Bass, rays, and sharks from the surf

Binh invited me to join Mike, Andre and him for some surf fishing last night. I've been seeing reports of leopard shark and guitarfish, so I decided to stick with squid even though Binh offered to share his mackerel.

Here's the top secret spot when I arrived.


The first half of the night was nothing but bass for me. I was fishing squid on a 5/0 octopus hook, 60 lb mono leader, 4 oz pyramid sinker on a sliding rig, a couple yards of 40 lb mono abrasion leader, and 30 lb braid main line. I ended up getting one barred sand bass and five kelp bass. One of the kelp bass was pretty respectable, definitely a PR. I'm terrible at remembering to take measurements. Maybe 18 inches?

Kelp Bass (Paralabrax clathratus)




Binh jogged over carrying a beastly shovelnose, just to let me know they were around. Thanks Binh, haha. He also said he got a nice soupfin earlier (but didn't feel like jogging over with it apparently). I continued fishing the same rig, and my next catch wasn't a bass! It was a small thornback ray.

Thornback Guitarfish (Platyrhinoidis triseriata) - new hook & line species #460

It was very cool seeing one of these up close for the first time. Mike says they're a minus one.



I like them though, cute and pokey at the same time.



The bite died down where I was, so I came over to join the rest of the guys. As I was talking to Binh his rod started dancing and he hooked into a nice fish.



Leopard Shark (Triakis semifasciata)






I set up on the other side of Mike, and pretty soon he hooked up as well.



Soupfin Shark (Galeorhinus galeus)

Andre had tough luck and ended up wearing the stripe. I think he was using squid and store bought mackerel. Fresher mackerel was definitely the key for the bigger sharks. Squid was working for the smaller stuff, but I had a smaller hook size.

Overall it was a great night, with 6 species total between the 4 of us. I'll get out again soon for those original targets!