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We went to CBBT and the fishing varied greatly from borderline terrible to absolutely insane.
Thursday night we arrived and eeled from 9:00PM until 3:00AM at the high rise near good ledges (we moved multiple times) with good current and didn't have a knockdown. I'm done with eeling officially.
Friday I had a green crew, and we worked hard to land about 20 fish between the 5 of us. I spent most of the day at the helm as the increasing south winds made it tough to fish the pilings... but fortunately we were going with them on the way back to the ramp. Felt bad for these guys because I sent them home with their tail between their legs and CBBT failing to live up to it's reputation. Here's matt with his first rockfish ever:
Despite Saturday's small craft advisory, a new crew arrived and on the first cast of the day Graham, my most faithful HO, landed his personal best rockfish... a 40" fish on a 6" BKD suspended off a piling near the high rise. We tried to find another pig, but couldn't. Fortunately, we did find a very nice school of fish off the third and fourth islands and managed to finish our limit of unders. We kept one spot in the cooler open hoping for another over, but it wasn't meant to be. We also saw a seal around the 4th and 3rd island pigging out on rockfish.
Sunday started with the small craft advisory switching to gale warning by mid morning. About 5 or 6 boats decided to get in a few hours of fishing, despite the constant driving rain. We were RICHLY rewarded, with a full blown CBBT gannet storm that lasted almost 2 hours. We had fish boiling all around the boat, and I probably caught 20 fish on topwater (and had about 100 smacks at my lure that didbn't connect). Between the 3 of us, we probably landed another 75+ fish jigging under them, including multiple slots and one over. We also lost several nice fish boatside, or by having them run us through the pilings when the current was too strong to really do anything about it. It seemed despite the bird activity, most of our bigger fish were caught on the pilings that downcurrent of the bee hives. I'd say most of these fish were suspended, caught while casting away from the boat and then swimming it back in. Don't be fooled by this picture... we ducked behind the 4th island during one of the few moments it stopped raining to get the camera out:
We managed to get back to the ramp around 11:00 AM in once piece, although the waves were STACKED and confused around the shoal and we had gusts well over 30 knots by my estimate :eek2: It's always enlightening when your truck and trailer is the last one in the parking lot. Just so hard to leave when your sonar is solid RED from top to bottom. It was the first time since I got my furuno that I had a false reading on the bottom from rockfish (it has happened with bait before). Many times we'd be in 60 feet of water and the meter would say 35 feet.
All in all, my faith in CBBT was bolstered by Sunday morning. Otherwise, I would have described it as "so so" and almost not worth the 4 hour drive. But when you're there at the right time when it all comes together it's a truly special place to fish.
Thursday night we arrived and eeled from 9:00PM until 3:00AM at the high rise near good ledges (we moved multiple times) with good current and didn't have a knockdown. I'm done with eeling officially.
Friday I had a green crew, and we worked hard to land about 20 fish between the 5 of us. I spent most of the day at the helm as the increasing south winds made it tough to fish the pilings... but fortunately we were going with them on the way back to the ramp. Felt bad for these guys because I sent them home with their tail between their legs and CBBT failing to live up to it's reputation. Here's matt with his first rockfish ever:
Despite Saturday's small craft advisory, a new crew arrived and on the first cast of the day Graham, my most faithful HO, landed his personal best rockfish... a 40" fish on a 6" BKD suspended off a piling near the high rise. We tried to find another pig, but couldn't. Fortunately, we did find a very nice school of fish off the third and fourth islands and managed to finish our limit of unders. We kept one spot in the cooler open hoping for another over, but it wasn't meant to be. We also saw a seal around the 4th and 3rd island pigging out on rockfish.
Sunday started with the small craft advisory switching to gale warning by mid morning. About 5 or 6 boats decided to get in a few hours of fishing, despite the constant driving rain. We were RICHLY rewarded, with a full blown CBBT gannet storm that lasted almost 2 hours. We had fish boiling all around the boat, and I probably caught 20 fish on topwater (and had about 100 smacks at my lure that didbn't connect). Between the 3 of us, we probably landed another 75+ fish jigging under them, including multiple slots and one over. We also lost several nice fish boatside, or by having them run us through the pilings when the current was too strong to really do anything about it. It seemed despite the bird activity, most of our bigger fish were caught on the pilings that downcurrent of the bee hives. I'd say most of these fish were suspended, caught while casting away from the boat and then swimming it back in. Don't be fooled by this picture... we ducked behind the 4th island during one of the few moments it stopped raining to get the camera out:
We managed to get back to the ramp around 11:00 AM in once piece, although the waves were STACKED and confused around the shoal and we had gusts well over 30 knots by my estimate :eek2: It's always enlightening when your truck and trailer is the last one in the parking lot. Just so hard to leave when your sonar is solid RED from top to bottom. It was the first time since I got my furuno that I had a false reading on the bottom from rockfish (it has happened with bait before). Many times we'd be in 60 feet of water and the meter would say 35 feet.
All in all, my faith in CBBT was bolstered by Sunday morning. Otherwise, I would have described it as "so so" and almost not worth the 4 hour drive. But when you're there at the right time when it all comes together it's a truly special place to fish.
