Winter Saltwater Bass fishing at Dana Point

By Dave Braun?

The trip was the first week of March 1997 aboard a private boat out of Dana Point (Southern California). The adventure began early Friday night, when we were informed the squid were right out in front of the harbor. We scrambled to gather our tackle and pack our gear into the boat. We left the harbor at 9:00 PM Friday and we fished for live squid with our 12 Volt squid light and squid jigs. The squid would float to the surface but it did not ball up quite like we had hoped. So each of us tied three squid jigs in tandem to each of our lines with a three ounce sinker on the bottom. We managed to fill the bait bag with live squid and then filled one cooler with fresh dead squid . We were done catching bait a few hours later but we kept looking for squid that really wanted to die so we could stack up enough to fill our freezer for the season. By 2:00 AM we were tired so we tied up in the harbor and managed to get a few hours of sleep .

Capt. Jeff Buck anchored his boat named "Ain't Huntin" in his secret spot down by the "Domes". The three of us (Jeff, Bruce and I) were bent in a matter of minutes. First a few nice fat sandbass jumped on the fresh squid pinned on bomber's and lead heads. Jeff hooked up on the first white seabass of the day.. It was under the legal limit so we netted it to remove the hook and it was promptly released. Each of us were catching and releasing short white seabass until the better grade white seabass showed up. We were suprised that the bigger seabass could be caught at the same spot as all the short ones. I had heard that when you are on a spot with undersized seabass you should move if you want bigger ones. This trip changed my mind on that theory. We probably would have moved if we hadn't been picking at the nice sand bass. I landed the first keeper seabass it was a 32 incher (28 is the minimum). I caught it on my 7-1/2 foot Penn Rod and Shimano speed master TSM-II reel with 15 lb. line and a white bomber jig with a whole fresh squid pinned on it. All the bass were caught near the bottom, right under the boat. The long casts were only rewarded with piles of kelp and lost jigs. Bruce Dodd caught the next keeper white seabass. We only chummed lightly with diced up squid, when ever the bite started to slow down.

Jeff hooked into what we thought was a toad White Seabass and after 30 minutes of fighting the beast on 20Lb Berkley Big Game line it turned out to be only a 120 pound Bat Ray and a few long stringers of kelp. Then we really got serious and made every strike count. The bite lasted till 9:00 AM and then it completely shut down. The Final score was 8 nice fat sandbass and 5 legal white sea bass. The largest one was 35 inches.

Good Luck and Tight Lines