Dana Report 10/10/11
 

Posted this on the KFM site as well....

Wet the hull around 0930 this morning, pushed off from Tim's and headed straight out to the barber poles...beautiful morning, calm seas, sunshine....water temps between 64 and 67 degrees...bait barge had a mix of dines and chovies...mostly chovies.. trolled a Rapala out and caught a Barracuda....nice omen for sure....drifted in 80 feet of water...3 halibuts...one legal, one borderline and one short...my first California Halibut!!....this time of year in NJ they would be called a Fluke.

Looked up around 1230 and wondered "Where did the sun go?" looked behind me and WHOA...that Marine layer appeared out of no where....reeled in and trolled down to the green buoy. Drifted the bottom...pulled up a couple of sand bass and then BANG, the drag spun out on steroids.....hooked something that turned the boat around.... trimmed the drag...regained my composure and figured I would let what ever it was tire out..no such luck... fought me for a good ten minutes, pulled the boat a good 60 yards parallel to the sea wall and then broke the line.... what a rush...but this is the 4th or 5th time I have had this happen in the same area...Thresher? Bat Ray?? do I switch to a wire leader? Anyone have any thoughts?

By now the Fog Horn is blaring and visibility is dropping fast...can"t see the bluff, start heading in....meet up with another kayaker fishing a short sit in Yak.... he had caught a skulpin just outside some lobster buoys...later he picked up a very nice halibut off the bait barge jetty...

Besides the one YAK...no one else around me all day...planning to head out Friday...

Nice day, 3 halis....VERY nice day.:D

3 hali better than any day i had this month

uh oh,
I feel a DP trip coming...what do ya think guys?:reel:

Hope to see you out there! Friday.
:reel:

friday work...bad...saturday sunday no work...good....:cool::reel:

Sunday Malibu if the surf is OK. Very fishy area, closer to you.

If Surf sucks then Cabrillo for me.

Freezer has no Halibut left.:mad::mad::mad::mad:

Cabrillo sounds like a possibility, out of halibut here too:reel:

I have had my line peeled off a couple of times at DP lately, once trolling a mac back from the point and once with a forgotten sardine about halfway down at the barber poles while I was rigging a light outfit for mackeral. Couldn't stop it and broke my line both times in rather short order. Gonna get that guy one of these days.

I also hooked up on a thresher at about 30lbs in that same area on my trout rod, it moseied up on a half dead anchovie that I was dragging on the top not more then 20 feet from the yak. Just nonchalantly inhaled it and turned around. Now that was a show...

Nice Hali.... I've had the same kind of bite and run happen. I did switch to a steel leader and pulled shark afterwards. That would be my guess.

Caught 6 sharks on Fri. south towards Doheny.

Thresher?

Odds on that mystery fish, even money Leopard shark, 2-1 Smooth-hound shark, Bat Ray 20-1, Thresher 25-1, Black Sea Bass 75-1, White Sea Bass 85-1, other 100-1. The only reason the Black is lower odds than the White, we've hooked 3 Blacks near the mouth of the harbor, that gave us a tow, and we haven't hooked a White (in the Dana Point area) large enough to give us a tow, although we know others have done it.
Somebody had to set the morning line. Those mysteries can keep fishing quite interesting. Congratulations on the legal halibut.

Nice job keeping active. Thanks for the post.

Sweet a legal Hali!! Keep up the good work

Im going out for sure.
 

Was going to paddle early on Thurs. Instead, I'll go out around 2pm and fish the pm session on Weds.

Nice work on the Hali's .