Moss 4/20

We went out at 0600 this morning.  The weather and winds were perfect today.  Tom and I ended up about 4 1/2 miles out on the south side of the canyon.  We trolled at first, but ended up mooching out by the party boats on the edge of the canyon.  Tom caught two within ten minutes I will let him tell the tale.  It seemed like a lot of the boats were doing real well out there.   There were some caught deep, but most of the chatter was saying that the fish were being caught between 100 and 140 ft.  The winds shifted to blowing from the West and pushed us all the way in, even without fish it was a great day on the water.  It was good fishing with you Tom!
Ed

WAY TO GO TOM 

Ed...you are due to catch your share! Keep wetting your line  (I envy the fact that you live close by)

Congrats Tom!!! 

Ed,
Hang in there.  BTW, did you guys get any other hits?

Stuart

Stuart, another kayaker got three hits, but no luck.  I think we would have been better off if we had focused on mooching and hunting down bait balls.  Each one Tom caught was when he droped into bait after he found the ball.  I think he caught both at 120.
Ed

Wherever we were out there, I crossed some deep stuff, I saw 400 for a while, but I could have been in 200-500 ft (I'll have to work with my sputtering gps to see if I got the spot and what depth) that the ff took as 0,  but I could see bait specks all up and down the column with balls mostly 2/3 down the screen.  Heard some radio chatter about catching some mooching at 120 ft, so I dropped 8 oz mooching sinker and head down threaded anchovy on 30 lb spectra, 20 ft/20lb mono leader.  The first fish didn't put up a big fight til the surface then some short runs.  It was about 23-24", & about 1/3 the heft of the big one that Ed measured at 15lbs.  Rerigged as fast as my adrenalin stoked body would permit, paddled back out to about the same distance from the fleet, maybe 1/4 mile east, dropped to 120 again with the same rig (cheapo add-on line counter helped) and then I noticed what I thought was a sea lion off to my right 20 ft splashing, then realized I had something on, cause the line was slack, I reeled in thinking the sl had taken the whole rig, then was sure of it when the line started ripping out real fast to my left, then I realized it was a fish that had probably done the 120 in about 3 secs and flipped as I was sorting things out.  This was a big fight back and forth up and down, took my time letting it tire after it pulled down deep 2-3 times, and came up and jumped 10 ft away twice.   Missed one try with net, I have a 27" wide one, had trouble getting it over the side.  It was already a pretty nice day before the 2 fish, nice straight down drop, med swells, a little confused wave action, sunny high thin overcast and fairly warm.  Earlier I'd trolled both an apex and a fbr behind an 8 oz mooching wieght, added a 4 oz round one to the 8 for a while - no luck, trying different speeds and (I guessed) depths.
   Got that big one filleted and the meat on the  bones steamed up for the cat who begged for more!  Got to go start the Q!
   Thanks for the pecs Ed!   Met Vidor (sp) at the launch  and he made it most of the way out with us, hope he made it back.  Also met Dan (who is going to register on the forum, but has to wait because he was technically at work today).        

Way to go, Tom!!!!!!

fantastic!   

WANW.......

Nice fish Tom!  The force was with you.  sounds like great fight, too esp that 2d one. 

Nice! Congrats!

Nice !!!! Congratulation and fish ( peace ) be with you...


Kiel

Nice Job Tom    





 

Looks like you picked the perfect day to get out, way to go!!!

Nice job.   

Congrats Tom.  Nice report too!