This report covers a 1.5 day trip on the Pescador out of Redondo Beach. The boat left on Saturday 11/21. We grey light to sundown Sunday fishing the northeast side. After boarding a decision had to be made to fish the island or Tanner Bank. Given the difficulty of the bit on Tanner and the wind picking up, we decided for YT at the island. Fishing was slow (water temp dropped 5 deg-F from the prior day) but there were definitely signs of life with bonito, barracuda and yellowtail. The few YT we caught were around 15-20+ lbs, but they were not biting well. A few rockfish, bonito, halibut and sheaphead rounded out the mix. All of the YT were caught on good quality flylined sardines.
I’m going to keep this report short on the fishing since it was basically a slow bite due to the sudden drop in water temp and instead post some pictures of what it looks like underwater. After years of accumulating rods and reels, and realizing I just don’t need more of them, I bought a couple of under water cameras to justify spending more money on fishing. It comes from a company called GoFishCam and can be found on Amazon. I am not affiliated with them in any way, but I have found their product to work well and couldn’t find a similarly suited one from GoPro.
*** Saturday ***
Left at about 7 PM with a load of 10 people, picked up bait at the received and headed out. Good quality bait and more than enough for 10 people. Temperatures were cool but the seas were calm. The boat tried to make squid, but wasn’t very successful due to the sea lions. A short 4-5 hour trip to Santa Barbara Island, dropping of the anchor on the East side made for good sleeping.
*** Sunday ***
Woke up Sunday morning and fished grey light. Some action on barracuda and one guy caught a spider crab on some fresh dead squid another customer brought on board. YT were not showing up so we left that spot and head north along the east side of the island. Weather was good Sunday with winds out of the WNW at 5-10 knots max. Clear and sunny skies, waves 1 – 2’.
There were some signs of fish as we moved from spot to spot, and a few boiling YT. But, they were either (1) not very present or (2) not biting well. It took lots of time and effort to catch the few that we did. Given the amount of bait thrown, I think we all thought the YT just weren’t very present. With people dropping down to 15 lb test and size 2 hooks, there were still few bites.
However, the fish cam footage told us a different story. I’ve posted some of the pictures below. Basically the bottom had a good number of YT and there were YT in the middle of the water column eyeing my sardine as it dropped into the zone. But, they would not bite. I think if we knew the bottom is where the YT were cruising, we all would have been using yo-yo’s and dropper loops. But, given the big drop in water temp, the fish had lockjaw and I doubt we would have caught that many. Anyway, the moral of the story is that there’s a lot happening below the surface we don’t know about.
Sunday night, we looked at the footage and just blown away on how clear the water was and how many fish were around, but not biting. I had a one video of a sheaphead coming in to eat a dropper looped sardine. The Sardine pretty much exploded in the mouth of the sheaphead – just disintegrated instantaneously. Unfortunately, the video was very shaky so I didn’t post it here. Also, saw many calico’s and other rockfish take in a sardine and just hold it in their mouth. I never even knew I was bit. Got one good video of a hooked halibut. Out of three I hooked into, I landed only one. I’ll say this, I got bit on the bottom more times than I knew about and it’s pretty cool to see fish behavior – kind of gives you a different perspective on how often you get bit and don’t know it, different hook sizes you might use, et…
A couple of things I learned or can point out…
There’s so much more going on beneath the surface we don’t know about.
*** Bait ***
5-6” sardines. Nicely cured.
*** Weather ***
Seas 1- 2 feet. Sunny, 70 deg-F. Winds WNW at 5-10 knots max.
*** Grade of Fish ***
YT: 15-20+ lbs
Sheaphead: 5 – 12 lbs
Bonito: 2 lbs
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----- OTHER NOTES ------------------------------------------------------------------
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The Crew, Captain and Passengers: Nice group of guys and a good crew. I’d fish the boat again sometime.
*******************
**** My Gear *****
*******************
- 20 lb: Super Seeker 270H + Trinidad 14A (30 lb spectra + 20 and 25 lb. Izor XXX mono topshot)
I caught the majority of my fish on this.
- 30 lb: CalStar 800ML + Seagate 30H (40 lb spectra + 30 lb Izor XXX mono)
I caught one fish on this. Prefer to fish as light as I can.
- 80 lb: Seeker Hercules SHS70H-7 + Accurate DPX2-500 (65 lb spectra + 80 lb JAK wind-on)
Didn’t use it.
- 100 lb: super seeker CTSF 63XXH, Penn Int. 20T 2 speed Cal Sheets converted
Used it to drop flat falls Saturday night. No luck.
