@Pup
We've spoken of saltwater fishing, in private messages.
Like I said at the start of the thread,... fly fishing is a huge part of my life, but I don;t want this to be just about fly fishing.
And, this is the other half of that part of my fishing life.
onward to blabbering,...
I ain't visited this corner of the garage in a long long time. And, since the mountains are like the arctic right now, I'm going on what I call,
Walkabout. So, tomorrow, the spousal unit and I are headed up to Newport Harbor, where she grew up. And we're going to Balboa Island, and, we're going to walk around the perimeter concrete bulkhead, and pitch leadhead jigs, rigged with 2.5' rubber shad tails that swim on retrieve. We fish 6lb mono line.
To do this, we fish with conventional spinning and casting gear.
It is very similar to what you see the pro bass guys doing when they fish around docks, and boathouses. We fish structure, docks, and, pilings from a concrete sidewalk, and fishing over a waist high concrete wall, bulkhead, that goes around the entire island, to keep high tides back. Therre are also stretches of sandy beach with structure just a bit off shore of the beach.
Any way, to do this
Walkabout, I needed to get to the rods that I use. And to get to those, I had to break out the whole dang bunch of rods that were all lashed together, from when we moved here.
So, I broke them all out, and, cleaned them all up this morning.
My wifes rod, for Walkabout, is the smaller Penn spinning reel, 4th up from bottom. The other spinning rod, the next size class larger, is one she used when we had a boat, and could run around off-shore.
Then, you get into my conventional casting gear, jigging sticks, and trolling rig.
The lowest rig, the golden one, is the rod that I bought, when I bought the Abu 2500c, and, when I was going to become a bass fishing pro (in an area without any real bass fishing to speak of, no less). Its an early fiberglass Daiwa pistol grip trigger stick.
The rod above that without a reel, is a Shimano trigger stick that I broke a guide off of. The spinning rod above that is Sarges alternate stick.
I bought this little beauty in the early mid70's, and it has lived a rough life. But, it is still quite clean, and functions perfectly well. It has been used extensively in saltwater for most of its life. Its getting called up for tomorrow.
Abu Ambassadeur 2500c
The Abu reel, I rebuilt probably 25 years ago. I upgraded the sealed bearings, and, installed a new stainless steel gear set. The original gears were aluminum that had rotted off entirely. This is a sweet classic reel, and it gets used again tomorrow. It has been used in saltwater a huge amount of time in its day.
The fish we're going for tomorrow, are called Spotted Bay Bass, or, just Spotties by we that love them. Their proper title is Spotted Sandbass. but, they live in the bays, mostly, and they have spots. So, Spotties.
Spotties are quite similar to what freshwater bass fishers know as Smallmouth Bass, to what I have read about them (Smallmouth).
A big Spottie, like world record size, is perhaps 7lbs. A big one on a normal day is a 5lb'er, and legal is a 12" fish which might go 2lbs?.
They are very aggressive, and, will bite you if you don;t handle them properly. They also have spined fins, and, a razor blade gill plate corner that just lies to draw blood. If you try to reach into their mouth, to unhook them, they will clamp down on your finger with lots of sharp teeth
and they will not let go; they get LockJaw.
Now, if you handle them properly, all of this goes away. You see, much like how the Bumble is prone to weakness from tickling him, Spotties are softies if you handle them, "upsidedown". If you handle them upright, they just want to bite you, spine or cut you. If you handle them upside down, they just go limp, and they're back in the water in an instant. <- This, I learned the hard way, years ago.
Spotties:
This guy is in lockjaw, with his razor sharp gill plate flared. Hes feeling entirely grumpy. He was caught,
Going Walkabout.
Report, coming tomorrow evening.
