We left my HB dock at 4:45 A.M. with my friends Scott and Mark aboard and made bait next to LA Bait barge.  Full speed on the mackerel made 30 pieces in 15 minutes and took off for a real nice break sitting inside and between the 299 and 267 off Dana Point at 19 - 20 / 45 - 48.  Had teasers and jigs in the water at 7:00 AM and found the 2 .5 degree break.  Green water on the warm water side and cleaner on the colder side with a eel grass and kelp line clearly marking the break.  Worked back and forth across and E / SE along the break.  Around the 8:30 A.M. slack high tide, I had three mako attacks on the measuring cup homemade rattle head behind a Moldcraft squid chain as I boxed a kelp paddy.  Then had a marlin come up on the chain and as Mark dropped back a bait another mako pushes the marlin out of the way and tries to take the mackerel away.  Pulled the bait off the mako and cussed him out for being a bully to these poor stripers and kept looking.  Barry was up fishing the area on his skiff and short on mackerel so I dropped him a trash bag of my Long Beach bounty out the stern.  Not much happened in the area through the morning slack and the 4 or so boats in the area spread out. I worked down to the 16 / 40 line and found a purple swordy swimming below the surface just tipping by and inch every once in a while.  Scott made a good cast to the fish that I could see from the tower.  Fish spooked out, we waited, slow trolled in ever widening circles but no love it sunk out for good.  Headed back on the line again to 19 / 45 and see a jumper on the cold water side across the break.  Spin and troll there looking for a tailer to pop.  After coming across the line, tell my guys to check all the gear for eel grass.  Just as I get to the spot where the jumper was, Mark is letting back a little orange and yellow Williamson Coyote to sit 3' behind the Tony the Tiger Big Truck Moldcraft teaser which I set on the wave 1.5 on the left side off a cord.  While he is in free spooling back the little jig, right off the motors this massive blue back explodes from left to right and down.  We never saw a bill, dorsal or tail fin?  I look down and see that the rod is bent completely over in the covering board, can see deep color almost straight down off the rod tip, but don't hear any drag being taken??  Then the fish is off - pulled hook.  Mark says my thumb..my thumb.  What was that Mark?  He says "I was free spooling the lure back, I see this pig eat and before I could move the lever with my other hand my thumb was already under the top plate and acting as an old time leather drag.  Seriously, Dave....I think I need a skin graft for this!  Maybe he does after looking at it..lol..pretty nasty, one big white puss ball covering his thumb.  That was the biggest striper I have ever seen in So. Cal.  Mark who has caught and a lot of blues and stripers running boats claims it was a blue..maybe that helps him deal with the thumb pain.

After we get our gear back in the water, I get a call from Barry who is on the warm side a 1/4 mile inside me to "Dave get over here".  Sliding in Barry has gotten bit on a feeder.  I work the area and soon there are two other boats in there too.  I watch Jimmy Decker in the gyros come into the area on his Everglades, see him drop his outriggers and then immediately to hook up to a marlin for a charter client that had just finished catching some calicos and a sea bass an hour ago.  Nice..what a charter for that guy so close to Newport!  Chet on Bite Me is inside and says he has feeders up.  Things are starting to snap.  Another boat comes into the area after talking to Jimmy, asks what jig is best and color.  Jimmy says 1220 in black and green is what has been his hottie all season.  5 minutes later there is a call to Jimmy...it worked we hooked one asap out that, but lost it and the lure.  Slack low tide is approaching at 2:30 PM and the action has definitely been peaking.  Barry releases his fish and moves back up the break.  Mark on my boat want to put a call out to the fleet to see if anyone can let him have some Motrin or pain killers for his thumb.

No birds, little pockets of baby Spanish mackerel on the little kelp stringers on a very calm flat seas with 5 knots of wind.  No tailers, just the occasional fast feeder.  Haven't heard of another releases besides Barry and Jimmy's.  It's getting crowded as more and more guys put out the numbers, there are 6 boats in here.  At 2:40 P.M., I slide down the line to get out of the crowd and find a group of five or six feeders going full bore on little Spanish mackerel.  Scott makes a cast and hooks a fish instantly.  Mark clears the gear so we can turn on the fish.  Still tough to take advantage of fish with only three guys on a boat..give me 3 in the deck - two to cast (bow and drop back) and one to clear..heaven!  *Note to self - Install two mackerel tubes on the bow - need to be able to have two baits bridled up at all times on the bow so when I have a crew of three on deck we can cast and hook three fish when they are up like this.  

Twenty minutes later we put a TBF tag in the marlin that I estimated at 85" and 175 lb...nice one and first for Scott in a many years locally.  We box the area for no more show up top or love on the teasers or jigs until 3:45 P.M. and pull the gear for the 32 nm run up hill.  Back in the dock at 5:30 P.M.  Fun day local marlin fishing close to the beach, sunny skies and flat seas with some really good friends on board and others on the water doing the same.

Dave Brackmann

CALIENTE

Huntington Beach