December Tanker...

[Geno Machino]

Hit the water a little before 7am this morning, to a consistent 1-2' swell. Paddled out with no problems and hooked up my new Garmin echoMap 54. Wind was a brisk 5-10 mph off shore, with a water temp of about 65 degrees. Using the wind to my advantage, I stop peddling and started fooling around with the meter trying to dial it in. When I drifted past the reserve line, I started metering bait. The theme of the morning, plenty of bait everywhere but no biters. I made 2 Spanish and that was it for more than an hour. I ended up catching a nice calico on one Mac and got crushed on the other. Tried making more bait - but what's the theme of the morning...so I decided to give some whole squid on a dropper loop a try. While I was drifting, I kept metering bait balls and my sabiki (even with squid tipped hooks) would not entice any to bite.
Got antsy with the squid gig, so I decided to start yoyoing. It was getting to be about 9:30 by this time, with no breeze to speak of and the nice warm sun shining down on my face (not to mention the sweat dripping off my brow from yoyoing in 100' of water). I would peddle until I saw bait and drop. Nothing for about a half an hour or so. Peddle here - drop, peddle there and drop. Then it happened, I metered some bait close to the bottom with what looked like predator fish above them. I dropped my blue/white jig once again. It hits the bottom, and before I make a half a crank -- I,m on! Getting pulled around for a December sleigh ride - whowho! Thinking yellow all the way, about ten minutes into the fight I start gaining line and I short stroked it to a tell tale sign of dead weight and no fight all of a sudden. Two more pumps of the rod and what to my wondering eyes should appear -- C-bass!!!:

My first c-bass from a yak!

Not having much room in my Rev13, I,m trying to make sure this baby gets in the hatch and not back in the drink. A fellow kayaker (Tony, Big Thanks for the help!) sees me struggling with this (40#even) fish and comes over to help me stuff this Beautiful fish into my front hatch But not before a quick couple of on the water pics.

And then Fishja showed up at the beach to get me a another couple of photos of this Big Beautiful local tanker!!!

Stopped by Tim's new shop in Oceanside 'O'side Dive and Kayak' to weigh her up. Met Denise from Hobie and Jim Salazar with Promar. Great meeting the both of you and thank you Tim for weighing my hard earned first WSB.

And what is soooo very nice about this wsb - is that it was caught around 10am on the yoyo and not on a squid bed at 2 or 3 in the morning
Like I told my fiancé Lori - I can't catch anything on the couch or behind a computer ...

Geno