February 17 gave us another chance, and a few of us headed down PINS to a structure hoping to find the early returners. We did find fish, but they weren't quite right. Aside from a nice blacktip shark that came in without incident, nearly every other fish I hooked was bitten off by one of the millions of spanish macks that were around. I would cast out, hook a smack, and another one would eat my swivel and cut me off. I donated four spoons and five shallow diving lures to this mayhem before trying for snapper on the bottom. Here I would get a bite, start wrestling them off the rocks and the smacks would bite me off again. I totally ran out of baits and leaders due to those silly smacks biting everything that moved. I think maybe a drug runner dropped a large shipment of crack in the water and the smacks got totally lit. Seriously. I can't wait for the kings to show up and eat a few of these gangsters and get them back in line. I like the brutal but dependable offshore scene. The anarchy we saw last week was just nuts!
I've also been learning a new skill during the off-season. I bought a flyrod and have paddled up river five times with it to practice my casting skills. So far I've caught almost 600 fish with it ...it helps a lot that the white bass spawn is going hard, and I know a spot or two that allow me plenty of practice. Anyway, my plan is to get comfortable with how it works and how to play fish on it so that I can take it offshore and hook into some speedy fish. That should be fun video, even if I do wreck the fly outfit.
Not a long report, but I knew everyone would want to know that the fish are working their way back up the coast as you read this. It won't be long until we can catch 'em right here at home!
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