***************
**** Knots ****
***************
Bimini to worm knot for all spectra-to-mono connections.
Loop-to-loop connection for all bimini / wind-on connections.
Spangler knot for all line-to-hook knots.
Good luck out there. There’s lot of fish around.
YouTube Video
I’m going to keep this report short on the fishing since it was basically a slow bite due to the sudden drop in water temp and instead post some pictures of what it looks like underwater. After years of accumulating rods and reels, and realizing I just don’t need more of them, I bought a couple of under water cameras to justify spending more money on fishing. It comes from a company called GoFishCam and can be found on Amazon. I am not affiliated with them in any way, but I have found their product to work well and couldn’t find a similarly suited one from GoPro.
*** Saturday ***
Left at about 7 PM with a load of 10 people, picked up bait at the received and headed out. Good quality bait and more than enough for 10 people. Temperatures were cool but the seas were calm. The boat tried to make squid, but wasn’t very successful due to the sea lions. A short 4-5 hour trip to Santa Barbara Island, dropping of the anchor on the East side made for good sleeping.
*** Sunday ***
Woke up Sunday morning and fished grey light. Some action on barracuda and one guy caught a spider crab on some fresh dead squid another customer brought on board. YT were not showing up so we left that spot and head north along the east side of the island. Weather was good Sunday with winds out of the WNW at 5-10 knots max. Clear and sunny skies, waves 1 – 2’.
There were some signs of fish as we moved from spot to spot, and a few boiling YT. But, they were either (1) not very present or (2) not biting well. It took lots of time and effort to catch the few that we did. Given the amount of bait thrown, I think we all thought the YT just weren’t very present. With people dropping down to 15 lb test and size 2 hooks, there were still few bites.
However, the fish cam footage told us a different story. I’ve posted some of the pictures below. Basically the bottom had a good number of YT and there were YT in the middle of the water column eyeing my sardine as it dropped into the zone. But, they would not bite. I think if we knew the bottom is where the YT were cruising, we all would have been using yo-yo’s and dropper loops. But, given the big drop in water temp, the fish had lockjaw and I doubt we would have caught that many. Anyway, the moral of the story is that there’s a lot happening below the surface we don’t know about.
Sunday night, we looked at the footage and just blown away on how clear the water was and how many fish were around, but not biting. I had a one video of a sheaphead coming in to eat a dropper looped sardine. The Sardine pretty much exploded in the mouth of the sheaphead – just disintegrated instantaneously. Unfortunately, the video was very shaky so I didn’t post it here. Also, saw many calico’s and other rockfish take in a sardine and just hold it in their mouth. I never even knew I was bit. Got one good video of a hooked halibut. Out of three I hooked into, I landed only one. I’ll say this, I got bit on the bottom more times than I knew about and it’s pretty cool to see fish behavior – kind of gives you a different perspective on how often you get bit and don’t know it, different hook sizes you might use, et…
A couple of things I learned or can point out…
There’s so much more going on beneath the surface we don’t know about.
*** Bait ***
5-6” sardines. Nicely cured.
*** Weather ***
Seas 1- 2 feet. Sunny, 70 deg-F. Winds WNW at 5-10 knots max.
*** Grade of Fish ***
YT: 15-20+ lbs
Sheaphead: 5 – 12 lbs
Bonito: 2 lbs
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- OTHER NOTES ------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Crew, Captain and Passengers: Nice group of guys and a good crew. I’d fish the boat again sometime.
*******************
**** My Gear *****
*******************
- 20 lb: Super Seeker 270H + Trinidad 14A (30 lb spectra + 20 and 25 lb. Izor XXX mono topshot)
I caught the majority of my fish on this.
- 30 lb: CalStar 800ML + Seagate 30H (40 lb spectra + 30 lb Izor XXX mono)
I caught one fish on this. Prefer to fish as light as I can.
- 80 lb: Seeker Hercules SHS70H-7 + Accurate DPX2-500 (65 lb spectra + 80 lb JAK wind-on)
Didn’t use it.
- 100 lb: super seeker CTSF 63XXH, Penn Int. 20T 2 speed Cal Sheets converted
Used it to drop flat falls Saturday night. No luck.
***************
**** Knots ****
***************
Bimini to worm knot for all spectra-to-mono connections.
Loop-to-loop connection for all bimini / wind-on connections.
Spangler knot for all line-to-hook knots.
Good luck out there. There’s lot of fish around.
YouTube Video
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