I woke up this morning and said "Ima get my white seabass on!" During 6th period I was staring out the window toward the ocean for a good part of the class, and noticed a slight marine layer. The weather at school and at my house was nice. Sunny, warm... After school I went down to Harbor Tackle to shoot the $hit and Paul told me somebody caught a legal white seabass off of Marina 3 last night (that's the one next to the launch ramp, with the 3 pilings tied together on the end). That's what I wanted to hear. I went home at 6 and ate food and got stuff ready and was on the water by 7:30. As I was driving down Cabrillo Blvd it just seemed like a fishy day. You know the days. It doesn't matter what the weather is, or how the bite's been, it just seems like you're gonna catch fish. The fog had really moved in by the time I got down there. It was pretty thick, but not super thick. Thick enough so that I could only make out the street lights on the wharf, and the 4 big lights under the Harbor Restaurant. I couldn't see anything behind the sandspit. Brandon was right, the water was much cleaner. I kicked out to the bait barge and decided to stay right there all night. I was packin the white/red squiggle 4" fastrac on 10# test. I tossed around and got bit at about 8:00. Missed it. I couldn't believe it. Again. I repeatedly casted around in that area (parallel to the bait barge) and hooked up. Wait, yeah, no, maybe... Turned out to be an 8" white seabass. I kid you not. I thought it was a ronkie upon first sight, but it was a little seabass. Great. Not off to a good start. About 15 minutes later I missed one or two more (rrrrrrr) and then hooked a real one. This fish pulled drag for about 4 seconds and then popped off. Felt legal to me, but you never know... With that I proceeded to miss yet another fish in the same area a couple casts later. This pretty much demoralized me. I was pretty pissed off at myself, but nonetheless I continued. I started throwing toward Marina 3 from the other end of the bait barge and sure enough I hook up again. Pop. Lost it. That one didn't feel very big anyway. A few casts later, hooked another one. Alright, I'm not losing this one. I get this head shaker to the boat and it was about 26, 27". Might've stretched to legal, but I didn't bother to measure and just released it. 4 or 5 casts later I hooked up again and got a slightly smaller fish to the boat. THE SEABASS ARE HERE!!! Oh yeah. Got tapped a once or twice more, but nothing I had a chance of setting on. I kicked in at about 9:15 with a smile on my face. Finally. Man it felt good to feel those head shakes again. One interesting thing to note: That first fish (not the little one, the 26"er) jumped out of the water just like the first seabass I caught last year!!! Do I see a pattern? Maybe this is a good omen... It was great. That fish literally tail walked, and then jetted about 10 feet to the right and splashed around again. He never went deep, just stayed right on top. It was cool. So, you know where you can find me tomorrow night...
-Brian