Met up with Doper4Life at 6am for a “Back to Basics” Ol Skool halibut session. Got some good sardines from Brian at Long Beach bait, then headed to the anchorage to rig up and put them in the water. Never got a bite that we saw in that area, but when we checked our rigs we had some rakes. Good sign. Bad sign was the area had a lot of red tide so we made a move up the line past a friend of ours that told us the water looked better that way. We found some real nice 63* to 64* clean green water and dropped in the rigs on a deep edge of a long drop-off we like in 45 feet of water This drop-off is the result of dredging and extends for almost a mile. It wasn’t long and D4L hooks up and I stick a nice 28 inch fish to start the morning.

Not long after he is on again, a bigger fish this time. He settles it down than I bounce the gaff off the head of the fish and it heads for the bottom. D4L works it back up, we can see the hook is barely holding in the skin on the outside of the mouth, I try again and bounce the gaff off the head again and a 25# fish is gone. Damn. Back to the grind we get a couple of shorts then I get a better bite and D4L gaffs a 29 inch fish for me.

I hook a better fish that takes some time to bring in and Doper puts a perfect shot into a 36 inch fish.

The area shut down for a while till Doper4Life hooks a better fish on the BounceBall gear. Its really peeling some line then comes to the surface and jumps twice…Thresher. Not long later and the T bites thru the leader and is gone. D4L the hook up with the last fish of the day and this time I get it right and the 4th Hallie is on board, another nice 30 inch model. 2 Halibut for each of us. Great day on the water.

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