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After assembling my new LTGing outfit, I was dying to get out and put her to the test. Made the call to Shawn on Thursday evening, and we soon had plans for a CBBT run. We headed down on friday night and had plans on fishing all day saturday. We stayed at the Sunset Beach Motel which is 3 miles south of the entrance to Kiptopeke ramp, and It was a good choice. I have never stayed at Kiptopeke Inn but have heard rumors
Sunset Beach was $69.99 +tax, the rooms where nice and clean and very spacious.......Shawn "Just Had" to tell me of the mice infestation problem at Kiptopeke though........Even though Sunset did'nt have a rodent issue, all night long, I kept having dreams that mice where crawling on me.......Thanks Buddy:thumbup:
Weather man was off today for sure.......Forcast was for 20 in the am, changing to 10-15 in the afternoon. We launched at 7:30(after a dose of cholesterol at the "World Famous" Stingrays(theres actually a roadside billboard that says, world famous)and where greeted with very light winds. We started fishing at 8:00, and had the place to ourselves until 11:00 or so.
Shawn and I had different game plans going in........I wanted to put some big #'s on my new Carrot Stick, and since Shawn had been down there a few weeks back, and caught alot of fish, he wanted :bigfish: We ended up doing both.
There where huge pods of birds everywhere in the morning, and we worked on them near the 3rd Island for a good while.......jumping from pod to pod trying to find the better grade of fish. We had the place to ourselves until 10-11:00. That forcast of 20 kept people off the water until the afternoon. Immediatly knew I was going to like my new rod/reel outfit. The sensitivity is amazing........my poor BP Extreme rod and Ocean Master 4000 jigging outfit is going to get mighty lonely sitting in the corner of my garage By 10:00 it was insane how many birds where out there.......Since this was my first trip to the CBBT, I had no bases for comparrison but Shawn said he had never seen so many birds. We never saw any gannets working though, mostly gulls. After working the birds for a while, we went on the search......Shawn did a great job of showing me some of his favorite spots and I have a good feel for the area. We checked out the tubes but we saw very little on the meter and only jigged them a few times with limited success. We then hit some pilings closer to the 2nd Island where we added to our running tally of fish. Took us a little while to dial into the fish at the pilings but once we did, we started catching a little better grade of fish. After fishing these pilings for some time, we went out on the ocean side and fished under more birds for a while hoping for bigger fish(which they were) and then ended our day just before sunset fishing more pilings. We fished HARD today and where throwing around some loose #"s on the ride home, that we could have very well, each jigge our rods 10,000 times........and I dont know about Shawn, but I'm feeling every last jig in my bones this morning.
FINAL ANALISYS: We used a Crappie Counter and tallied 125 fish today.......Most where the 25-26" fat fish that everyone has been talking about. We managed about 12-14 fish over 30" and the longest for the day was 35". We had only one fish that appeared to have sores on it, the rest of the fish where fat and healthy. The fish did not come super easy today.......if you had seen all the birds, you would have thought you would have a fish every cast but it seemed every groupof fish we encountered, we had to re-dial in. Changing jig sizes often, changing tails to find the right combonation, varying retrieves. At one point, we where under thousands of birds, and Shawn and I went through a 20 minute period and could'nt buy a fish.......We tied on dropper flies, and both hooked up 1st cast. Sometimes, bkd's would'nt work but a BA did.....At one point fishing the pilings, you could'nt get a bite unless you where throwing a 10"BKD....crazy.
Thanks to Shawn for showing me the ropes and making me a CBBT Addict:yes: I'm sure in a week or so, I'm going to need another Crack(cbbt) Fix. I took in a huge amount of info yesterday and one thing that I find partic. interesting, is how strong "healthy" rockfish our. Unlike the BB where you have to jig right on the pilings, the fish at the cbbt are everywhere.........they use the structure as a whole.......there between sets of pilings, there hanging out between the bridge spans. I am starting to believe that the reason the fish at the BB are so close to the pilings is because they are sick, week, and using the pilings to be sheltered from the current.......just a thought.
