Federal Breakwall 6/24
Breakwall Darryl is on some kind of rotating work shift, giving him a few Wednesdays off, of which we will take advantage for rides aboard his boat, the SS Chaparral, out to Angels Gate and the Federal Breakwall. Last week’s trip had no current nor tide flow and the water temp was a few degrees lower than ideal. Even though, we still managed an ice chest full of calico and sand bass.
This morning we have an incoming tide from minus 1.7 at five thirty to a 4.1 high at noon, which should provide plenty of the flow through The Gate needed to roust the fish from their rocky cave lairs so that they will be out actively feeding. Also the water temp sensor on the boat’s fish finder read 63, another bonus.
We set up our first drift through The Gate at the west end of the Federal Breakwall. Second or third casts to the kelp line, I pulled up a 1 ½ pound calico and Darryl lifted out the same. We were both using PowerBait Jerk Shads on 3/8 ounce lead heads. Quarter ounce heads work too but the extra 1/8 takes the lure into deeper water easier in order to cover more area. In the first hour we both caught several sand and calico bass, tossing back half of those which were short of the twelve-inch regulation.
Letting the lure sink all the way to the bottom, Darryl hooked up big time with something that maxed out the tinsel strength of his fifteen pound test. After a grueling fight, up to color came a halibut weighing over ten pounds and barely fitting into the net. When I went to hang it on my electronic scale I found the batteries dead but this thing was heavy and the same length as the 100-quart ice chest we stuffed it into. That fish must have been really hungry too because it swallowed the jig completely.
Around 7:30 the tide was zooming in as evidenced by current eddies coming into the harbor through The Gate. We set up several drifts past the light standard and at one point used the Minn Kota trolling motor to hold us in place. At eight we were catching sand and calico bass every cast for a half hour, filling the cooler with 1 ½ to 2 pounders, way bigger than last week. Again, just as many as we kept were tossed back for being too small.
Next trick we went outside to fish along the Federal Breakwall. We set up drifts at a likely spot; a gentle breeze blew us past an underwater hump, on the other side of which lied piles of sand bass according to the fish finder. We marked this spot by observing a flat rock turned upright with a bullet hole in the middle. Casting into the breakwall rocks was treacherous due to the many kelp stringers bending over in the current to snag you lure. However, drifting past the hump kept us out of the snags and into the fish.
Since the hump was fifty-or-so feet down there we changed tactics and used two-ounce torpedo sinkers and a four foot leader with frozen anchovies for bait. Darryl was onto the rockfish, as he caught a few blue and orange varieties along with a treefish. Nonetheless we both hooked into sand and calico bass with some of the latter going two pounds along with the four pound sandie Darryl landed, the biggest bass of the day. By eleven we had a limit of nineteen bass and one halibut in the cooler, not to mention the hoards we tossed back.
Out of the whole mess Darryl only wanted to take home half of the halibut. I filleted it on the spot, using the cooler lid as my board. After I was home it took me a little over three hours to carefully carve up and place into the freezer all the bass.
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From Breakwall Robert: