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Fishing November 16, 2002 Dennis and I headed out to do some rock fishing. We were both in fishing withdrawal since it had been a whole two weeks since we were out there. I think I misunderstood the term "rock fishing" though: |
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I hooked a rock that was so heavy, I thought I was hooked on the bottom. Dennis put the boat in gear, and we moved quite a ways, but the line was still taut, but not on the point of breaking. That's when Dennis knew it was a rock. I was sort of hoping it was a huge fish. "There's an optimist at the end of every fishing pole." Attached to the rock was a huge tangle of fishing line. We've been wondering how such a big bunch of it could have ended up on the bottom like that. Seems like someone lost a spool or a reel full of line.
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I caught a nice blue ling cod, | ||||
and Dennis put his line down with 4 hooks. A few of them had sardines and one of them had a piece of long-dead squid that Dennis has been bringing along with us every trip. The sardine hooks caught salmon groupers, and the squid caught a red, so Dennis then fished some more with the squid. Here are some pictures of him with 4 on at once: |
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Fishing November 09, 2002 No fishing this weekend. It was stormy, and there was a small craft advisory. :--( Fishing November 02, 2002 |
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Today Dennis, Al, and I set out on Dennis' boat to look for halibut. First we stopped near the Imperial Beach pier, and then we moved on to the area known as "the bull ring" because you can see the Tijuana bull ring from there. When we were off Imperial Beach, there was almost no wind, and it was warm and the ocean was completely flat (check it out in the pictures). That's were we caught most of the fish. By the time we were in Mexico, the wind came up, and the boat was drifting too fast for our sinkers to reach the bottom. Halibut live on the sandy bottom and ambush smaller fish that swim by. We put sinkers on a slider on the line, and used the sardines for bait. The sinker would land on the bottom (about 25 to 100 feet down) and the bait would then swim along close to the bottom. Often I'd feel a nibble or even a hard tug on the line, but then the fish would be gone. I'd reel up the line and see what was left of my sardine. Sometimes big chunks were missing. Al had one that came up with only the head remaining, and Dennis had one that had no tail when he reeled it up. Those rock fish are hungry and sneaky. I was wondering how we'd target one type of fish, considering that last week we found about 4 different species all in the same place on the same bait. I guessed sort of right on that. We found about 5 different things: sculpin, barracuda, sand bass, mackeral, and yes one halibut. Al caught the halibut, but it was small. I was too busy to take a picture of it, and of course I expected us to come up with lots more anyhow. Al pulled up a sea urchin too. (see photo below). My personal fishing successes of the day were that I had a pliers when we needed one, and a "krockodile" lure in my tackle box. And I was able to release my own fish without getting stung, bit, or otherwise accosted. Doesn't sound like much, but it's progress, believe me. Oh, and today was the second day of my testing meclizine for sea sickness. I took two the night before, and one in the morning. This time I decided to push the envelope a little, so I ate Mexican food the night before, had coffee in the morning, and had a meatball sandwich for lunch AND ate lots of chili cheese Fritos!!! I did fine! Didn't feel even slightly sick. The water was smooth as glass in the morning, and stayed pretty flat all day, so it's not the best test, but for me to eat like that on a boat and not feel a thing is certainly a good sign...
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Barracuda |
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Sand Bass |
Sculpin |
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 Sea Urchin |
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