Fishing with Matt, Joey and Laura

Matt, Joey, and I had a great time last summer fishing the Coronado Islands. It was only natural then, that we would have a fun fishing San Diego Bay. On this bay trip, they brought their friend Laura along. After seeing her in action, you would have thought she was born fishing San Diego Bay. Matt got things started with a diminutive Spotted Bay Bass, and then it was lights out.

Laura caught a spotty, then Joey, then Matt, then me, then Laura, then Laura again, then Matt, etc… The three insisted I fish, so there were times when all four of us had lines in the water. That also meant that there were times when all four of us had fish. We had a few quadruples, twice as many triples, and what seemed like endless doubles. Matt and Laura were having quite the numbers competition going on with both spotties and exotics, while Joey was seeing how many quick releases he could perform. The weather in San Diego Bay was beautiful, and although we could have run as far up the bay if we wanted to, it was the southern end of San Diego Bay that kept us going. We never got too far north of National City.

The key was to find the birds, and keep working the pinhead schools, and through the Jacksmelt schools. Once we did that, it was Spotted Bay Bass heaven. Joey even had a Bonita pushing four pounds that hit his fish trap, only to come off a foot from the net. Throughout the day, anytime either of us had a fish on that came off, we called it a Joey. The final report going to the DFG declares within our five hour trip, we released 83 Spotted Bay Bass, 1 Sand Bass, 16 Jacksmelt, and 1 Halibut. We kept 1 Spotted Bay Bass, 28 Jacksmelt, and 4 Mackerel. All but about two dozen of the bass were 12-16 inches in length, and we had about eight that pushed 17-19 inches. What a blast!