When I first talked to Jim about fishing San Diego Bay, he mentioned wanting to get some Halibut. And why not, they are biting pretty good right now. After scouting some spots and info, and then the day that Chuck and I had, I figured we had a good chance of getting Jim and his buddy Fernando on some legal sized California Halibut. I figured this would be especially true if we used live bait.

The night before our trip, and talking to Jim about what launch ramp to meet at, he had mentioned wanting to catch a Bonefish. That one was easy; I know where the Bonefish are and what they have been eating, and such. However, to target both kinds of fish in a half day of fishing can be pretty sketchy at best. Ah, but I like a challenge, and these two really wanted to have a good time, so there we were.

It took no time to idle out of my favorite launch ramp site to the first spot. The tide was still up a bit, and was going to drop slowly. This meant Bonefish first, then off to drift for some Halibut. The two gentlemen had made their first casts, when zing... and Jim was on. We got the fish to color and it decided it was too camera shy (or net shy), and was gone - just inches from the net. Oh well, it's bad luck to catch one on the first cast anyways, right? A few croaker each later, then Jim got another Bonefish. This one was a star and modelled for the camera (somewhat).  

There was a moment there that Fernando was the guy chumming the Ghost Shrimp for Jim. It seemed Jim was eager to harvest the fruits of his buddy's efforts, and scored another one. This one came in the way of a double, and I thought for sure they were both Bonefish. Unfortunately, Fernando's fish became a noseum, and Jim got a beautiful Bonefish to the photo deck.

After all the Ghost Shrimp was gone, we headed all the way up to the spot where Chuck and I got some Halibut a few days earlier. This day, however, all we caught on plastics were Bass. Off to the bait barge we went. After getting a very generous half scoup of 7" Sardines, we tried a few north bay spots, that provided only a few bites at best. Then we made our way back down for a few more bites, with a short Halibut, Sand Bass, or Spotted Bay Bass in the mix. All along, Fernando kept getting fish hooked up and lost, or just not catching as many as Jim. In my experience, especially fishing San Diego Bay, I had a gut feeling this was gonna be a good sign. Not wanting to jinx it, I only mentioned it once to Jim, and not to Fernando. Jim and I both crossed our fingers for the next few minutes, when the hit we all wanted came. Fernando was hooked up with a good one. It dogged, it pulled, it stayed on. When we got it in the net, I knew it was legal, but we measured it anyway - 25". Yes! into the locker it went. A few more drifts with nothing to write about sans one happy fisherman gloating about the dinner he was gonna have that night.

Bonefish - 4 (released), Spotted Bay Bass - 10 (released), Croaker - 3 (released), Sand Shark - 1 (released), Sand Bass - 3 (released), Halibut - 6 (1 kept, 5 released)

Thank you for reading.