#19 Surface Iron Fun

Thursday 6/11/26

After a few days of great reports on nearby yellowtail we wanted to take a shot at it before the weekend crowds. We tried to make bait in the morning, but we struggled to find some. Unfortunately that meant we had to return to the bait barge, which significantly delayed our time of arrival to the fishing grounds. We heard the bite was hot in the morning but we got out there late. Water temperature was around 69 degrees. We slow trolled the bait we had and got a few bites but nothing that stuck. Sea Lions were also a huge pain. If you know you know… they can be brutal. I switched to casting the iron, and after many casts I had a lucky one. After two cranks on the retrieve, my line started screaming. Hook up! It was a fun fight, and we got it on the boat before a sea lion could sink their teeth into it. After this we didn’t see anyone else hooked up, so we looked around for a school of our own. We put the rapalas back and shortly after hooked two big barracudas, and they were some of the bigger ones we have seen lately. We casted irons and caught and released a few more barracuda along with a few calicos and a sand bass. It was a fun spot of fishing but not the species we were hoping for. Our fishing window was a bit short as we needed to head in. We were happy to have one yellowtail in the bag for dinner.