Harbor Blue

It was a summer weekend in early August. I went to H-mart for the first time in a while and bought miscellaneous. There was a buckwheat noodle in the cart. When I drove home I recalled I had seen a school of herring at the pier a few days before. They didn’t look so big, 8’’ at most. However, I wondered that they must be perfect for topping on buckwheat noodle so decided to go fishing them in the afternoon.

I loaded 12’ telescope light rod and 6.5’ Daiwa light rod with light leader and hooks. I also picked up a few mackerel from the freezer for bait. High tide was 1:30. I got to the pier around noon. As I looked around, water looked like milk tea. Processing of salted herring was still going on and there were tons of seagulls flying up and down. Off the pier a few seals were turning around. I casted a small spinner but there was no reaction. I started to think about moving to another place but a local fisher man showed up and started to catch herring with his sabiki rig. I couldn’t see fish but they were there.

I made a float rig with a telescope rod. Under a slip bobber, a small egg sinker and a swivel were attached. Under the swivel, a small Sode#12 hook was tied with 30’ of 10 lb mono leader. Stopper was adjusted to the depth of 8’ and a small piece of mackerel was put on the hook. I casted the rig and started to put the lure rod in the car. As I watched the bobber, it sank and ran horizontally. Typically like a hit of mackerel. I set hook, actually wanted to do so but the line broke before I felt something. I looked into the rig but I didn’t find any signs of wrong knot or too big fish. Should have been a blue.

I needed wire leader but I didn’t carry any because the game was supposed to be tiny herring! I looked into my backpack and took out the heaviest mono/flurocarbon line and the biggest hook. I took the leader I spooled in a reel. It looked like 30 lb fluorocarbon. I also took a single hook from a crippled herring. I made a heavy rig and casted again. I also found a mackerel jig and thought it might work better. During making another rig on the short rod, fish hit on the bobber rig again. Fortunately I had loosened the drag and didn’t lose the whole tackle but the fish was gone.

I made a mackerel-jig rig on the short rod and put a larger piece of mackerel. As for the telescope rod, I reset back to the light rig for herring. Soon after that fish hit on the unfavorable tackle. Gone less than a second! When local fishermen came to the spot, I talked about what had happened. They kindly shared me a sturdier black mono-rig. I made a rig using it but there were no hit after that. It was a short time action around high tide.

I saw two teenage boys caught a few bule of 14’’ class. Should be these size of guys schooled and cut my rig. For herring, it might be better fishing shallow. I knew small sabiki works better but I wanted to enjoy bait fishing this time. Unfortunately, I couldn't catch anything. I was not sure what was wrong because water was so cloudy and nothing was visible.

 

Carry wire in August!