Sep. 17 - East & West Beach - S.B. Report

[LeapinBass]

Started float tubing near Stearn's Wharf. Fished the 3 inch Big Hammers and the Excalibur Long As for one tiny halibut (on the Hammer). There were several fly fishermen surf fishing who caught 4 or 5 short flatties while we were there. Just before sunset we kicked over to the sandbar to look for seabass. I started throwing the 6 inch Rainbow Trout Big Hammer (my go to seabass bait) when I noticed a bunch of "stuff" right near the bottom on my depth finder. Figuring it could be seabass, baitfish, or kelp I thought I'd change my retrieve (I had been just doing a straight grind as that is what usually gets the seabass). I started bouncing it along the bottom like my normal halibut retrieve. About half way in I get a nice strike and set into something that wasn't a sand bass. A nice strong fight with some good head shakes but I kept waiting for it to make one of those long, fast seabass runs - it never did. Instead I saw a 25 inch long brown carpet come to the surface. So we didn't get any seabass but at least a legal halibut made an appearance. Released.

[center][image]http://petenjen.com/photo/photos/2002/020917a.jpg[/image][/center]
[center]7 lb. Santa Barbara Harbor Flatty[/center]

[center][image]http://swimbait.com/bighammer/images/h09.jpg[/image][/center]
[center]Rainbow Trout Big Hammer[/center]
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[theangler]

Hello LeapinBass,
Great photo and report! Thanks for giving the details!

Shawn, How are you? I'll look forward to checking out the fall edition, is it already in the stores? What happend to your username? Are you having trouble logging in? If so try the lost password at the log in, everything should be working now, sorry all for the problems created by the switch over!

Anyone else still having troubles logging in please check out the following board:
[url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?forum=74"]http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?forum=74[/url]
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