9/5/04 - kid's fishing day IV

[alantani]

my daughter had her little buddy over last night for a sleep over. lights out a 9pm. i heard allison and heather giggling until 11pm. 8-10 times i'd growl "go to sleep!," answered by a dutiful "yes, daddy!," followed by more giggling. finally at 11:30, the kids were asleep, i finished tying leaders and crawled into bed myself, thinking i'd have to drag them both out of bed this morning. no dice. both girls were up and raring to go when i came downstairs at 6:15 am. a glass of milk, a cinnamon bun, two gummi bear vitamins and a half of a 25mg chewable dramamine later, we were in the truck with the other dad and we on our way to hmb.

we arrived at hmb, got four boxes of squid, launched and headed out to the ritz with high hopes. there was a long period swell (perfect for getting kids sick) but no wind. we worked four separate humps for half limits of rockfish, waiting until we metered fish, dropping the lines in and typically hooking up within 30 seconds. after 3 minutes of no action, we had the standard request of "can we go back to the spot?" at noon, the kids ran out of steam and napped under the bow canvas while robert (the other dad) fished and i cleaned fish. i cleaned all 20 in an hour, the same time the kids woke up. i let the two girls switch off driving back, which was probably the high point of the day for heather. we were home by 3pm and cleaned up by 5.

we kept 5 vermillion and 15 assorted blues and black. over 20 gophers, brown and china's were released as well as two undersized lings. we stuck to 50 feet of water or less. all of us fished with ultra lite spinning gear, 8 pound gold maxima, drags set to 1 pound on a straight pull, sliders and 2 ounces of weight. the leaders were three feet of the same 8 pound maxima with a perfection (breaker) loop on each end. i switched over to a number 6 mustad bronze treble hook to save on cost. the gamakatsu's work better but cost too much when fishing with kids. surprisingly, we only went through a dozen leaders. for bait we used squid heads and fan-tailed squid bodies. only one fish was gut hooked but we were going to keep him anyway. all other fish were hooked cleanly in the mouth. they were released and took off like rockets, so they should survive. it takes the kids a while to reel up these fish. they fight the whole way up to the surface and i take that as a good sign. my daughter is a seasoned veteran of this type of fishing, but this was the first ultra-lite trip for robert and heather. what more can i say? we had a ball! take a kid fishing....