I told myself I wasn't going to try inshore fishing for two weeks, but this week the water crept up to 60 degrees and I was feeling bored so I headed out after work to catch a few hours fishing before dark at Goleta.

Launched my float tube, paddled just past the 1 foot high surf and on my second cast I hooked a halibut and lost it. I was fairly surprised :) but this was a good sign of things to come. There was thick nasty red tide out in the cove but right along the shore the water was good. It turned out the good water close to shore was loaded up thick with small halibut.

I wound up getting a ton of bites and catching 7 shorts and 2 legals in about 2 hours. The legals were small, like 23" apiece. I kept one fish for the barbecue and released the other one. Brian #2 came down with his buddy (appropriately his name was also Brian). The two Brians caught 3 shorts while I was there. They were still fishing when I left.

Of the fish I caught, two small ones came on 3" rainbow trout Big Hammer, one was on 4" #13 baitfish, one legal was on 5" everclear, and the rest were on 5" #13 baitfish. The 5" made you miss a lot of fish but when you hooked them they were better sized. It was a fun little trip, there's something about inshore halibut fishing that is utterly addicting to me. Grilled up some fish for dinner tonight, mmmm delicious :9

http://www.calfishing.com/images/daily_reports/6_20_07_halibut.jpg