LJ Shores for the first time
 

Hi all, I just moved back to CA from HI and decided to go out on Sunday to the kelp in LJ for the first time on my Hobie. I went there once on a party boat called the Chubasco II and fish were biting everything, whether it was from the back of a chum throwing boat or from any of the kayaks I saw around the area. I could pull up plenty of greenbacks, spanish macks, jacksmelt, pretty much all day long on sabiki. Seemed like everyone had full bait tanks. Only thing is, I couldn't get anything else to bite, and I never say anyone else getting bites either. I even saw the Chubasco II go from spot to spot throwing chum left and right, and none of their guys were catching anything. Only success I saw was from one boat getting some calico bass action at noon from plenty of anchovie chumming on the north side of the kelp. I was there from about 6:30 to noon and was wondering if this is just a normal thing and some days the kelp just doesn't produce or if I just suck at life. By the way, I was using Big Hammer swimbaits, and Western Plastics slugs most of the time. Sometimes I used an iron or a weedless jig with large curly tail. Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

Went there twice so far. I got nothing first time. Second time I got flipped but at least I caught this in the kelp on a dropper loop with squid.. Got jacked for a ton of macks by seals and I think twice by fish but couldn't get em on the hook. http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/06/10/epy6umav.jpg

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

Troll the baits on the outer edge of the kelpline, running perpendicular to the shore. 100-125 feet of water. Don't throw the big 12-15" greenback away. Keep it. Big bait. Big fish. I know elephants eat peanuts, but lions eat deer. You want to keep moving if the current is slow, or slow troll the bait along the outside of the kelp at about 1-2 mph. Very slow pedal/paddle. One thing you have to remember: the chubasco 1/2 day boat wants quantity for all fishermen. So that they come back. If they chased two yellowtail around for 30 people for a half day, people would be pissed off. That's why we're kayak fishermen and not boat fishermen. I can't stress enough about time on the water. Spend full days at a time out there and you WIll get bit. Meet fellow BWE guys and learn all you can. Use search forum to find anything you need. ANYTHING. And last but not least, support your local OEX, after all they are the ones who sponsor this hear post. Good luck man. Tight lines!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Solid ^^^

I'll take that as a good sign then that sometimes the area just isn't turned on. I did see some guys out in the open towards the canyon looking like they were bottom fishing I guess for rockfish. When I wasn't trolling a greenback I would mainly just park on top of the kelp and work my lures vertically with different retrieval speeds. Is this productive or would a long cast and swimming the bait back be better?

I love the site by the way. I've started from the end and have been working my way back. I'm only on page 450 or so. So much experience here it's amazing.

You're going to try to read every post in BW history? Good luck to you brother.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

YakDout, thanks for all the info. I was pretty much going back and forth with trying the open water troll for big fish and coming back to the kelp in hopes for bass with artificial bait. I saw a seminar from Kevin Nakada (Sea Samurai) at the Fred Hall show earlier this year and was trying to keep to his yellowtail advice. Trolled the greenback about 100 feet back outside and around the kelp at 2.2-2.7mph. There was a pretty good struggle once. The greenie had some cuts along his body but wasn't dead or bit in half so I don't think it was a seal. Maybe a Barracuda. One thing I can't decide is if adding weight to the line would be a good idea to get the greenie lower in the water column.

But yeah I really love OEX. I got my Hobie from them along with various other things. Couldn't ask for a better deal and I love this yak so much (revo 13). I also have a OK Trident 11 and the off brand Ascend for two of my kids in the lakes. Definitely giving my future business to OEX.

Yeah I'm pretty bored sometimes at work. Maybe I'll catch something big and tasty after a couple hundred more pages!

Glad SOMEBODY uses the archives!!! Lotta useful info

Eric, Nice to have meet you. I hope to see you out there again.
Jeff

Hey Jeff, did you and Mike end up with anything nice at the end of your lines sunday? Great meeting you too. I'll see you on the water again.

well that's why it's called fishing, not catching! don't be too discouraged!

I was out there sunday on a 1/2 day boat. It was wide open calicos all day. Barracudas showed up for a bit, and got a few rockfish. I also hooked up on something big most likely a black seabass but didn't land it.

Well that's good to hear. I just thought it was pretty weird that the other party boat I saw kept moving all over without success. When I was on it a couple weeks earlier the boat caught over 400 calico along with tons of other species. I didn't expect that kind of success by myself on my kayak, but I did think I would at least bring in a few bass. Nice to know that the fish were just biting heavy in a different location and it (hopefully) wasn't just me sucking. What part of the kelp was your party boat working off of? The one boat that I did see catching bass were chumming with anchovies but fishing the smaller shimano waxwings.

I think that was the boat I was on. My friend was the one using the shimano waxwing, i was using big hammers plastics 5inch most of the day. I probably caught and released like 30. Was that you with 2 other guys in surfboards?

No I was by myself on a Hobie Revo 13. The boat I was talking about seemed to be private. There were only three guys on it I think and when I was heading in for the day at noon I passed them. They asked if I wanted to fish right behind the boat cause they were getting calico like crazy and they were just leaving themselves. They threw a final net full of anchovies into the water and started to pull away. Right before they left they got a couple more as I was getting closer for a cast. I threw my 5 1/2" halloween colored Big Hammer with red 3/4oz weedless head quite a few times with not a single taker. I mainly just used a steady retrieve but every few casts I would just try a sweep-sink retrieval. Then I threw a chrome and blue surface iron for a couple minutes. Still nada.

Kayak fisherman usually do way better than the local party boats.

Hmmm.... that's weird, I was using the señorita big hammer with none colored 2oz head also big hammer wasn't weedless. But yeah those 3 guys came to the boat to get some chovies from us. Maybe it just wasn't your day, but fishing was good.

No I was only expecting a couple hundred calico plus 5 or 6 YT. Oh well...