Threshers
 

So, I headed out of Carlsbad this weekend. What a sequence of friggin disasters! I managed to dent my car during unloading. I misplaced my leader material (Still to be found). I lost my glasses during launch (Wave hit me oddly). Could barely find bait. Broke a pole while trying to un-snag kelp. During landing, the waves were so large I was focused on steering and forgot to unlock my rudder, so the pin broke. Thankfully I had a spare.

Two questions - 1 - What are those little brown fish? They are long and skinny. Heads are fairly flat and a little pointy at the nose. Lots of little teeth.

2 - I did manage to catch a thresher. He put up a nice fight and towed me around for a while. I hooked him in the pectoral fin near the body. Even with that he jumped three times, which was fun. He was set free after removing the hook. Friendly little guy, 30 pounds or so I would guess. Question is, I have seen a number of these caught and it seems is fairly common to hook them in a fin. Is this a product of them trying to stun the bait?

Hopefully next trip is more productive and less destructive. It sucks not being able to see right. :(

1) Lizard fish

2) yes

Lizard fish - are they good bait?

Glad you could make it out with us. Sorry to hear that you experienced all of those issues. It just shouldn't be that difficult to have fun.

At least you got to play with a thresher. Last time I saw you you were just drifting towards that zone past the cattle boat that was out there.

George also got into a couple in that same area yesterday as well.

I stayed in my Yellowtail zone for nothing. Just that Batray was it for me.

Those little skinny fish are Lizard fish. They can be used for bait but I'd rather use the bigger green kind.

Hopefully next time wont be that bad of event if you decide to go out there again. It really is a good place to fish.

Yeah, the cattle boat left and I continued south. There is a little odd feature on the bottom out there that I was headed for when the thresher hit. That was a lot of fun. Other than that, there was a lot of nothing.

Next time I will certainly bring some squid and head to the the artificial reef outside Oceanside. I will probably drag a Mac on a flyline just in case some YT wanders by while I try for a Halibut or something else tasty. Those threshers certainly are fun though. Would not mind catching another - hopefully bigger.

I watched a guy catch a 150 pound one once. Man that was COOL!

The threshers were definitely out on Sunday. Here is a shot of the 2nd one I hooked up with. Got a fun ride almost down to the campgrounds. Had aspirations of trying to land it but too big for me to deal with. Got some pics and cut it free. Super fun fight....

Too bad there is no sense of size there. How big do you think that was?