I fished a small Toys for Tots tournament on Saturday at San Vicente with my buddy Cameron. It's a charity event, and a toy and small amount of $ gets you entered into the tournament. I figured what the heck.

Cam and I started in the back of Kimball. We had 8 bites in the first 20 minutes of fishing on the Eagle. Only one fish in the boat...a 4.25lber for Cameron. His first Eagle fish. Again, they just wouldn't eat the bait! We each had one more bite each a little later on, with the fish coming completely out of the water to hit the baits! Pretty crazy stuff. Not giants, but they looked like 6 lbers or so...

The weather was real tough for the trout baits. It was bright, blue, and calm wind all day long. We spent a lot of time with 'em and didn't get very many followers or anything. We got the rest of our fish on worms. I haven't even thrown a worm in the last few weeks!

The fish seem to finally be staging in areas near the bottom where you can catch em on worms. They've been sorta suspended and chasing bait.

Mike Long was there, and he weighed 22lbs, and the winners weighed 24 lbs. They got their fish on spoons and plastics...

Cameron and I weighed in 14.5 lbs for our limit....

southernswimbait.com
BigBait Fishing in the South

Duuuuuuuuuuuude
I think you need about seven 2/0 trebles on that thing :-) Now I wasn't there to see the fish hit the bait, but what do you think was happening? Most fish that I have watched eat my plug come up from underneath or even from the side and grab the lure crosswise. It looks kind of like you would look if you took a bite bite out of a piece of corn on the cob. Most fish hit towards the head of the bait, or occasionally right in the middle of the bait. Now this is just a theory, but I would bet you that when they hit that eagle bait from the side or from underneath and take a big bite, their mouths are open about 2" because of the bulk of the bait. Feeling the bite, you set the hook, but unless the hook is already pointing towards something on the inside of the fishs' mouth, the fish can just open it's mouth and spit it out. A 10+ might be able to inhale the whole thing, in which case you'd probably hook up, but a 3 to 6lber has a hard time completely inhaling such a big lure. With one treble point in the bait, and the two other hooks pointing forward it makes it tough for the hooks to catch. With trebles that are dangling down underneat the bait, the area is greatly increased where the fish could hit the bait and get stuck. The hooks swinging under the bait just allows them to grip in a different way than when they are pinned tight to the body of the lure. It totally reminds me of the stocker trout when I was rigging trebles under the head of the bait with one hook point in the bait and the other two sticking out. I probably missed 5 bites in a row before giving up on that one. Whatever the dynamics are of that hook setup, it just doesn't seem to work very well for me. There has to be a better way to rig it, maybe how brian did his, but then you get into the problems where the bait doesn't run right and snags itself and on and on. The tradeoffs between realistic lures and lures that hook and land fish are things that I dream about at night. The perfect lure still does not exist in my mind but maybe someday it will be invented.

Well 14.5lbs is nothing to sneeze at, sounds like you guys adjusted and got a nice limit. What was working for the guys who won / placed high?

I threw one of my Ospreys with the dangling hook rig and a mojo weight to keep it straight, last time I was at Cachuma. didn't throw it much, but it worked fine. Didn't seem to snag itself any more than a slammer, but I'll put it to a more comprehensive test and see how it does.
-Brian

Fix up one of these rubber jobs so they actually hook up and do some additional testing. Now get to fishing pad and get some work done :-)

Matt, I don't care what you throw, I just want for you to hook these fish so bad! Every Monday I look for your report and go c'mon get 'em, get 'em and then I read it and it's argghhhhhhhh dammit they got away again!!! Am I going to have to drive down there and regulate or what :-) :-) :-) You're killing me over here!

Rob,

I don't know what's happening! I swear I'd throw the Slammer more if the fish would give me any love with it. I haven't found the right Slammer water yet in San Diego. Anyway, I think the fish do bump it from the side, or just grab the tails. I've seen 'em hit it head first too. I agree the Slammer might hook more fish with the free swinging trebles. Yes, I know, I need to throw the Slammer more. I will do it more.

The bite was so fast and furious in the morning, it was unbelievable. I had no time to switch! We ran right into a wolf pack right off the bat. It was dark and hazy, so I couldn't see the fish in the water hardly. The other strikes were amazing. The fish were airborne after the bait. They'd just pounce on it....We didn't hook 'em though!

Here's what I know will help: the second trout plant of the year for San Vicente is 12/31. They haven't been stocked since October! Those fish will get moving on the trout even better in January!!!

Matt

southernswimbait.com
BigBait Fishing in the South