Sorry for the late report but here goes... John Rogers, Shawn and I headed out of O.C Sunday morning, clearing the inlet at around 6:00am. Hearing scattered reports, we decided to head out toward the Poormans Canyon. Actually, we were thinking about the Lumpy Bottom after the success John had with Craig(Daybreak), but the wind direction made for a pretty bumpy ride so we changed directions. We set up on the 50 fathom line, inside the Poormans, and had our spread out around 8:00am. We were running a mixed spread of BIRD/GMs, squid spreader bar, hoo/seawitches and squid chain/GM to see what was going to be the hot lure. We had our first knock down as soon as we set up. We were trolling west and the YFT hit a squid chain/GM. After a solid hook up Shawn was working the fish to the boat but a bone-head move by me allowed the fish to get off. I made a turn creating slack in the line and well...bye-bye charlie.
We figured the spot was as good as any even though we weren't marking fish. It paid off as we hooked up again. This time it was a WWB Bird/GM. Great work by Shawn to get a hell of alot of line back in along with the fish. Now here is when it gets interesting. John gets on the leader and I go to the gaff position. I take 2 swipes at him without touching it with the gaff. At this point things are a little hectic, the fish is boat side, I have 2 strikes on me and the YFT has managed to tangle himself in the 2 right rigger lines that we left in the water. John starts pulling the leader up and guess what he sees... the GM that was in the fish's mouth. As he is pulling on the leader, he sees the GM and yells to stick it as quickly as possible and I get him with a nice head gaffshot. 40lb YFT in the Boat! Lucked out on that one! What a thing to see that fish just swimming there without a hook in his mouth.
We almost broke the golden rule of leaving fish to find fish and head to the Poormans, but decided to work the area some more and picked up another YFT on a BW/Hoo seawitch. Nice 45lb YFT worked beautifully by John. We also managed to pick up a small mahi near some floating wood. Sort of a long ride back. Weather man said 2-3 but if that's what you call 2-3 then my boat is a 30ft boat not a 23 footer. We worked hard for what we caught but it was a great time and you can't complain when you put fish in the box. Thanks John for working so hard in the pit and Congrats to Shawn on his first YFT.
Will
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OCMD 8/21/05
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