Two-bay shore stomp 5/12

This is long. I only caught one fish.

I woke up Saturday morning a little earlier than expected, shook the fog of sleep off, and grabbed my shore-fishing gear. After a stop at the coffee shop and gas station ($32 to fill up my Civic - 9 gallons of gas) and I was at my spot a little after 8 am. I decided I'd try a spot I really like in Coronado. It's on the bay side of the Silver Strand State Beach, and a nice spit of sand. I'm kind of tired of hopping rocks in the bay, so fishing barefoot from sand is nice and comfortable, and I didn't have to worry about taking a spill. In the past, I've stretched out on the sand and taken a breather. It's a pretty nice place to fish. there's also the bonus of no passersby.

The short story is, I worked the point with small swim baits and Trix Spin Bombs, fan casting and working the dropoff that sits right off the beach. But no. I got, and missed, a hit on my first cast with a Spin Bomb and that was it. If I'd hooked and landed the fish, then obviously the "first-cast jinx" would have been the clear cause of the eventual skunking.

I've had luck with spotties there, I landed a bone fish once, and even have two halibuts off that spot, one was legal. The wind was kind of tough for throwing spinner baits on a bait caster. Even smeared with Hot Sauce and bumped slowly along the bottom, my go-to swimbaits didn't produce a tick.

A halibut from the spot, April '06



I worked my way around the baylet to a spot that's also produced. It's another small, abrupt ledge that gives shelter to small fish. I've seen schools of mullet patrol the edge of that baylet, cruising for food.

On the walk back to my car I saw these ants beginning to dismantle this potato bug.



Since I wasn't feeling like reporting a skunk I stopped at the new Coronado City Hall and made some casts around the unfinished marina. Nope. Nothing. A bunch of empty slips that can be cast to from shore is pretty much a shore stompin' dream.

Soooo, one last deperation stop, I didn't want to go home smelling of skunk, but I was getting hungry. I stopped at the sandy beach next to the Coronado Ferry landing, tied on a small Kastmaster jig and cast around. I eventually lost the jig to a mooring line under whatever restaurant is over there and packed it in. Lame.

Went home, ate, fell asleep on the couch, got up went to the coffee shop again, came home grabbed my gear and headed out again. This time Mission Bay. Mission Bay is known to anglers to hold a larger class of spotted sand bass than the big bay. Not as plentiful, but larger. Once on a fluke, I caught my largest spottie to date off piling number 4 of the Coronado Bridge, but barring that, I've never come close to matching some of the toads I've pulled out of Mission - at the spot I was heading to; South Shores Landing. South Shores is another rock hopping spot, right next to Sea World. It's very shallow and weedy. It's a tough spot but it holds some big spotties. I broke off a halibut there a couple weeks ago, which stole my last old-model Spin Bomb. That hali went berserk, full-blown mental. A fish like that in 12 inches of water doesn't have much choice, I guess. I had my drag too tight and my six-pound test gave.

South Shores. Trix Spin Bombs are large saltwater spinner baits made by a friend and local angler. They're heavy and have a big spooned blades that make a satisfying churn you can feel all the way to the cork grips on the rod. I love fishing them. Why fish attack these things is a mystery, but they hit them with violence and rage. I wanted to get a big spottie or halibut so I stuck mostly with the Spin Bombs, though I also threw another rod with a small fish-colored swim bait.

I worked all the way to the fence guarding Sea World from the riff-raff, and in disgust, worked back toward my car. I tried to remember the spot that hali was chillin' in before it wanted to mangle the shiny, spinny, noisy thing clattering through its turf. I made a couple of casts before I felt the thing we all go out there for... and I wound as fast as I could to tighten down on whatever I dealing with. The cool thing about South Shores is that as you work from the parking lot towards Sea World, east to west, the water gets deeper. Being that I was nearly back to the lot, the water was pretty shallow. Nothing like a desperate fish, fighting for its life in 18 inches to 6 six inches of water. There is plenty of long, thick eel grass and other sea weedy things for a fish to bury itself in, and this damn thing came to hand covered in grass - as do most fish in this spot.

Damn, this has gotten long. Sorry.

And now it's probably going to get anti-climatic. So I landed it, a large spottie, and the skunk smell from two consecutive shore trips went away. It was the biggest spottie I've landed in a couple of years, measured 17 inches. Then it got its picture taken more than Brittany Spears in the midst of an emotional break down. Digital camera, then camera phone, then quickly transmitted across town to a group of disinterested fishing pals. And even more disinterested non-fishing pals. The skunk is off, I can return my head to its full upright position.





Then I went home, got a torta, a six pack, Wes came over and we watched the Padres lose. Then went to the Whistlestop and accidently drank too much. Good Saturday. Bad Sunday.