Late Cal Dawn 4/17/08 Halibut report

[el_jefe_chingon]

Alright guys, Finally got a chance to sit down and post a quick report. Went out on the Cal Dawn Thursday for some halibut fishing. We were trolling all day using various flashers and frozen anchovies for baits. We started off with quick troll throught the south side of the Berkeley pier for one keeper halibut. We made it all the way to the end of the barges with no other fish except for one striper. We even trolled under neath the new span of the bridge without any pick ups. This was about an hour long total. We packed up and moved to the rock wall. We trolled throughout the rock wall for pretty much most of the day. We picked up a total of 21 fish including 2 stripers about 20 inches each for a total of 21 passengers. The halibut ranged in size from just over 22 inches to about 20lbs. In reality there were only 2 20lb fish which tied for the jack pot and various smaller size fish. We also had about another dozen or so shakers. The best was this guy from Salt Lake City. He was in town with his wife who was attending a conference. He had scheduled a trip on the El Dorado, but apparently they canceled due to lack of people. No one bothered to tell him. So poor guy shows up, and had to wait to see if there was room. James ended up taking him along, after first joking if he wanted to fish from the roof. The guy ended up with a nice size keeper. Not bad for a last minute addition. We finished up the day trolling back through the flats from the barges to the pier. We picked up one more keeper and a few more shakers. That was it for the day. We did see one halibut being landed on the pier about a 1/4 of the way out while we were heading back in. This guy named Brent (or Brett, sorry I'm bad with names). was the hot stick. 3 keepers including one of the 20lb-ers. Another guy who I think was named Adrian had two keeper halibut and one of the striped bass. Almost everyone caught at least one fish, but unfortunately not all were keepers. As for myself, I caught to GIANT sand dabs actually just to 18 inch halibut which went promptly back into the water. For this early in the season it was a pretty productive trip, but not as good as what they had been doing last 2 weeks. I guess my good karma did not come through for me this time. Oh well, there is always next trip. I'm thinking of going back out this Tuesday. If anyone else is intersted let me know. James said he will run with 6 people, and I would like to meet a few more sniffers out there. Set up: 6ft leader with a barrel swivel half way, various size flashers and colors (but half green/half chrome or gold/chrome) seemd to work best, 1.5ft of leader off the flasher and then the bait. Darrne, the deck hand, let me use a rig with 2 hoochies behing the flasher and then the bait. I did get to fish on this set up, but can't say it was any more or less productive than anything else. Seems like red/chrome flashers and pure chrome flashers were not as productive. Then again, there weren't as many of these in service so I think its hard to say. I know last year they were using a hoochie right on top of the bait. I tried this out early morning for about 3 hours. I got two raked baits early on with it, but thats it. I'm thinking I might try and FBR next time just for kicks. Last thing I tried for the last 30 minutes was trolling a surface iron behind flasher. Its called a Pep 2 and is about 4 inches long in a green and white color. I have seem them work on long range trips for halibut off the bottom just bouncing them up and dow, and I figured I would try one out. Nothing happened, but this was the last 30 minutes of the day. Most fish were caught between 9-11a.m., and very few were caught after 2p.m. Ended the day at 4p.m. p.s. Sorry for any typo's or incorrect grammer. Sometimes I get going, and don't realize I forgot to type certain words. Oh well, never claimed to be a stenographer.

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[teddya2]

THANKS FOR THE QUICK POST...THOUGHT QUICK = SHORT.......WTF........NO PIX

[twopatch]

Picts.of the shorts? Nice report.