| mission beach madness
whats up guys, new to the site but thought this would be a entertaining first post. so ive been in san diego several years, live at the beach and while ive heard of the grunion runs i had never seen much less fished one. so with two days off i thought i would check it out wednesday night. i headed down to MB jetty at about 800. threw a plastic for some smaller rockfish and one probably legal calico. run was supposed to be at 1030 so i messed around till 10 and then walked down to the beach where i saw a few (10) scattered grunion wash up every 5 minutes or so gradually getting thicker as time went on. i tied a half oz slider on and threw one out. fish were crashing all around me probably those shovelnose but one definetly had vertical tail movement so i thought maybe a hali. fished till about 1130 for nothing and decided i grab one more fresh one to toss out and then id quit. as im walking to the pile of grunion in free spool line starts peeling off so i set the hook. legal hali glides in, hardly even moved. two consecutive casts after, 2 more legal halis. i was shocked, never have i seen even two legals off a beach in the same day much less 3. grunion stopped running and i couldnt remember if the limit was 3 or 5 so i took off satisfied. newfound secret in mind i decided to do it again tonight. went a little early again and tossed out a frozen squid on 25 lb mono. instantly feel something, lobster so i toss it out and on the next cast bomb it out just behind the surf while standing on the jetty. 900 o clock. as soon as i set it in gear zzzz! i couldnt believe the power of whatever it was. it was headed straight north and was totally unstoppable. i yelled to a guy next to me fishing and he came and held the flashlight so i could walk back to the beach because i knew i was in for a long fight. the guy thankfully agrees to help me and hold the light for me, im almost spooled by now so i had to keep watching my reel. the fish keeps going north and with a crowd of people around me we all walk literally a mile and a half towards pb following this thing. we were closer to crystal pier than to the jetty at the end of this. it wont budge, if i pull in ten yards it takes 20. my biggest fish was a 170 lb thresher and this thing was WAY more powerful. anyways i finally where it out, 2 hours in and know i have it in the surf because my reels full again and i can feel the waves moving the fish so we have him in the surf still cant see him and then he pops off! i was almost relieved i had never been so tired from a fish. a guy sittin around said he caught a blue there a couple days ago but id never heard of blues on the beach? i thought maybe a giant ray but throughout felt very solid head shakes. any ideas>? sorry for the long post. o btw two hali were 24, the first one was 27 looked about 8 9 pounds. none had any grunion in their bellies?
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