I had a few hours this morning to c&r fish the nearshore outside Santa Barbara Harbor. No wind and little current. Best results were from about 82' to 95'. Caught 4 sandies from 1.5 to nearly 3 lbs. and one near 3 lb. calico, and an unidentified rockfish, all on my favorite bass and butt clear w/redflake 5" Big Hammer.

Action was best when longlasting Smelly Jelly was applied. (However, when I use up my large supply of Smelly Jelly from norcal I will switch to Pro-Cure.)

I could have done much better during this short trip if I had not wasted so much time testing a rig for frozen squid that I made using an in-line threader (salmon trolling baitfish type). The intended purpose of this rig was to give me a chance, while swimbait fishing another rod, to catch a legal halibut, wsb, lingcod, or large sheephead fishing in fairly deep water using such a large treble hook and large bait that would not likely catch a short one of these or catch a sandy or calico, which I only want to c&r using swimbaits. Perhaps this goal of baitfishing but avoiding shorts and s. bass and c. bass is just a naive thought on the part of a recent immigrant from norcal who would not mind keeping one fish (other than sandies or calicos)for dinner. Maybe I have just been lucky but in the past my short halibut have all been caught near the surf, and my legals but no shorts have all been caught at or beyond 70'.

There were only pecks at my squid rig throughout the morning, and nothing stuck until...

line suddenly started racing off of the reel for a short but highspeed run, then nothing but a dead weight coming up very grudgingly, with no headshaking or runs, just great resistance while I inched (literally) the thing up for what seemed to be an eternity (full drag and 30lb test on this rig. Alas, it was not meant to be. The thing came unbuttoned abot half way up. Damn! The same thing happened to me last year. Please excuse me; I know that everyone loses a good fish now and then, and I have lost my share, but as a recent transplant to socal I have not caught my first wsb. Could this have been it?