Finally, fishing! 9/16

I finally have some fishing worth reporting. Sort of. I've recently been experimenting with some new fly patterns. I saw a tier in a magazine, named Tim Borski. He's in Florida, and fishes for tarpon, snook, bones etc., and ties great, simple flies which I thought might work in some of my local waters. I posted the results on SDFish, and that resulted in a couple of invitations to fish over the weekend.

Here are the flies I tied, from a DVD I ordered from Mr. Borski.

The Green Zima


The Haystack


I got the invite to fish with Scott "Fishtricks" Johnson in Mission Bay, halibut being the target, but bass, croaker, bonito or barracuda also being acceptable. I met Scott at the South Shores Landing launch ramp at 6 a.m., and off we went.

Without turning this into a novel, the fishing was tough, the weather was great, the Thunder Boat races were going on in an arm of the bay, Scott got "pulled over" for speeding (and let off), and we had a great time.

We mostly fished with flies, but occasionally threw some of Scott's "Spin Bomb" spinner baits.

My first catch on one of my new Borski flies was a new species for me - fly or otherwise...


I got a decent spottie on a brown deceiver I tied for calico bass. Scott thought I was "playing" the fish like a TV trout fisherman, and let me know it. I just found it heavy fighter, and didn't want to break it off.


Scott picked up a nice spottie on a Spin Bomb near the Quivera breakwater.


In summary, we threw flies and Spin Bombs for nearly 10 hours with hardly a break, hit spots all over Mission Bay, had a good time and even caught some fish - not specifically what we were after, but still some decent fish. I even picked up a small calico on a fly off the breakwater.