
After my amazing day yesterday, I decided to visit Stearns Wharf again to see if the fishing is really is as good as it has been the last two times I was there. I can now say that it is since this time I caught 33 Mackerel in 4 hours.
When I arrived at the wharf just before 7 AM, the wind was howling, and a low fog lay on the water which drenched the wharf. Because of the wind, and the way I fish, I had to cast my line in on one side of the wharf that I had not fished off before. At the Ventura Pier, that is the “bad” side of the pier (as I see it) but it made no difference at the wharf. Though I didn’t catch anything on my ocean bottom pole, I had plenty of BIG Mackerel to keep me busy. In fact, after a few hours, I stopped bottom fishing and rigged my Shakespeare Contender reel & Shimano FX 2803 rod so the line would drift since by that time the wind had abated, and the sun was shining. I put on a larger hook and used larger chunks of salted Mackerel for bait and sure enough, I started getting even bigger fish. They were not as large as the “submarine” Mackerel that I used to catch off the Goleta Pier, those were all 24 inches or longer, but most of the Mackerel I caught today were around 15 inches each. I wound up keeping 14 of them for bait and threw 19 back in with instructions telling them to send me a Halibut.
They must have ignored my orders since no flat fish were seen by me today.