2 Harbors, 1 Day (Or 3 Casts, 4 Fish)
Three casts, four fish. That’s not a typo. On that third cast with the Jigpara, I set the hook expecting another spotted bay bass. Instead… …it felt weird. My first thought was that it’d...
Southern California Angler Blog
Huntington Harbor: First Contact
Mission Briefing People always ask me what I think about while spending ten or twelve hours alone in a float tube. The truth? What does a bird dog think about the moment it gets...
The Harbor Blueprint: A 3-Stage Visual Playbook for Marina Bass
If you’ve read this site for any length of time, you already know I spend most of my time chasing largemouth. Docks are docks. Shade is shade. Bass are bass. Sure, harbor spotted bay...
Personal Best Spots
I haven’t been on a bite like this in a long time. The last time I remember something similar was years ago at an unnamed lake in Temecula, where I was catching 75 largies...
A Topwater Rod in 45 Feet of Water
There we were, IronMan Mendez and I, sitting over forty five feet of water on a beautiful Perris morning. Dave was glued to his Forward Facing Sonar while I stood there staring at the...
One Angry Voice, A Hundred Happy Ones
A float tube is proof that Americans are an optimistic bunch. We willingly strap ourselves into what amounts to an inflatable recliner, kick a mile from shore with just enough fishing tackle to keep...
The Downward Spiral: Why Los Alamitos is the Nine Inch Nails of SoCal Harbors
My float tube and I were somewhere beneath the shadow of a monolithic concrete highway span, kicking along the pillars after launching at the “other” Mother’s Beach, when my legs let me know they...
The Concrete Blueprint: Decoding The Vertical Spottie Game
I see a lot of guys posting float tube reports down in San Diego targeting natural bays and estuaries, fan-casting swimbaits, and slow-rolling moving baits across acres of eelgrass filled flats and channels. Even...
The June Gloom Protocol: Lost Gear, Pulled Hamstrings, and the Zen of Tubing the Marina
I pulled my hamstring the other day trying to nutmeg the dog with a fútbol move—a completely undignified injury, the details of which do not matter. The true weight of my stupidity didn’t hit...
Nobody Voluntarily Drives Anybody to LAX
The first time Lake Skinner punched me in the mouth, I was fishing a club tournament as a guest with Big Ed. Funny enough, I’d end up joining that same club years later, which...
The Pylons Always Win
I’ve started realizing that the more I fish for Spotted Bay Bass, the more they remind me of psychopathic little largemouth living in a saltwater urban housing development. “The Projects,” if you will. They...