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Launched at Armistead this morning around 5:30. Crossed paths with Ryan (Shady) and we chatted a bit before heading out. I began by trolling south towards Stoney Creek in ~15' of water. Lots of bait near the surface and marks on the FF, which was fun for me as it was my first time at a local spot with my new Garmin Striker 4 all hooked up. Marks were small, white perch and schoolies as I would later learn. Not even a bump on the troll, so I swapped to topwater and targeted some pier ruins. Saw a splash and casted over to the area with a JBR pencil popper and was rewarded with a nice explosion from a feisty 20" rockfish which was quickly released. Also jigged up a 17" rock on a metal jig which was my first time catching one on metal. My buddy uses them in the Eastern Bay and swears by them. Guess they get it done here too!
Trolled back and began hunting for perch to live line. Ryan had locked in on a school and was very gracious and passed me a few. We hung out and chatted for a bit before I headed towards the Key Bridge. Nothin doing there so I found a dropoff and drifted a perch while casting a perch pounder. In about 8-9' of water I found numerous schools and began landing solid perch nearly every cast. Most were of a high quality, and there were some schoolie rock mixed in as well. It was my first time live-lining and I really enjoyed it. It's nice having the live perch off to one side while casting from the other. I saw the rod bump a couple times but unfortunately I think it was smaller rockfish who really just pecked all the perch to death. May they float in peace.
Overall, it was great to see tons of life in that area. Most perch were in 8-10' while the bigger marks were in 15-20'. There were probably7-10 crabbing boats working the area hard. It was also really cool to see some of the MASSIVE container ships/tankers coming through the channel. Good god those things are big. Probably ended with 30 perch, 5 small schoolies, and the two bigger rockfish. A great day on the water and awesome to meet Ryan (who crushed some big perch) and share some fishin stories.
Trolled back and began hunting for perch to live line. Ryan had locked in on a school and was very gracious and passed me a few. We hung out and chatted for a bit before I headed towards the Key Bridge. Nothin doing there so I found a dropoff and drifted a perch while casting a perch pounder. In about 8-9' of water I found numerous schools and began landing solid perch nearly every cast. Most were of a high quality, and there were some schoolie rock mixed in as well. It was my first time live-lining and I really enjoyed it. It's nice having the live perch off to one side while casting from the other. I saw the rod bump a couple times but unfortunately I think it was smaller rockfish who really just pecked all the perch to death. May they float in peace.
Overall, it was great to see tons of life in that area. Most perch were in 8-10' while the bigger marks were in 15-20'. There were probably7-10 crabbing boats working the area hard. It was also really cool to see some of the MASSIVE container ships/tankers coming through the channel. Good god those things are big. Probably ended with 30 perch, 5 small schoolies, and the two bigger rockfish. A great day on the water and awesome to meet Ryan (who crushed some big perch) and share some fishin stories.
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