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For folks looking for some entertainment, Rose Haven is producing well again so far this year. I've been a handful of times in the past couple of weeks, and most times left with an arm tired from bringing in the fish! I've been ball-parking 40-50 fish per trip but yesterday I made the effort to actually count every fish (give or take), and it came out to be ~55 rockfish and 2 white perch from 5:15am - 8:45am. Fun times! Biggest yesterday was just shy of 17", but most were in the 14" range. I did get a nice 22" fish a couple of weeks back, and a several 18's. Not much in the way of perch, but then I'm not really targeting them so I wouldn't read into that too much. (But no CNRs yet - hooray!)
Most rockfish have been on jig and paddle/curly tail, though they were hitting spoons hard one day too. I did notice the fish are kind of clumped up. It took me 45 mins to find a single fish yesterday, but then stayed on them the whole time in one general (large) area. Similar experience in previous outings too - gotta troll around to find them, and then you can sit on them and get one after another until either you or they drift off. Key depth has been 6.5 - 10ft, with most strongly preferring the 7-8ft over rough-looking bottom.
I also noticed they are very aggressively hitting 'falling' baits in particular. I'll hold the rod while I troll (pedal drive FTW!) and frequently 'drop/draw' the bait to entice them. I'd say 9/10 hits are during that drop. Just straight trolling isn't nearly as effective. Same with the spoons -- that second you flutter the bait down, they absolutely nail it. So I'm guessing they're particularly keyed in on dying shad. Anyway, hopefully this is helpful to folks that want to get into a few fish this weekend*, even if keepers are hard to come by.
[*edit: just remembered the weather's gonna suck this weekend...
]
Most rockfish have been on jig and paddle/curly tail, though they were hitting spoons hard one day too. I did notice the fish are kind of clumped up. It took me 45 mins to find a single fish yesterday, but then stayed on them the whole time in one general (large) area. Similar experience in previous outings too - gotta troll around to find them, and then you can sit on them and get one after another until either you or they drift off. Key depth has been 6.5 - 10ft, with most strongly preferring the 7-8ft over rough-looking bottom.
I also noticed they are very aggressively hitting 'falling' baits in particular. I'll hold the rod while I troll (pedal drive FTW!) and frequently 'drop/draw' the bait to entice them. I'd say 9/10 hits are during that drop. Just straight trolling isn't nearly as effective. Same with the spoons -- that second you flutter the bait down, they absolutely nail it. So I'm guessing they're particularly keyed in on dying shad. Anyway, hopefully this is helpful to folks that want to get into a few fish this weekend*, even if keepers are hard to come by.
[*edit: just remembered the weather's gonna suck this weekend...
]
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