A good deed gets repaid

After wasting the best weather day all year at work, I get on the water late Sunday morning for a half harted effort at the halibut.

The good deed part of the day comes in on my way over to the bait barge. A pass along side one of Seaforths little red rental boat, when I see one of the guys is hooked up. I watch for a minute as angler does his best to bust the Snoopy rod in half. His buddy is right behind him with the trout net ready to land whatever come up from the depths.

After a few more minutes go by I see the rod give the tell tail sign of a big head shake. Not wanting to stand by and see a the fish of their life time get away, I yell over and ask the guys if the could use hand and a bigger net.

I pull along side and hand them my big Pro-Mar halibut net. After a few swipes they get her in the net and in the boat. These guys had no idea what to do with a nice halibut, so I showed them how to bleed the fish, gave them half my ice and a trash bag to wrap it in, then sent them on the way.

A nice #16 halibut on 6 pound test in Mission bay.
http://members.cox.net/noslack/16halibut.jpg

Now for the pay back part of the day.

I started off fishing Scripps for the halibut, but the wind started howling from the south. I could see this wasn't going to work so I started heading back to Mission Bay. As I was passing through La Jolla I metered a bunch of bait with some larger mark mixed in.

I drop down a deen and get slammed hard. After a few long runs and few tangles in the kelp up comes a nice yellow. I sure there were a lot of fish in the area , but I was the only one working it and the seals found me within a few minute. Never got another bait passed the seal so I headed in.

#19-0 Yellow
http://bocaboard.com/data/noslack/19yellow.jpg

Sounds like a nice day on the water. Good job Mike.

Outstanding Mike!
Way to help those guys out. They look really happy. That's so cool of you to help them out.

Congrats on the nice yellow. You are making my come- from-behind victory difficult!

Spent the better part of the day cleaning the boat after the bloody mess on Saturday. Water and blood even seeped down into my beautiful bilge. Ugghh. Got that all cleaned up. Thought I did a good job of waterproofing the bilge but, I guess it wasn't good enough. Back to the drawing board.

Best part of the trip was that I put an estimated 110 miles on the boat and burned 44 gal. This was with a full load (bait tank, fuel tank full, and full gear and ice). Cruise was approx 18.5 knots at 3300 RPM while heavily laden. I'm stoked!