5/21 Brown Rockfish
 

Made a short trip kayaking Saturday fishing on the inside kelp for a couple
hours. Pretty slow overall, fished plastics and released a few smaller
calicos. Think there were some yellows chasing bait around, couldn't get
bit on the iron though.

Ended up running into these Brown Rockfish, fishing plastics/ bottom in 60'
at the kelp edge for the 30 minutes that the current cooperated. I think
the far one is a grass rockfish. Fillet board sink shot!:luxhello:

Does anyone know what the buggy thing here is called? They were inside the
fish stomachs, and they eat all my lobster bait out here in lobster season,
I hate 'em - I didn't know rockfish love them.





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Freshwater Note: I landed this 4 lb bass on trout tackle and 4 lb line while
fishing with the kids at Santee on Sunday. A respectable battle which
got my blood pumping anyway! The bass hit a dropshot 3" plastic.

For those of you with kids, the bluegill bite on mealworms is great now. I
fill a bucket with water and bluegill - let the kids catch fish, play in the
bucket, feed the ducks, and also hit the park's playgrounds. Good times!




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Very nice LMB on the light gear! Fun day, my daughter loves to catch blue gill. Santee lakes, home of the lawn chair fishermen. Check out Loveland res if you want to fish for free.

Nice bass!!!

I think the little bugs are isopods??

last season i caught a long skinny 37lb YT, in the middle if the night....when i cleaned it I found nothing but those bugs and squid egg sacks in it's stomach...weird.

They're f'n creepy is what they are

:D I agree...I find them latched onto me when I come out of the water, I think they hang onto the kelp.

Yep, last time I tied off to the kelp, when I left I had to extract a dozen of them off the yak. And throwing water over them didn't wash them away.

Thanks for this weeks nightmares :)

Those brown rockfish are good-eating. Also, beats cranking 200ft for reds.

Good job getting the family out there fishing.

Very nice, i need to get back on the water and get some fresh fish for the grill.

Great family photos. The girls look sooooo happy. Congrats Dad!:D

Thanks Andy, before kids, I used to fish solo all day at other lakes like
Loveland, Barrett, Murray, Hodges, Otay, and El Cap etc. :) Back in the
day. Now its more about entertaining the kids, and not locking them into
a whole day on a boat or in the wild.

So ... I think the $5 parking and $9 to fish at Santee is a blessing. With 4
and 6 year old girls and a lovely wife along for the day, the most important things are:
1. clean bathrooms;
2. a store to buy ice cream;
3. big playgrounds and even playgrounds on islands;
4. trash picked up regularly around the lake;
5. plenty of picnic tables and manicured grass ... even on islands;
6. friendly rangers when you need one;
7. no ticks, rattlesnakes or climbing through brush;
8. LOTS of bluegill!

It's not for everyone, but we enjoy this place 20+ days a year.

Cheers to all you fishing dads out there!
Larry

Great report Larry! Looks like you're up to your usual antics! Keep up the good work!

That isopod is pretty cool. I find them in tuna stomachs a lot when the tuna are foraging in close proximity to kelp paddies... below is some more info on the critters...

http://www.wallawalla.edu/academics/..._resecata.html

I think the tuna and other fish pick these things out of the kelp when other prey is scarce. I find them in stomachs that are usually empty except for the isopods. Tuna and other ifsh eat all kinds of crazy things. Everytime I open a tuna stomach I find something new... it makes me wonder why they care to eat flylined sardines...

Cool find Scally! I would have loved to see that stomach... every stomach is different. I have always wondered if the fish eat the squid eggs... it would make sense to me as they are like "super food" IMO... keep up the hard wok guys!

Nice haul Larry.

I know for sure that Batrays will sit on a bed of Squid eggs and munch, but no info on any other fish.