Fit For A King

Friday June 16

Now that I have access to a boat(s) at King Harbor, I took my niece out for a boat ride in the hopes of getting her a fish or two.

Unlike my outing with Koji, I was able to chose the tide I wanted to fish.  I arrived a little later than I wanted to, just before 11:30am.
Since the zodiac was unavailable, I used another boat, a catamaran, this outing.  This worked out much better since it was outfitted with a fish finder which kept my niece easily entertained.  It also helped since I am too familiar with this harbor as I am with others further south.

We were metering most fish at around 20 -30 ft.  It took a few drifts but I did manage our first fish by a drop off near the shoal.  It was a dinky spotted bay bass.

It was less than a pound but it didn't matter to her as it was the first fish of the day.  It proved to be the only spottie we managed for the trip but it was the first step toward the salt water bass slam.

After fishing near the drop off we decided to take a look at the sea-lion platform which was quite a thrill for her since she never seen one in the wild.

We metered a large clump of fish and tried our luck.  We managed a rather heavy fish I initially thought was a a larger bass as it was running toward the boat so I had a hard time determining what it was.

I had my niece fight the fish with me but after a blistering run she told me to take the reigns.  I realized then it was no bass.  It took some time to finally get the fish to the boat and in typical bonito fashion it had no quit.   After landing it I bogaed the fish at 2 pounds.

We tried again to find these fish but we could not relocate them.  So I asked what we should do.  Since she heard that the last time I caught a barracuda, she wanted us to try and get one this time.  So after a few unpromising drifts, I asked if we should keep trying or go after bass.  She suggested bass.

It was a wise choice as every few casts produced a fish albeit mostly dinks.  But we did manage a few moderately respectable models.  We also managed to complete the saltwater bass slam adding all three species, spotted bay bass, sand, and calicos, to the list.

It nice to see her get so excited about the outdoors.  Whenever someone passed and asked us how the fishing was, she proudly told them "We caught 11!"  This was the most fish she's ever seen on a fishing trip and clearly she wanted people to know.

On the boat she asked if we could have The Habit for lunch when we were done.  I told her of course we can.

A burger, fries and a strawberry shake later we had to muscle through LA rush hour traffic to get home but was well worth it.