Its been a Super Day!!

[EMSer]

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[sparky1423]

Wow!! Healthy looking fish Bruce...congrats again!

[EMSer]

Frustrated with yesterday's skunking, I returned to fish the changing tide. I launched about 10:30 for a 11:40 low tide. The water temp was 37 degrees and the air 40. Winds were 5-10 from the NNE.

My initial passes yielded few, if any marks. I thought it would be a repeat of yesterday's trip. On the second pass through, I passed a solid mark of a couple of fish. Within moments, my starboard pole was smashed. I immediately knew it was a quality fish. The singing drag made that clear. After about 5 minutes I boated a 27" FAT rockfish - tying my PB. Circling back, I came up empty. The fish had moved on.

I continued through my 1/2 mile circuit when I had my port rod go down. As I was reeling in the fish, my braid parted right at the reel. I was somewhat stunned by that, but quickly noticed that broken line was floating nearby. I paddled over, grabbed it and hand-lined in a FAT 24" striper.

After re-rigging that rod, I set it out and as soon as I set tension, the line parted again. Clearly, I have some kind of sharp edge that needs to be attended to so I stowed it in my crate and focused on what I had left.

During the re-rigging, I had drifted out of my lane. When I regained it, I noted several strong marks. 20 strokes later, my starboard rod was smashed even more violently than the first. As I was fighting what turned out to be my new PB at 29", I noticed that my FF screen was filled with BIG marks of a significant school.

I had been using a tandem rig with 2 jigs. When I landed the brute, the second rig was missing. I am wondering if I had a double and one broke free....

By the time I circled around, ready for more action, the screen was blank. Clearly, I had a school swimming through the channel while I was in place with baits in the water.
.
Several circuits later, I failed to relocate them so I headed home content in my finally catching the fish that I knew to be there, but had eluded me during recent trips.

The fish were all very FAT and healthy. The 2 biggest hit a G Eye jig w/ skirt and Z-mann (Opening Night), while the smaller 24" was landed on a chartreuse Yo-Zuri jointed Deep Diver that I had out because I wanted to cover the middle of the water column.

Now I am ready for some football!!

[Hemingway]

Good stuff! Great job with the hand lining.

[WOOD YAK]

Bruce: Congratulations! Your persistence paid off big time! Looks like a "she" loaded with roe.

[Salty Dog]

Nice report Bruce, congrats on your PB.

[Big Mike]

Those fish look overinflated and outside legal limits. Wow they are pretty!

[mike o]

Nice job, it's good to see there is still some quality fish around.

[WeCallEmRockfish]

Man, those are some FAT fish! Great report!

[Shady]

Nice fish! How heavy are the jigs that you are trolling?

[EMSer]

Nice fish! How heavy are the jigs that you are trolling?

I had a tandem that used a 1/2 oz and a 3/4 oz, paddlling about 2.5 mph

[Dimo]

Nice job Bruce! Hand lining and everything too! With a busted ankle and tons of work piling up, I'm livin vicariously through your update BIG TIME. Cheers!

[jhoss]

Nice work Bruce! And who said you need a hobie to catch em' trolling....

[Goody]

Great job Bruce! Those are some nice ones.

[daolai]

Nice fish my fishing motivation has been low but after reading this it's rising!