LJ 6/14 am

[rastrev]

launched a little after 4:30am and headed to the pier for bait, tough to make bait until greylight, then it was a nice assortment of spanish, greenies, and sardines, after that started heading out, ran into a guy bendo on a thresher, his story to tell, as I made it around the nw corner of the reserve started trolling a couple greenies, something tugs at my bottom bait, so a pick up the rod, take off the clicker, and wait... nothing, so I decided to reel it in to check my bait when it is about 30 ft away I see a 4-5 ft shark come up and grab it, rod loads up, then a couple seconds later it was gone, I didn't get a great look at it, but did get a good look at the tail and it definitely was not a thresher, I'm guessing mako
Anyways that was the excitement for me today other than having to deal with knothead biting off a couple of my baits

[madscientist]

Shark infested waters for sure.

[Tman]

Originally Posted by madscientist

Shark infested waters for sure.

I totally agree...I would like to advise everybody, and I mean everybody, to stay off the water this weekend until the sharks move on...nothing to see here...

[Holy Mackerel]

Thanks for the report... probably won't be out until next week...

[Dennis]

Thanks for the report...

[nmbrinkman]

Knothead has become a nuisance. His abscence alone would provide an exponetial amount of enjoyment and time of productive fishing. He needs to find great white mackerel and hang with him for a while..

[goose]

chum in the sharks!!! screw knothead

[jscott]

Went out fishing Tues for PM shift (first night time landing-- definitely different!), Wed and Thursday AM shifts. Got to try out my new kayatank (I spent some money the day after the wife gave the OK!)...made a ton of bait and watched it stay alive all day! Cool. Between the 3 days-- only managed 1 big calico (just shy of 5#) who hit a BIG spanish. Lots of cuda slashed baits and sea lion stolen baits. Had one good hit, which turned into about a 20 second tow when I got the hook bitten clean off. I assume pup mako, but could have been a T. Crap! Would have liked to at least get color on that to ID it better. Other than that-- slow! Also-- Tues Night I saw a dead sea lion at the launch when we came back in (right in the middle of the driveway). Thursday Morning-- there was another dead sea lion in the same spot (and this one was STINKY!). I guess that arsenic in my macs is finally getting to them!

(RELAX PETA-- I'M JUST KIDDING!!)
The elusive WSB stays away from me-- 6 trips for me since may when they were showing up pretty good...and NADA. Oh well-- "that's why they call it........."
Nice to get out and paddle around-- works' been tough so I hadn't been out in a while. Good luck out there!

-jason

[esdees]

Wed PM and Thur PM - both trips my bait tube was attacked by a mako. I hooked one Thurs and watched it jump 3 or 4 times before it cut the line. La Jolla is infested, keep your feet in the boat.

[DBITE]

Hopefully the Makos and Humbolts will fight to the death and all thats left will be WSB and yellows

[SDdude]

Hey Rastrev,
that was me bendo with the thresher by the reserve's corner buoy. Again, thank you very much for answering the call for an assist. I had that thresher on for about 15 minutes, hoping someone with a camera would come along, and you answered the call. My usual fishing buddy couldn't sneak away from work that morning. It sucks to have a thresher on, then two on, and no one around to witness it or photograph it (from a safe distance, of course). The thresher was circling my yak doing laps, occassionally jumping clean out of the water, as they do. Would have made a great video footage. He wasn't a big one, 4.5 to 5 feet. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get the thresher alongside the yak to give you a good photo op, but I appreciate any bendo photos you may have taken.

Actually, at one point I had a double hookup with threshers. When I was on with thresher #1, I had forgotten all about my other line in the water. While fighting #1 out in front of my yak, I heard a commotion behind me, turned to see another thresher jump out of the water about 20 ft behind me, and that's when my other line peels out. Shit! So I backed off the drag a bit on #1, put the rod down and sat on it, then began to fight number two. Fortunately, #2 somehow became unbuttoned after a couple of minutes. Fine with me, allowed me to concentrate on #1. I think that's right about when you showed up. To finish the story, I lost #1 when, as he was along side me about 3 or 4 feet down, he made a run directly under my kayak and ran the spectra right through one of my Mirage Drive Turbo fins. Put a slice about a 3rd of the way through the fin, and the additional drag of that allowed the thresher to break the line off at the hook. Note to Hobie Mirage Drive yakkers: when fighting a thresher (or any other large game fish) with Spectra, it may be a good idea to take the ten seconds needed to pull the drive up and out of harm's way. Just another in a long succession of fishing "micro-lessons" I learned from that incident. I wasn't looking for a thresher hookup, and I wasn't prepared for it either with a buddy, equipment, or experience, so it's probably a good thing it ended the way it did, with no damage to body parts.

Again, thanks for the assist, Rastrev. I sent you a PM before I saw your post. Should have checked those first...

--Raleigh

Originally Posted by rastrev

launched a little after 4:30am and headed to the pier for bait, tough to make bait until greylight, then it was a nice assortment of spanish, greenies, and sardines, after that started heading out, ran into a guy bendo on a thresher, his story to tell, as I made it around the nw corner of the reserve started trolling a couple greenies, something tugs at my bottom bait, so a pick up the rod, take off the clicker, and wait... nothing, so I decided to reel it in to check my bait when it is about 30 ft away I see a 4-5 ft shark come up and grab it, rod loads up, then a couple seconds later it was gone, I didn't get a great look at it, but did get a good look at the tail and it definitely was not a thresher, I'm guessing mako
Anyways that was the excitement for me today other than having to deal with knothead biting off a couple of my baits