Ocean Party-Boat Fishing 07/04/13

My wife and I decided that the best way to celebrate our independence was to avoid traffic, families and barbeques this year.  So we signed up for a half-day fishing trip out of Dana Wharf.  The trip left at 10 am so this holiday morning felt suspiciously like another day of work, especially since the 4th fell on a Thursday this year. 

At the docks, we found that we would be fishing on the Dana Pride for the first time.  While most of the party boats we join can hold about fifty fisherman, this boat could easily hold double that amount.  And since there were only about forty anglers total, the boat seemed especially spacious.  Unfortunately, that concludes the positive part of the trip.

The fish count reports had been low for the past few days and the legal capture size for many of the varieties of bass (sand, calico, etc.) has changed from twelve inches to fourteen this year.  During the trip, we hit four spots near the San Onofre power plant that did not produce much.  My wife used squid and live anchovies and manage to catch a small sculpin at the first spot.  This was her first sculpin so this came with a bit more excitement that a catch like this would normally warrant.  Unfortunately, this was her only catch of the trip.

I was using a rubber jig until the third spot when I hooked something particularly large.  My fight was short, however, as I only pulled and reeled for a few seconds before the fish decided it was leaving.  It pulled me down hard and took my line for about four seconds before the line snapped.  About twenty minutes later, someone hooked another large fish.  He managed to bring it to the surface although it snapped his rod at the topmost segment.  It was a black sea bass (maybe 60 pounds) which was released at the ocean surface.  We were able to watch the fish float belly-up, resting from its fight for a minutes before some jackass decided to try to hit it with his tackle.  The line touched the big fish and it disappeared under the water without any further hesitation.

The fish trip was set to end at 3 pm but since there was a very low fish count, the captain decided to bring us to a kelp bed to get a more guaranteed catch.  I caught two calico bass with two cast at this new spot, but both were undersized and the entire boat had crowded to one corner of the boat, so I decided to call it a day.  I spent the rest of the day sleeping and the next day I admired my sunburn.  Still probably my best 4th of July yet.