Schooling fish

We finally had a few days and nights of cooler weather and I'm starting to see the larger resident Rockfish schooling up some, the water is still pretty warm at about 77 degrees so the morning & evening is still the best time.

This past Sunday 8-29-2010 I hit the water just before sunrise and found a nice school of Rock from about 20" to 32", they were hitting my sea striker casting spoon only seconds after jigging it off the bottom. I caught about 15 fish in a short amount of time, once the sun came out the bite died down, so I went after the white perch and caught lots of them jigging a Hopkins shorty. That has basically been the way the Rockfishing has been all summer, except during the hot part of summer the Rock weren't schooled up, so I would only catch one or two before it died.

One spot that I fished often this summer was also a spot a guy that was chumming would also fish, he would routinely get a limit and head back to his port not long after the sun came up, it usually took me a little longer to catch a couple with lures, Chumming and trolling was a big advantage since they weren't schooled up. but since I rarely keep any fish It didn't matter much to me. the white perch and catfish would usually bite throughout most of the morning and I liked catching them also.

Soon the water should cool more and the Rockfishing should get really good, then I will be catching all I want throughout the day. It does supposed to get hot again for the next few days which will probably raise the water temps again, but its just a matter of time before the weather gets cooler and the fishing gets hotter

Hot summer fishing

Its been a hot hot summer. After working outside all day in temps over 100 degrees, I don't want to do anything but get home in the airconditioning and rest, but I have been getting out on the water a couple times a week on some evenings and the early morning hours on the weekends, luckily with the high water temps that's been when the fish have been most active also, especially the Rockfish, they don't seem to be taking the unusually warm water very well lately, And some of the ones I've been catching haven't looked very healthy. there seems to be good numbers of them in the Upper bay, but they aren't schooled up like they usually are, they seem to be mostly scattered. I think it must have something to do with the warm water, they seem to be conserving their energy and not running around in packs looking for food. In some areas of the bay (especially the very shallow spots) I have been seeing temps as high as 90 degrees! That's why I haven't even been targeting the Rock to much, but I am still usually getting a couple keeper size Rock while targeting mostly Catfish and White perch. One of my favorite ways of targeting them lately is by jigging a Hopkins spoon with a piece of gulp bait on the hook as a trailer. The Catfish especially love it. Once I find the right spot at the right time, its been some great fishing with constant action. I'm also still getting some Croaker with the same method