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Little late on the report, but my brother and I finally made it out to float tube in Huntington Harbor. We usually fish Newport with decent success, but the grade of fish seems to be pretty small. We heard about some larger fish in Huntington and decided to give it a try.
We launched at a public beach in the harbor and made a few casts before heading out to the intended spot. I actually hooked one within the first 3 casts, but it caught me off guard and got away. We had 2 more bites within 10 minutes and thought that the action was going to be steady, which wasn't the case.
We made it to our intended spot and started casting. Conditions were very clear water and shallow due to the slack low tide, which made it harder to find fish around docks. We took some advice from Ornery Bob on here who said the fish seemed to gather around corners where 2 channels met. I think he was right, since my brother landed his first 2 fish in areas were 2 channels met. I think the current mixed up the bait on the bottom and made it a good ambush spot. His first fish was small, but the second one was a nice legal fish, around 14.5" (both spotted bay bass). It came on a Shakey head with a Gambler craw.
We were both struggling to hook fish, but me especially. Lots of short bites, dinks I'm assuming, and I farmed a few decent ones. In the mean time, my brother managed to get a very small sand bass on a Texas-rigged craw, and a handful of macks on a Hookup bait. I was finally able to break my streak with a dink sand bass off of a dock piling, which came on a keitech swimbait.
We had tubed for about 5 hours with only 4 bass to show for, and only one fish was of decent size. Before we paddled in, we pitched and trolled around the ends of some docks near the location where we got our first bites. As I was making my way back, I pitched to the shady end of a dock and got slammed. My brother was too far away to hear me and the fish was fighting hard, pulling some drag. I got it close to the surface and basically had to handline it in for the last 5 feet and haul it into my tube. It was a really solid spottie and my PB, around 16" and 2 lbs. My brother paddled over and we realized we doubled up, with him holding a decent 13" spottie.
Although it was pretty slow, we came for better quality fish and managed to pull a couple off, including a very good one in the last 10 minutes. We'll be back soon...
We also made a youtube video so feel free to check it out on our channel:
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We launched at a public beach in the harbor and made a few casts before heading out to the intended spot. I actually hooked one within the first 3 casts, but it caught me off guard and got away. We had 2 more bites within 10 minutes and thought that the action was going to be steady, which wasn't the case.
We made it to our intended spot and started casting. Conditions were very clear water and shallow due to the slack low tide, which made it harder to find fish around docks. We took some advice from Ornery Bob on here who said the fish seemed to gather around corners where 2 channels met. I think he was right, since my brother landed his first 2 fish in areas were 2 channels met. I think the current mixed up the bait on the bottom and made it a good ambush spot. His first fish was small, but the second one was a nice legal fish, around 14.5" (both spotted bay bass). It came on a Shakey head with a Gambler craw.
We were both struggling to hook fish, but me especially. Lots of short bites, dinks I'm assuming, and I farmed a few decent ones. In the mean time, my brother managed to get a very small sand bass on a Texas-rigged craw, and a handful of macks on a Hookup bait. I was finally able to break my streak with a dink sand bass off of a dock piling, which came on a keitech swimbait.
We had tubed for about 5 hours with only 4 bass to show for, and only one fish was of decent size. Before we paddled in, we pitched and trolled around the ends of some docks near the location where we got our first bites. As I was making my way back, I pitched to the shady end of a dock and got slammed. My brother was too far away to hear me and the fish was fighting hard, pulling some drag. I got it close to the surface and basically had to handline it in for the last 5 feet and haul it into my tube. It was a really solid spottie and my PB, around 16" and 2 lbs. My brother paddled over and we realized we doubled up, with him holding a decent 13" spottie.
Although it was pretty slow, we came for better quality fish and managed to pull a couple off, including a very good one in the last 10 minutes. We'll be back soon...
We also made a youtube video so feel free to check it out on our channel:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
