Today was the Harborama. I woke up this morning to Brandon's pleasant 7:30AM call saying "Dude, let's fish!!!", so I got out of bed and got my fishing gear together and we jumped in the water at 8:30 or so. Brandon brought a float tube bait receiver deal made out of a plastic tub with holes drilled in it, and coke/water bottles tied around the edges for floatation. We bought 1/4 scoop from Woody and threw plastic around the barge for a little bit. I got bit once or twice on the Castaic Sardine, but we were on a mission for halibut. We started slow trolling toward the wharf and about half way there I decided I was hungry so I put my rod in a holder and started eating my snack pack. Then Brandon hooks up, and I'm like, "oh cool, it's probably short though," so I don't kick over there or anything. Then he's like, "dude, I guarantee it's legal" so I kick over there with the net and net a nice 26"er. Awesome, first fish of the day. We continue our troll and dragged baits all the way up the wharf to the end and back which resulted in A LOT of raked baits. Almost every single bait would get raked by a butt. I managed to dominate a ronkie and Brandon caught a short. When we got back to the surf we joined 3 other tubers up really shallow. I connected and then farmed it just out of sight. Brandon caught another legal at 23" and I farmed yet another one just out of sight. I also got RIPPED and should've connected but didn't. This was all in 4-6 feet of water. One of those other guys got a 12 pounder before we got there. We fished around that area for a while and got bit a bunch and missed a bunch of fish (lesson learned, always use a trap rig...) and we took off at like 2:00.
Round 2. After a shower, and food I went right back to the harbor at 7:00 for the seabass. Pete had ordered me one of these "Lazer eye minnows" that look a lot like a fastrac, only fatter and they seem to resemble a dine or a mack rather than a chovy. I picked one up from him before I headed down to the harbor. The color I chose was white with a red head. The sides were more of a holographic white than white, and there was a strip of white on the belly and back. The head was more of an orangy red than plain red (I would actually have preferred red). I joined a couple fellow calfishermen at the bait barge and threw that lazereye minnow around. The action was alright, I think the fastrac's is a little better, but the lazereye looked like it would slay on a slow slow grind. It runs really shallow on that slow grind cause it's really buoyant so it might be the one for the halibut in the surf. We fished around till 8:30 without anybody even getting a bite, so the other guys took off. I stuck around for a little bit longer but took off right after them. It sucked, not so much as a tap. I threw that lazereye minnow and the Castaic Sardine. There were these two sealions, uh, gettin their groove on, if you know what I mean, and just making a huge ruckus and barking and splashing around all over the place, so I'm sure that repelled all fish in the area. The wind was also blowing in the below ideal direction, so at least the fish had a reason not to bite, which is more than I can say for some nights...
-Brian