I couldn't decide if I wanted to trailer to OC and try for some big trophy fish, or hit PLO for some smaller, but plentiful, fish. Greg (Bfaithful) has been having great success down south. I called him for a recent report and he said he was heading to PLO. I don't have radar and this time of year, the threat of fog is always a possibility. Greg has radar, so I figured if I had too, I could follow him out to the channel
Luckily, the weather was nice and we could find our own way
Left the dock at 7:15am and ran out near the channel while looking for birds. A few birds were flying but nothing working the water as we ran out. Once near the channel, we dropped all 20 lines with planer boards (the only mistake of the day). We put about 25 keeper fish in the boat, and all but 3 came off boat rods with umbrellas with 6 inch baits.
We kept our limit of 8 fish. They averaged 26-27 inches with only one being an over (32). Several times we had no one at the wheel (I have a second station just in case I needed to make a correction). One rod would go off and Jeff (chessie27) would grab the rod, then another and Jason (Rockin Robin) would grab it, then another and Capt. John (Patent Pending) would grab it, I would watch from the front and Jason would yell, Marty, we got another one for you. I would leave the wheel and we would all be fighting fish
As we brought the fish aboard, we would size them up and toss the two smallest ones back. This only happened twice, but we often had two anglers engaged with fish.
All boat rods caught. I ran 14 bars with 8oz; 12 bars with 10oz; 10 bars with 12 oz; 8 bars with 16oz; 5 bars with 20oz; and 5 bars with 24oz.
One of the board rods popped and Jeff was the unfortunate one to have to bring in a spinning fish that was closest to the board (140ft) and 13 bars back (130ft)
So as he was bringing in the fish back 270 ft:roll eyes:;he complained all the way to the net
Jason had another board rod pop that was back almost as far, and had to take his jacket off because he was working so hard to bring in the fish
It was a fun day razzing each other, telling lies, and catching fish. It was a great crew, and with Jason and Jeff sharing responsibility at the wheel (both owned Judge 27's), I got to reel in a fair number of fish today as well.
We pulled lines at 10:15, loaded the boat, drove back to South County Cafe, and Capt. John cleaned all the fish for us
Home before dark and ready to do it again next week (if the weather cooperates).
Thanks to a great crew; it made my day stress free and very enjoyable
5th (Marty)
PLO 12/5/14 w/photo
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