Kayak Fishing Adventures on Big Water’s Edge

It seems like the last several years I get real lucky around springtime. It all started when I speared my first 60 pounder way back in April of 2010. The big females are in the kelp and ready to spawn. So many of us are conditioned to the predictability of the squid bite in recent years. You pull up to the spot where all the other fisherman are, make bait, drift on the beds and wait for the school to roll through. Springtime cbass fishing is much different. There isn't much squid around, and the whites are keyed in on the finbait. Conditions can change drastically in a day or two. One day there's ripping downhill current clean water and greenbacks for miles and miles... the next only some sparse smelt and spanish in green rolled water. The bait is still around, just not where you might be looking. Or maybe the bait is everywhere and you just cant seem to get your mac to "stand out" among the crowd. Times like these you need to be most aware, most observant, and take note of the more subtle differences in the conditions.

Last Thursday afternoon I launched with a friend after work around 2:30pm. Wind: Plenty. Steady WNW but staying around 10-12kts generally. Tide: Middle-tide coming up to an early evening high. Surf: 3-4' short interval NW/SW combo. The conditions looked fishable, but LJ was empty. It was partly cloudy but I thought we would have a shot at the yellows in the afternoon. Metered bait deep and made 3 greenbacks just past the bouyline. One was an 10-11" mega-mac. Pinned him on a 6/0 ringed circle hook, 5ft 40lb flouro leader tied to 65# braid with a reverse albright. I saw the Chubasco II working the edge of the canyon so I paddled out to have a look. There were random birds working the area and disorganized bait balls around. It looked fishy, but I wasn't seeing any breezers or deep marks so after working the yo-yo for a while I trolled my mega-mac back in towards the hump.

By this time the wind had laid down significantly. I don't know if it was the calming surface conditions, or the decreasing light levels, but within about 30 minutes huge rafts of plankton began rising to the surface in like 100' depth. They weren't krill, and I'm pretty sure they weren't copepods. After consulting with my local invertebrate taxonomist/girlfriend, she thinks they are ostracods. Anyway the bait started freaking out once they found it. The current was light downhill, and once the plankton was pushed up to the kelp, all hell broke loose. When you have tons of bait blowing up on the surface, 90% of the time they are just feeding on plankton or krill. When the bait are feeding, the boils are uniform and huge volumes are all surfacing at the same time or in waves across the surface, kind of equidistant spacing. This can go on for hours and there might not be any larger predators anywhere near by. What I was looking for was erratic boils, random splashes going in different directions indicating that the bait isn't just feeding confidently, but actually being chased. In these schools, your meter can be blacked out for minutes at a time. You want to find scattered, broken up bait balls. Big open holes in the sonar returns, and ideally larger marks around the voids. Obviously you have to be able to distinguish between finbait and kelp returns, as this action was occurring on the boundary of the macrocystis kelp and the bull (palagophycus) kelp in about 90' depth.

Que my springtime luck. Big macks are like luke skywalker in the deathstar trench. They will bob and weave and roll and do whatever they can to avoid getting snagged in the kelp. Keep them on a short leash and trust in the force. I had two dogs on me when I got hit but I knew it was a fish in the first run. She went diagonally downwards straight into the kelp. This is where faith in your knots is critical. Getting a fish out of the kelp takes time and constant pressure. Sometimes you feel them get buried up tight and they aren't budging. You may lose hope here. No need, give them a little less pressure, but keep tension on the line. Once she feels a bit of relief, she will attempt to escape again. Keeping the drag light but constant will let her swim herself out of the kelp, and hopefully a little run might pop a couple stringers on the way. Now I've got her directly under the boat and lit up on my meter. Its time to do work. I had a dog circling over my fish as I brought it up the surface, wrapped in bull kelp. The dog didn't even take a sniff of her... she was too big. The dog just looked me like "really dude, you're a dick".

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Sooo stoked I'm hollerin at my buddy... "Get over here!" The bait is frantic all around me and I'm just laughing and staring this giant ghost. It's big. Well over fifty. You cant really see how FAT this thing was in the OTW photo. In the beach shot you can see a little better the girth and length of this beast. I am 6' and 230 lbs for comparison.

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Before you ask me how much it weighed, I have to admit that I didn't weigh it. Last thing I want to do is pull this thing out at Dana landing and have a bunch of damn lurkers on me asking questions. All I can say is it is for sure my biggest from the yak and in my top 3 largest ever. I've caught a few verified 60 lbers and this one was as big if not bigger. Not going to claim 60 though, so I'll say 50+ and let you guys call me out. I don't have a scale at home, and properly caring for the meat is far more important to me than a stupid number. I refuse to let this prized fish sit with guts and gills intact. First thing I do is gut, gill and get that girl on brine ice as soon as I get home.

There are yellows and whites in la jolla everyday. To say there is a "bite" going on is a stretch. Fish the conditions, not the bite and not the spot. If you are waiting for this report, it's too late! I am posting late, as this was caught on Thursday. But I have also shown the "exact location" picture which you won't typically see from other posters. Take a chance, get out there and learn from the ocean! Moral of the story: its springtime, go fishing.