CA Non-Yak White Sea Bass

Got an invite from my good friend Allen Bushnell to go out on the inaugural fishing trip on his new-to-him boat.  We spent the morning rockfishing on a steady pick of a good variety of fish (blacks, browns, coppers, olives, verms, gophers, lings, and damn if there isn't a lot of small canaries around right now).  It was late in the morning and we were on "one last drift" before we were going to head closer to port and do a halibut drift.  The bite had slowed and we were just shooting the breeze.  Allen's rod starts dancing then just takes off.  I jokingly say, "furbag".  But it didn't come up for air.  Allen says, "we're into a real fish now boys!".  We all sort of starting thinking White Sea Bass.  The fish continues running.  "Uhhh, we may want to start the engines".  Give a short chase before the fish slow down.  Then it dogs it out.  Two times around the boat taking it easy on the fish because it's a 20# rockfishing rig.  Color!  Yours truly ... swing and a miss on the gaff, it was just out of reach.  Allen pulls it closer, I stab it in the collar, and 53 pounds of WSB is on the deck.

The new boat has some mojo, that for sure!

-Allen

Now THAT's a fish!

Nice one, say hi to Bushy for me, or if you're reading this Allen, congrats!  I still need to carve out a chance to get to SoCal one of these days...

Nice fishie. Sounds like the NCKAers got in to the WSB in good numbers, this year. The one trip I've made down to Monterey Bay, so far, was short and involved kids, so didn't have time for fishing.

Brian, this was just south of SF Bay, so not as far as SoCal.