Santa Cruz 7/24...

Headed to Santa Cruz on a beautiful day... Hooked up with the Bushmaster and Youtuber Nhiavangfoto.  Hit the water at about 6:45am and it was foggy.  Jigged up a few mackerel on the sabiki and started fishing.  Slow start for me.  Bushy hooked a keeper halibut bright and early.  Nhiavangfoto caught a short halibut and a couple small lings and some decent rockfish.  I'll have to watch his video later for details...?!

Slow start for me...  the mackerel did not produce and didn't stay alive for long.  Switched to squid and decided to fish 2 rods.  Bounce ball 3 way swivel w/ squid and a swimbait w/ a teaser.  Hooked 8-10 decent rockfish, but tossed em back hoping for a halibut, or keeper ling.

Had what I figured was a very decent fish around 10am and realized I had hooked 2 lings at the same time.  One on the swimbait and the other on the teaser trailer.  Keeper ling was on the swimbait and he spit the hook before I could net them both.  The ling hooked on the teaser was about 20"    Released...

Wind really started picking up around 11:30am and I snagged my bait rod.  Reeled up the swimbait to about 5' and worked out the snag...  Then the swimbait rod started going nuts?!?!  9" mackerel hit the teaser...  Decided to use it as bait on what was the squid rod and sank it to the bottom.  About 20 minutes later the "big rod" suddenly bent over.  Sure enough, an overzealous ling snatched the mack and got hooked on the treble.  Simply reeled in what fought like a big clump of seaweed. Oh well, keeper ling and it was time to head in.  Wind was ridiculous by noon.

Still working on finishing/eating halibut in my freezer and gave the ling to my neighbor.  While still spraying down my yak and putting gear away, she brought back a "Chinese plate" of freshly cooked ling.  Delicious    Going to try my luck at salmon next week as long as the weather holds in HMB 

--Aaron

Nice to see/hear some of you out there today. I launched at 5:30 and went out to 110+ fow and trolled for salmon for about 3 hours. That was a total bust, so came in to about 80 to 85 fow and trolled the bounce-ball (with hoochie). Out past the mile buoy, I hooked a couple of keeper lings and a few quality rockfish, including the nice verm in the picture. I only kept the verm. No if, ands, or butts (or salmon) for me today.

About 11:30 the wind picked up and it was great sailing the AI back to the harbor. As I sailed past the mile buoy, there was Bushy, surrounded by whitecaps and sailboats. That was the most impressive sight of the day!

Now that's a nice fish!...  I saw you WAY out there... you were definitely moving w/ the wind towards mid-day 

Nice ling.  Nice Red.  Horrible wind. I got my small butt at 38 feet on my way out, felt sure it ws to be a "limit" day now the swel has died.  Nope.  Still fun though.

Code3's got the fever!!

Bushy

Nice to see/hear some of you out there today. I launched at 5:30 and went out to 110+ fow and trolled for salmon for about 3 hours. That was a total bust, so came in to about 80 to 85 fow and trolled the bounce-ball (with hoochie). Out past the mile buoy, I hooked a couple of keeper lings and a few quality rockfish, including the nice verm in the picture. I only kept the verm. No if, ands, or butts (or salmon) for me today.

About 11:30 the wind picked up and it was great sailing the AI back to the harbor. As I sailed past the mile buoy, there was Bushy, surrounded by whitecaps and sailboats. That was the most impressive sight of the day!

Thats awesome you release your fish.  Great job out there