Newport Harbor Spotties and nice Halibut

[Uncle_Tomas]

Could not wait to get on the water again. After I got up saw that there is short window of decent weather before is starts raining again. Decided to fish harbor and I much prefer Newport over Dana although it’s further away from me. Launched under the PCH bridge at around 9, tide started to climb back up. spotties were surprisingly active despite the water being super murky.
I focused on ledges today and fished 3” swimbaits. Started with pearl white which worked great, then switched to brown/green and got couple on that as well. Then went back to light color and got some more. I had second rod rigged up with drop shot using Berkley 5” pink jerk shad. Spotties either shut down by the time I switched or did not like this lure or my presentation. No Spotties on drop shot. As I was working my way back I made cast towards the middle of the channel and slowly reeled back and got bit by 20” hali. Very happy about that catch. Off the water by 11:30.