La jolla 10/27/13

[619-SWIM-DOG]

Nice job, I got a bunch of those flounders but didn't think to keep them. I'm guessing there good eats....

[Zfish03]

Good eats!

[Aaron&Julie]

Originally Posted by 619-SWIM-DOG

Nice job, I got a bunch of those flounders but didn't think to keep them. I'm guessing there good eats....

We haven't bothered with our sand dabs in the past either. But, on our last trip we had 2 small rockfish, and then I caught the biggest sand dab we'd seen, and decided to give it a try.

Filleted the rockfish, scaled and gutted the dab.

After picking up some scallops at the store we had ourselves a pretty decent seafood meal. All cooked together in 2 tablespoons of butter and olive oil with minced garlic, chopped onion, pepper, cilantro, and chili power. Turned out to be quite a good meal and variety. The dab held it's own against the rockfish, you just have to watch out for some of the smaller bones.

We'd keep a bunch of those dabs of decent size if that's all LJ is giving up, which can often be the case, because they're almost always down there. If we were to target them specifically, we'd go with much smaller hooks, a 4oz torpedo on the bottom with 2 hooks up above about a foot apart, and use squid strips. We'd probably get all we wanted in the areas we know them to stay around. When we've got them in the past and on this trip it was with an iron and a strip of squid searching for rockfish or lingcod holes. We've also caught them on sabikis and squid strips dropped all the way down searching for mackerel schools. Just FYI for anyone that wants to load up on another kind of good eats.
Aaron

[Ggiannig89]

yea the sand dabs are pretty good. i believe if you're specifically targeting them you can use as many hooks as you want.

[Aaron&Julie]

Originally Posted by Ggiannig89

yea the sand dabs are pretty good. i believe if you're specifically targeting them you can use as many hooks as you want.

I won't doubt you, because I haven't read the regulations. I know it's okay to use more than 2 hooks for sabikis when specifically targeting baitfish, those being mackerel, sardines, 'chovies, squid maybe even smelt, tomcod(queenfish), etc. And even though sand dabs have no limit I'm not sure that qualifies them as a baitfish, even though they are great lingcod bait.
Suppose you're fishing more than 2 hooks on the bottom for sand dabs but hooked a big halibut instead. Legally it would seem you could not stick a gaff in it, nor keep it. And I suppose that would further apply to sabikis for baitfish, when dropping down to the halibut zone. If you could keep so-called incidental catches of that nature, there would seem to be no way to enforce the 2 hook rule, and many would use more hooks when fishing for rockfish, and just claim they were fishing for sand dabs, mackerel, etc.
It will be interesting to hear if others have a better insight to this question of how many hooks for sand dab fishing. There are other species besides sand dabs that have no daily bag limit, so it will be good to know where the 2 hook rule applies.

[alanw]

If I remember right, the two hook rule only applies to when you are targeting rockfish. So unless you have a rockfish on your boat or in your possession, go crazy with as many hooks as you want.