Hi all...

I am new to this board...But already I can appreciate the exchange of info...

I fish both conventional and fly gear (as of late, I really have been fly fishing almost exclusively). I love both equally but I can appreciate the learning curve on the fly gear and it has actually been cheaper for me (after acquring gear of course) which is helpful because of $$$ probs lately.

Here is a report of my last trip:

Yesterday we rented skiffs out of Rocky Point Skiffs (King Harbor). Not the cheapest way to go but worth it because of the ongoing bonita bite. We did the usual as we filled the provided bait sled with live ones from the reciever and gave the guy an xtra 5 bucks. On this trip and last trip (24th) it has been all sardines with three or four anchovies mixed in somewhere...

We first headed towards the harbor opening near the end of the jetty and my buddy hooked up almost immediately on a nice bonita but got wrapped up in the kelp (which, BTW, has been geting nice and thick lately). Shortly, a big dog came and scarfed it down (sea lions have also been very thick lately) so we moved. Lots of short calicos here at times...

We trolled on up to the shoal/yacth club area and we found what we thought was a nice stable spot of mackeral. I decided to flyline a bait to see what was around and hooked a nice bonita. My buddy was hooking up on mackeral every other cast on the fly. So I switched over...Mackeral were easy but no bonita. After several mackeral, I flylined a bait again and another bonita - a three pounder. So back to the fly and again, mackeral but no bonita. Swithed lots of patterns, but no bonita. Finally, I put on a big, rabbit fur streamer and caught a nice 3 pounder. The trip rounded out with a couple more bonita on the fly, several on the flyline, and lots of mackeral.

We used several variations on the clouser minnow and some tres generaciones for fly patterns. Flylining a live bait was the hot ticket for consistent bonita, but if you could find an anchovie in the mix, that was a guarantee...

In the end, we landed dozens of mackeral, and about 8 bonita in four hours...I can honestly say we would have landed dozens of bonita had we fished bait but we were on a mission. They are thick right now...If you fish stand up locally and are used to flylining baits, it is no different here...Once you find them, they will smack the baits. Sometimes you have to soak one a bit, but I got bit on almost every live bait.

For flyfishing, the bait serves primarily as chum and we use it also to search for fish if blind casting with flies does not seem to be productive...You can also troll flies or rapalas, swimbaits to find them too...

Monday befor XMAS was similar. Interestingly, we saw a breezer of about 100+ large bonita rush by and not a single fly or bait we were trolling got bit...