BNickW

That thing s a tank

Where’s the southern fish pics?

I have an old Stradic fj that’s in great condition except a couple dings on the lip of the spool. I’ve been holding onto it with hopes of coming across a reasonably priced spare. Prob been close to a decade at this point. Yet I have a spare spool for my VR 150 to make it a 125, never have I used it.

VRs are the interchangeable ones. The 125 and the 150 share the same body. Same goes for the 175 and the 200.

Welcome. Good choice in school location. Enjoy the next couple weeks of fishing, should be about as good as it gets.

Caught albies and bones the last two days. They were chasing halfbeaks which makes this a little easier in my opinion. Came across a mile long drift with non stop life at the bottom on the fish finder. Turned out to be a huge school of juvi weakfish. Could catch on every drop. Found some bonito cruising right above them too. The weaks averaged 6”-12”. I feel some school of something big is gonna move on them. Way too much easy protein to go unnoticed.

Sheepshead eat em. Don’t see why tog wouldn’t.

Worth a shot. It’s usually either try to mimic the bait as closely as possible or stand out for me. Sometimes fish are just tight lipped.

Sometimes there’s just too much bait and they are keyed in. Usually if there’s a ton of bait you want your fly to stand out. But if they are too keyed in that will deter them. Can be a delicate ballance or just a frustrating PITA. Try scaling down and more natural colors.

I had two come right up to the boat waking after my lure. Def sharks. 6-8ft. Tail and dorsal completely outta the water. These guys were leaping easily their body length out of the water if not more. It was crazy. All within sight land. Super memorable day. Cobia is a wish list fish. That would be awesome. Some day…

Not sure if the video works. Took some screen shots.

Went looking for albies and bonito this morn and got skunked. We managed a couple mackerel and bottom fish while searching. While gazing upon the horizon for life I saw a couple huge splashes. It was pretty flat out so maybe they just seemed exaggerated. We motored closer and continue to see huge splashes and large bodies coming out of the water. And spinning. My first thought was spinner dolphin. Kept getting closer and started to see the big bait they were on. Silver sausages jumpin in unison(halfbeaks?). The closer we got it became obvious that they were spinner sharks. A school of them leaping about. Watched for a while then strapped on a Doc. I got two followers on consecutive casts. First spooked by the boat. Second swung at the lure. Hit it briefly but didn’t get hooked. The wakes from these fish swimming at me got my heart pumping. Tail and dorsal outta the water. And like that they disappeared. Wicked cool morn. Sorry for the cussing. I gotta potty mouth. IMG_0374.MOV

A couple sunrises over newport

You know it’s July right?

A couple years ago I came across a big school of bunker unprepared. I made due with what we had on board. Snagged a bunker with a deadly dick with a treble hook in the back. Took the lure off the clip slid on a circle hook and sent it down. Quickly got bit in half by a blue. Repositioned the hook on the bunker head and dropped it back down. Hooked up with a huge striper. Fought for a while then came off. When I reeled up I saw the point of failure was the clip. Somehow the fish got enough leverage to open the 50lb paper clip style clip up on me. It still haunts me. When in doubt, direct tie.