Inshore Horseshoe 6/5

[angling allen]

Monday 5/6 tried the Horseshoe found water 64 degrees, decent current. Spent half the time fishing bass for about a dozen mixed to 21 inches, and half the time searching for those halibut that everyone is talking about!
Plastics while drifting still proved effective for the bass, mostly in the deeper areas. Several doubles. Still mostly subtle bites, colors were all over the place. Bass were fat and several loaded with squid and saw several 4 inch slug looking things in some gullets. Lots of birds working the west end of the Shoe, found huge areas of bait. Managed a few macks to use for the halibut.
The halibut was a different story. Been out a few times drifting a reverse dropper loop in several different areas, and had my baits raked on about 75% of the baits. All on long drifts. Using sardines and macks. Not a single hookup! Ugh! Better stick with the bass!
Will trade bass info for halibut info! Lol.
These 4 inch slug things became quite the nuisance. Even had them on the halibut drift.
As the wind came up the water cooled and got dirtier. 60 degrees when I finished about 1pm. Didn't see any surface action. Couple small pods of porpoise working through the bait schools, lots of birds too.
Tight lines!

 

[MikeC.]

pup had fun

 

[surfgoose]

Always a great report! And a productive day on the water. Not too many sandy beaches near the Horseshoe. The flatties are mostly ambushing grunion along sandy beaches now in a full moon period.

 

[Oh_Chit]

On a ship somewhere near cortez bank and I have been seeing those slug things in the water too . What are those things?

 

[dalurker]

very cherished moments with the pup making awesome memories!
so wish we could have a lab, but sadly we can't...
thx for always posting!

 

[Cactus Chris]

Had a ton of those slug things a couple weeks ago when we were fishing the banks at night for BFT. Big ones

 

[pacificscout]

Nice looking bass.
Keep at the halibut.
It will pay off.

 

[bayfisher86]

They're called pyrosomes, check out my video starting at the 15:00min mark, i filmed them underwater and there were literally thousands of them. they grow to 60ft long too!

 

[salt-shaker]

They're called pyrosomes, check out my video starting at the 15:00min mark, i filmed them underwater and there were literally thousands of them. they grow to 60ft long too!

Not sure if I would be comfortable swimming with 60 ft pyrosomes...or whatevers.

 

[holeout]

I think the common name is sea pickles.

 

[SeaShed]

Hey Larry, are you using a trap rig for fishing halibut? If you're getting raked they must be down there.
I make up a few 40# and 30# leaders with this setup and keep em in my bag. Use a swivel on the top and pretty quick to switch over from bass fishing that way.
I use the sliding trap rig on this video. Has worked for me.

 

[captainsoup]

I'm loving these reports! Keep up the fishin'!

 

[holeout]

Hey Larry, are you using a trap rig for fishing halibut? If you're getting raked they must be down there.
I make up a few 40# and 30# leaders with this setup and keep em in my bag. Use a swivel on the top and pretty quick to switch over from bass fishing that way.
I use the sliding trap rig on this video. Has worked for me.

I see a flaw in the sliding rig above video. How can you set the hook in the fishes mouth if the fish bites the top "J" hook? When you pull up to set the hook the line is just going to slide through the hook and not set in the fishes mouth. Fish is going to feel something and let go.

 

[jrodda]

Some really nice bass in there.

 

[beerman1]

Never count out bouncing plastics for Halibut either. Years ago I used to help my buddy commercial fish them at Cat. We strictly used plastics with great success. He kept them alive in his converted fish-hold (to live well).he was getting close to $10 a pound if alive. half that for dead

 

[tuna rob]

Allan are you opposed to launching from marina del Rey? I’ve tried fishing halibut as well from Long Beach with terrible results. If you launch out of marina del ray and fish south in 60 or less feet you will get one. Much better halibut fishery, but bass is much lower numbers.

 

[diseasedscrotum]

Nice quality and thanks for posting. Yep... those "slugs" are pyrosomes.

 

[DrBob89]

Here's a good presentation on pyrosomes:

 

[ChoeMan]

 

[hucklongfin]

Nice bass! Your dog obviously agrees! Yeah, those slug things are pyrosomes. If you’re not fishing a trap rig for the ‘butts, give it a try… it should improve your hookup ratio.

 

[Irishman818]

Like the post above from SeaShed; if you continue to get short bit and raked, a stinger hook will definitely increase your hook-up ratio. Also, with halibut where you find one, there are likely more. And they are usually of comparable size. You usually won’t find little guys in with the big boys (the females are actually largest.) You could be in a spot holding a lot of small ones that are unable to inhale the whole mack. Either way, that stinger hook in the rear will help you find out

 

[onehottip]

Most likely small fish. Big fish don’t f around.

 

[zam]

man that dog is identical to mine i lost last november <3