was actually nice to find something totally on my own.  you should find humps that hold school fish at these numbers.  the lings and vermillions will be out on the flats.  work the flat center of the triangle and the flat inshore side of the triangle for bigger fish. 

anyway, the top of the triangle is 37.16.9291, 122.25.9383

the left side of the triangle is 37.16.7995, 122.25.9942

and the bottom of the triangle is 37.16.6456, 122.25.9025

consider yourself sworn to secrecy!!!!!! 

another triangle ......

http://www.fishsniffer.com/cgi-bin/forumsyabb/YaBB.pl?num=1225221659

i was just kidding Alan......but, now I hope to see you there some day calm.
you are a reel-deal nice guy!  andIwon'tTELLaSOUL!promise.