Jack(Hillbillyboater), nice to meet you.......Josh(Kaptor), nice seeing you down there.......Mike(Robertson), nice seeing you down there. I'll post some pics later.
Bill
Sunset Beach was $69.99 +tax, the rooms where nice and clean and very spacious.......Shawn "Just Had" to tell me of the mice infestation problem at Kiptopeke though........Even though Sunset did'nt have a rodent issue, all night long, I kept having dreams that mice where crawling on me.......Thanks Buddy:thumbup:Weather man was off today for sure.......Forcast was for 20 in the am, changing to 10-15 in the afternoon. We launched at 7:30(after a dose of cholesterol at the "World Famous" Stingrays(theres actually a roadside billboard that says, world famous
)and where greeted with very light winds. We started fishing at 8:00, and had the place to ourselves until 11:00 or so. Shawn and I had different game plans going in........I wanted to put some big #'s on my new Carrot Stick, and since Shawn had been down there a few weeks back, and caught alot of fish, he wanted :bigfish: We ended up doing both.
There where huge pods of birds everywhere in the morning, and we worked on them near the 3rd Island for a good while.......jumping from pod to pod trying to find the better grade of fish. We had the place to ourselves until 10-11:00. That forcast of 20 kept people off the water until the afternoon. Immediatly knew I was going to like my new rod/reel outfit. The sensitivity is amazing........my poor BP Extreme rod and Ocean Master 4000 jigging outfit is going to get mighty lonely sitting in the corner of my garage
By 10:00 it was insane how many birds where out there.......Since this was my first trip to the CBBT, I had no bases for comparrison but Shawn said he had never seen so many birds. We never saw any gannets working though, mostly gulls. After working the birds for a while, we went on the search......Shawn did a great job of showing me some of his favorite spots and I have a good feel for the area. We checked out the tubes but we saw very little on the meter and only jigged them a few times with limited success. We then hit some pilings closer to the 2nd Island where we added to our running tally of fish. Took us a little while to dial into the fish at the pilings but once we did, we started catching a little better grade of fish. After fishing these pilings for some time, we went out on the ocean side and fished under more birds for a while hoping for bigger fish(which they were) and then ended our day just before sunset fishing more pilings. We fished HARD today and where throwing around some loose #"s on the ride home, that we could have very well, each jigge our rods 10,000 times........and I dont know about Shawn, but I'm feeling every last jig in my bones this morning.FINAL ANALISYS: We used a Crappie Counter and tallied 125 fish today.......Most where the 25-26" fat fish that everyone has been talking about. We managed about 12-14 fish over 30" and the longest for the day was 35". We had only one fish that appeared to have sores on it, the rest of the fish where fat and healthy. The fish did not come super easy today.......if you had seen all the birds, you would have thought you would have a fish every cast but it seemed every groupof fish we encountered, we had to re-dial in. Changing jig sizes often, changing tails to find the right combonation, varying retrieves. At one point, we where under thousands of birds, and Shawn and I went through a 20 minute period and could'nt buy a fish.......We tied on dropper flies, and both hooked up 1st cast. Sometimes, bkd's would'nt work but a BA did.....At one point fishing the pilings, you could'nt get a bite unless you where throwing a 10"BKD....crazy.
Thanks to Shawn for showing me the ropes and making me a CBBT Addict:yes: I'm sure in a week or so, I'm going to need another Crack(cbbt) Fix. I took in a huge amount of info yesterday and one thing that I find partic. interesting, is how strong "healthy" rockfish our. Unlike the BB where you have to jig right on the pilings, the fish at the cbbt are everywhere.........they use the structure as a whole.......there between sets of pilings, there hanging out between the bridge spans. I am starting to believe that the reason the fish at the BB are so close to the pilings is because they are sick, week, and using the pilings to be sheltered from the current.......just a thought.
Jack(Hillbillyboater), nice to meet you.......Josh(Kaptor), nice seeing you down there.......Mike(Robertson), nice seeing you down there. I'll post some pics later.
Bill
