All I can say about today (12-20) is WOW. Today was one of the best days I have ever had fishing for rockfish. Launched on the Excalibur out of Breton Bay around 8:30, headed to Ragged Point. 15 minutes after dropping lines, roof rod (WWWB, 9 inch storm shad) goes off, ends up being a nice fat 25 inch fish. Within 5 minutes, 2 more rods go down, resulting in a 19 inch and one that got off.
No action for about 2 hours after that brief flurry, and then we got back into them, had 5 rods go down at once, caught 4 fish, 3 throwbacks and one at 18.5.
After borrowing some rigs from a friend of the owner of the boat, we headed on a course down towards Stewart's, and the real mayhem began! First pulldown was the first fish i got to pull in for the day (we had a crew of 6 today) and turned out to be a nice 42 inch, 30 lb fish:
The fish was caught on a double rig of purple heads and white 12 inch shads. Got that line run back out and within 5 minutes it went back down, got a 38 incher in the box. Ran the line back out and 10 minutes later, BAM, 39 incher. 10 minutes later, it goes down again, 36 incher. As that one was being pulled in, one of the other rods w/ a 1.5 ounce white bucktail tipped w/ a 5 inch white shad went down, 37 inch fish.
Turned around, made another pass, nothing doing going towards shore, turned back around and as soon as we hit the ledge edge, the lucky rod went down, then the rod next to it, then a rod on the far side of the boat. The boys pulling in the lines were STRUGGLING, we didnt realize why until we got 2 of the lines up to the boat, we had 2 doubles, 1 of a 41 and a 39, the other of a 40 and a 33! The other rod yielded a 38 inch fish. It sure was hard to have to throw back 4 trophies!!
Here's a pic of the 5 trophies that all bit at basically the same time:
After getting those fish taken care of and getting the lines all straight we decided to run back up to the mouth of Breton Bay to try to fill out out limit of unders, but werent able to coax any more strikes.
All four of the guys w/ us caught the biggest fish of their lives today, and Chris' son Stephen caught his first fish today, pretty cool.
Here's a pic back at the dock of our bounty for the day:
And me holding my 42"/30lb and Stephen's 39"/25lb fish:
What a great day on the water!
Matt
No action for about 2 hours after that brief flurry, and then we got back into them, had 5 rods go down at once, caught 4 fish, 3 throwbacks and one at 18.5.
After borrowing some rigs from a friend of the owner of the boat, we headed on a course down towards Stewart's, and the real mayhem began! First pulldown was the first fish i got to pull in for the day (we had a crew of 6 today) and turned out to be a nice 42 inch, 30 lb fish:

The fish was caught on a double rig of purple heads and white 12 inch shads. Got that line run back out and within 5 minutes it went back down, got a 38 incher in the box. Ran the line back out and 10 minutes later, BAM, 39 incher. 10 minutes later, it goes down again, 36 incher. As that one was being pulled in, one of the other rods w/ a 1.5 ounce white bucktail tipped w/ a 5 inch white shad went down, 37 inch fish.
Turned around, made another pass, nothing doing going towards shore, turned back around and as soon as we hit the ledge edge, the lucky rod went down, then the rod next to it, then a rod on the far side of the boat. The boys pulling in the lines were STRUGGLING, we didnt realize why until we got 2 of the lines up to the boat, we had 2 doubles, 1 of a 41 and a 39, the other of a 40 and a 33! The other rod yielded a 38 inch fish. It sure was hard to have to throw back 4 trophies!!
Here's a pic of the 5 trophies that all bit at basically the same time:

After getting those fish taken care of and getting the lines all straight we decided to run back up to the mouth of Breton Bay to try to fill out out limit of unders, but werent able to coax any more strikes.
All four of the guys w/ us caught the biggest fish of their lives today, and Chris' son Stephen caught his first fish today, pretty cool.
Here's a pic back at the dock of our bounty for the day:

And me holding my 42"/30lb and Stephen's 39"/25lb fish:

What a great day on the water!
Matt