Trip Report: Sunday AM On The New Del Mar

Jake’s Birthday Weekend Edition

Jake, Nick and Jason at Dock 52

Saturday, Jake turned 12.  I was prepared to take him to a place called John’s Incredible Pizza Company…a pizza and gaming emporium that 12 year old boys enjoy…which to me truly demonstrates how much I love my son.  Instead, he pleaded with his mom to let him go fishing with Dad and his two best buddies, Nick and Jason (and no little sis).  What a kid!  So all week, as the wind blew, and the rain fell here in Southern California, I was hoping and praying that Mother Nature would cooperate and give us a nice day of fishing on Saturday.  As we woke up Saturday morning, things were looking good.  It was sunny, light wind…at least inland in Pasadena.  We picked up his friends, and drove out to Marina del Rey.

How did we get here?

We get there early despite a huge accident on the 10.  Once we got there though, red flags are flying at the Coast Guard station.  Heart sinks.  I called into the MDR Sportfishing office and my fears were confirmed.  Boat cancelled.  Major bummer.  Worse yet…I still ended up driving the kids all the way out to John’s Inedible Pizza Company 😦  The boys had fun.

After dropping off the boys, we picked up Juliana from her mom’s house and head to my place.  What do you guys want to do tomorrow?  Fish!  God I love these kids.  So I check the weather and it looks like we may get our salty time yet.

The next morning, the kids get up with less prodding than it took me to get going.  The car was already loaded up and we head back out.  We get out to the dock and the Spitfire was still there.  I talk to Capt. Jeremy and find out he has a charter trip today.  It was confirmation though that the boats are going out.  Because the Spit was chartered, there were plenty of would be 3/4 day riders ready to board.  At 7:30 we load up with 41 other anglers and head out.

Leaving the harbor we headed south.  We briefly met up with the bait boat at sea…I guess they didn’t get out the previous day?  Lots of little anchovies and a precious few sardines were the order of the day.  Shortly after picking up bait we were on the spot.  Capt. Danny said there was a little ridge below us and that we were on top of a lot of fish marking just off the bottom.  I had rigged up our poles with double dropper setups…shrimp fly on top, bare hook on bottom.  (I had another stick setup as a vertical jig with a Shimano butterfly.)  I told Jake to try to fish a ‘dine on the bottom and maybe he’d get lucky and score his first lingcod…hopefully it’d work for Dad too?  😉

Finding a good sardine ended up being the story of the day.  We found ourselves running to the bait tank  every time the deckhands dumped a new scoop in the handwells trying to scrape up a good ‘dine.  Anglers who got them got bit.  Overall, the numbers weren’t great…maybe 3 rockfish per, but the quality was pretty good.  Several big bocaccio and a couple nice lings were the highlight of the day.

Jake had a good day, getting his limit of bocaccio.  Juj got one.  I got several small rockfish and more sand dabs (didn’t keep any) than I care to admit.  The day was beautiful though.  Flat calm sea, sunny, and the kids enjoyed their weekend…highlighted by another nice day of fishing in SoCal.

Jake with his bocaccio (aka salmon grouper). Juj loves it.

Juj with her bocaccio, a new biggest fish for her

The bigger ling just edges the biggest boccacio

Bonus Video: Deckhand Julian eats the heart of the jackpot ling