Went fishing out of Cayucos today while the sun was setting with my 10' Hawaiian Custom Menpachi Rod and my Okuma VS30 reel. I had about 15 yards of 15# SoftSteel Fluoro-Stretch leader on the end of 20# Berkeley Fireline Crystal rigged to this small lead head with 4 flashers connected to a Lucky Craft Flash Minnow 110 stick bait. Just tossing it in the crashing surf. Then after about 20 casts, I hooked up. My rod gradually bent as the fish didn't realize it was hooked. About 5 seconds later, the fish took off in a diagonal direction to where I was standing then pow...the braid cut on one of the hidden rocks in the surf. Lost my last Lucky Craft so tomorrow, will try it again with my 12' Hawaiian Custom Menpachi Rod using an Okuma VS45 reel with 15# of Maxima mono and a Caivo AK-110SP 17g stick bait like shown in the picture. Wish me luck.
Shark in the shallow surf?
Big stripe bass or even a white seabass. Never know what's lurking around there.
That's an interesting umbrella rig you have Bryan, pretty cool. I shed a small tear loosing a luckycraft too
Good luck tomorrow
Bryan - WOW. Great story and I know that stretch of sand well. You never know in the salt, but I'm thinking a salmon. I have never caught one but got to watch my Dad do it twice along that same stretch of sand. - john
Maybe a black bass Double on that combo rig lol. Very nice stretch of the coast - enjoy!
yep, pretty interesting Umbrella rig.
good luck next time Bryan
Looks deadly, I'll have to get a few. How does the added weight affect the bait? I'd imagine it would keep it closer to the bottom.
I was out last weekend on a charter and the skipper was throwing an umbrella rig with 5 swim baits for calico bass. He got a few small ones but it was one of those days where all the fish wanted a sardine, nothing else.
All that flash should be great for halibut
the Umbrella Rid is from Boohah. I think I got them from overstock bait. here's the link. https://www.overstockbait.com/products/booyah-boo-rig-alpine-1-4-oz
I went out this morning and the water wasn't very clean. Almost every other cast, I got sea grass, kelp, or both. I got 2 hook ups this morning in 30 minutes of fishing, but both came off. One was maybe 10 yards from me when it came off. It looked like a 24" halibut but who's to know. It surfaces just before a wave tumbled it and pop, it was off. It was fun and exciting none the less.
I discovered that I much prefer the swimming action of the Lucky Craft Lure over the Caivo. The Lucky Craft lure has a more attractive waddle in my opinion. I'm going to go look for some today for this evening's fishing.