Fishing getting better

[Wood Spinner]

Out this am and did pretty good. I got out about 10:00 am and back in about 2:00. Fished off the South side of Pelican and brought in about 10 nice Rock Bass and 7 very nice Triggers.
I started using some of the Needle fish I caught a couple of weeks ago and no luck. Finally a small rock bass and used it for bait. It did well as usual but it slowed down to nothing. I had a couple of fresh water Bass plastic worms and I tried one on a circle hook rigged wacky style. First cast a very large Trigger and some more nice Rock bass and Triggers after that.

 

[azfish]

did the waves and the wind stop, it was still real bad Thursday when we left?

 

[Wood Spinner]

It was a little rough in the am but got fine by 2:30 I had headed West as I went out because the wind was from the West and I did not want to come back in rely slow if it got worse.

Today Sat. it is flat and calm and the horizon is smooth so going East may be to the estuary.

 

[joester]

Bill,
how's that new fishing rig working for you? hope your day was successful. see you next month!

 

[moore_rb]

Congratulations Bill- you might have been the only person to catch anything this weekend.


We ran out Saturday morning, and things were calm until you got about 2 miles out, then it was 3 foot whitecaps and really nasty trees growing on the horizon, so we ended up just hopping around all the close-in reefs and scraped up nothing but nothing.

Sunday morning we tried again and ran west, but the same deal - big swell, 20knot winds, lots of pitching, lots of spray, and no fish.

A very rough weekend for the Tiburon crew, but at least I'm primed and ready for next time!

 

[Wood Spinner]

Hey Robert
That little boat is a real thump. Takes some getting used to, kind of like riding a horse. I do need to make a method of getting the anchor rope to the bow instead of the side. I had a troly but it did not work well so I need to redesign and re install. I also was all over the place and only did any good off the South side of Pelican in about 27 ft of water. Something I did try was using Bass plastic worms hooked wacky stile and they caught fish. I only had 2 and they were purple with white tails 6 in. I will be taking more next time.
Hope to see you down there. We try to go every other weekend arriving Thur afternoon and staying until Mon about noon.

 

[Kenny]

Hey Robert
That little boat is a real thump. Takes some getting used to, kind of like riding a horse. I do need to make a method of getting the anchor rope to the bow instead of the side. I had a troly but it did not work well so I need to redesign and re install. I also was all over the place and only did any good off the South side of Pelican in about 27 ft of water. Something I did try was using Bass plastic worms hooked wacky stile and they caught fish. I only had 2 and they were purple with white tails 6 in. I will be taking more next time.
Hope to see you down there. We try to go every other weekend arriving Thur afternoon and staying until Mon about noon.

Try a rubber Crawdad on a jig head Bill, they work great!

 

[audsley]

I'm waiting to hear someone is catching corvina. So far I've only heard of a few being caught. I do not care to catch sand bass around Rocky Pt. as they are too small for anything but bait, and I don't care to eat trigger fish. Corvina from shore and larger, good-eating fish from the reefs several miles out are what interests me.

So that leaves us to ponder what's going on and what could be expected for the future. Stuart and RB Moore gave the reefs a shot and came up empty. Is that because

A. The water is too warm right now, in which case
1. in November we will start to see the kind of activity we normally expect in October, or
2. this is just going to remain a bad fall fishing season because if they aren't around in October they aren't coming, and we can only wish for better luck next year.
B. Both the resident and migratory fish populations have been hammered by commercial fishing and other marine life harvests of various kinds and might not recover any time soon.
C. Improved fish populations in recent years pulled a lot sharks farther north, and they hung around until they ate themselves out of house and home, then left. (I doubt this happened, but thought I'd throw it out there.)
D. Something vital has been lost near the bottom of the food chain, causing game fish to either perish or move to greener pastures.
E. Some combination of the above.
F. The fish are there just as always but just not biting now, possibly because of warm water.

As for the corvina, could it be that not enough people have been fishing for them with the right tackle and instead are using the kinds of lures that are guaranteed to catch sand bass and small triggers, and that Norty and his friends (another thread) were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time?

I have no answers, only questions. But I do know that some fish species boom and bust in cycles fish biologists have been unable to explain. Crappie are said to be that way, which is why state fish and game depts. seldom bother to set limits on crappie. Sometimes you just never get to know why.

 

[brokenwave]

My construction guys caught some corvina 3 weeks ago at Pinto Pt. Don't know what they used for lures/bait.

 

[Mexico Joe]

I'm waiting to hear someone is catching corvina. So far I've only heard of a few being caught. I do not care to catch sand bass around Rocky Pt. as they are too small for anything but bait, and I don't care to eat trigger fish. Corvina from shore and larger, good-eating fish from the reefs several miles out are what interests me.

So that leaves us to ponder what's going on and what could be expected for the future. Stuart and RB Moore gave the reefs a shot and came up empty. Is that because

A. The water is too warm right now, in which case
1. in November we will start to see the kind of activity we normally expect in October, or
2. this is just going to remain a bad fall fishing season because if they aren't around in October they aren't coming, and we can only wish for better luck next year.
B. Both the resident and migratory fish populations have been hammered by commercial fishing and other marine life harvests of various kinds and might not recover any time soon.
C. Improved fish populations in recent years pulled a lot sharks farther north, and they hung around until they ate themselves out of house and home, then left. (I doubt this happened, but thought I'd throw it out there.)
D. Something vital has been lost near the bottom of the food chain, causing game fish to either perish or move to greener pastures.
E. Some combination of the above.
F. The fish are there just as always but just not biting now, possibly because of warm water.

As for the corvina, could it be that not enough people have been fishing for them with the right tackle and instead are using the kinds of lures that are guaranteed to catch sand bass and small triggers, and that Norty and his friends (another thread) were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time?

I have no answers, only questions. But I do know that some fish species boom and bust in cycles fish biologists have been unable to explain. Crappie are said to be that way, which is why state fish and game depts. seldom bother to set limits on crappie. Sometimes you just never get to know why.

Fished 4 to 5 hours two separate days in Rocky Point the first week of October and didnt get one bite! I was throwing metal only and trolling a saltwater rapala. The water still looks green and it was warm. The only pelican dive bombing that was happening was out of kayak range closer to the Mountain on the south side of Cholla Bay. Didnt see anything running bait schools, didnt see much of anything. Depressing. I'd say wait till the water cools off 10 degrees, until then it's a WOT or a WOMPT. Added notes: fished hight tide both days 145 - 2pm both till dark. Hight tide was 305 325 I believe.

 

[moore_rb]

I don't think the warm water is helping, that's for sure.

El Nino in the pacific has meant REALLY warm water in the SOC this year.

on the way out of the harbor on Sunday I spotted a HUGE school of candy-sized mackerel that formed a cloud 100 yards long. I dropped a sabiki right down into them and nada... not a single one would grab on.

You know it's tough when not even the bait fish are hungry.

We did have that big cold front move through on Friday, and nothing puts fish to sleep faster than a big drop in the barometer...

Next weekend will probably be awesome. There are some promising signals out there - I know a couple other boats hit some grouper a week ago, and another actually picked up some nice halibut out on the deeper reefs.

 

[moore_rb]

BTW- the water temps ranged from 83.6 to 84.1 on my transducer all weekend.


Give them a little more time to come down into the 76-78 degree range and things might start exciting

 

[playaperro]

We did alright

 

[audsley]

Beach Dog's picture was taken in July. Story? Where'd you find that shark?

 

[Mexico Joe]

I don't think the warm water is helping, that's for sure.

El Nino in the pacific has meant REALLY warm water in the SOC this year.

on the way out of the harbor on Sunday I spotted a HUGE school of candy-sized mackerel that formed a cloud 100 yards long. I dropped a sabiki right down into them and nada... not a single one would grab on.

You know it's tough when not even the bait fish are hungry.

We did have that big cold front move through on Friday, and nothing puts fish to sleep faster than a big drop in the barometer...

Next weekend will probably be awesome. There are some promising signals out there - I know a couple other boats hit some grouper a week ago, and another actually picked up some nice halibut out on the deeper reefs.

Buts?! I love buts!

 

[rplarry]

I don't think the warm water is helping, that's for sure.

El Nino in the pacific has meant REALLY warm water in the SOC this year.

on the way out of the harbor on Sunday I spotted a HUGE school of candy-sized mackerel that formed a cloud 100 yards long. I dropped a sabiki right down into them and nada... not a single one would grab on.

You know it's tough when not even the bait fish are hungry.

We did have that big cold front move through on Friday, and nothing puts fish to sleep faster than a big drop in the barometer...

Next weekend will probably be awesome. There are some promising signals out there - I know a couple other boats hit some grouper a week ago, and another actually picked up some nice halibut out on the deeper reefs.

We were were down Friday thru Monday and fished Moura twice, the northern most part off the Mirador off of the big rocks, and off the beach in Las Conchas. Like previous reports in this thread, catching fish was scarce and not for a lack of trying. In fact, after 6-8 hours of total fishing time I was about to be skunked for the first time ever (not even a 4 inch rock bass) until a 14 inch flounder hit my kastmaster. Landed it and tossed it back because it was the last day and I didn't have any confidence I would catch any more after a bleak weekend of fishing.

But to Moore's comments, I think it had something to do with the water temps being warm. Interesting though, we felt a major cool down along the beach in Las Conchas over the weekend.

I also think the New Moon had a lot to do with it. I hardly ever do well during the New or Full moon phases. Interestingly, I spoke with a Mexican guy who is working in Las Conchas and he said he caught 125-150 corvina between he and his buddy last week and in all 1 day! They keep a pole and an ice chest with shrimp in their truck at all times. He said he didn't even try fishing this past weekend because of the tide and moon phase. He thought this upcoming weekend would be good again like last week, especially with the water temps decreasing.

Hopefully inshore fishing will be picking up. Wish we were coming back down next week...

 

[seatrout]

Awesome!