Huntington Harbor Bass & Butts

"Uphill bounce & twitch"
My favorite artificial bait techniques for Bay Bass & Butts

As Fall approaches the Halibut fishing in the harbor areas of southern California will start to pick up. 100 of "keepers" are caught by kayak and float tube fishermen each season as the fish move into the shallow harbors to spawn. Some fishermen target the spawning fish using live bait rigs and circle hooks and many nice fish are caught this way. I, myself prefer to use artificial baits. There is less bother and a little more challenge. Using artificial baits is also a little more difficult but the reward is well worth it when one of these monsters tags your offering and the end result is a gaff to the head.

When it comes to tackle choices for the harbor I prefer to go light. I rig a 7' med graphite rod with 8# test P-Line. Most times I use a spinning rod because of convenience. I always have at least two of them in my kayak to fish bay bass so the spinning setup is usually pressed into action. I do carry a baitcaster outfit with 12# test for throwing spinnerbaits and light jigs or if I do decide to use live bait I can use it.

This 34" beauty hit a Drop Shot rig fished under the PCH bridge in Huntington Harbor on Sept. 18th. Big fish like this can be easily fooled into eating artificial baits with the right scent & presentation. With the diagrams below I will attempt to show you one of my best techniques.

My favorite rig for fishing halibut in the bays is a "drop shot" rig. I also like to fish various plastics on a 1/16 or 1/8 oz. Owner Sled Head. If I am fishing outside or in deeper water I will use a heaver sled head or a tri leadhead with a Big Hammer tail, but on this day I was using a drop shot rig and Zoom baits.

On the day this picture was taken Ed and I got an early start and we were on the water before daybreak. We fished the mud flats leading out of the harbor for a while but the bass were not corroborating. I got under the bridge about 7AM. The sky was slightly overcast, the tide was moving in at a good clip and their were only a few shore fishermen and minimal boat traffic, perfect conditions.

This drawing shows the basic layout of the bridge at PCH in Huntington Harbor. West of the bridge is Navy territory and the only way out of the harbor to the ocean. Kayaks can not go past the bridge, I know I tried again this morning. The sides of the channel have a small amount of rip rap where the shore fishermen stand to fish the corvina and perch. This area produces best with an incoming tide of at least 3.5 feet. I set my kayak in shallow water on the north shore, a good cast from the bridge and out of the tide movement. This allows me to stay put and out of the boat traffic without to much effort.

I make a long cast into the center of the channel and keeping my rod tip up I lift and twitch the bait along the bottom.Two things are important here; Keep contact with the bottom and keep your tip up high. The second is almost as important as the first. Keeping the tip of your rod high gives you time so when you get bite you can drop it down ( bow to the fish as the fly fishing guys say) to allow the fish a couple feet of slack and then get a good hook set. NOTE: When targeting halibut with artificial's you don't want to give them that traditional long delay to eat the bait. Even with the added scent paste they will just spit it out. A few seconds is all I give them.

As the bait goes further past me I stop giving out line and start my delayed bounce technique back to the kayak. Because the channel is dredged for the boat traffic a cross section of the area we are fishing is shaped like an elongated "U" so after the bait has past the kayak my retrieve is working uphill. This is where the delayed bounce technique comes in. Again, keeping my tip up I twitch the bait a couple of times and bounce or hop the bait a couple of feet. I then do a long pause, sometimes as much as 2 minutes before the next sequence of action. Working up hill this action also helps to shake any grass or debris from the bait. Since I use a bait paste on my offering it now looks, smells and acts like an injured bait. Often times I get hit on the second or third sequence just as I start to lift the bait. If you are not ready and you do not have your tip up when this happens you most often miss your opportunity because the fish feels the pressure from a tight line.

On this day I hooked my first fish on my second cast at the bridge. I estimate he was a very nice fish but unfortunately I hooked him with a short set and had him on for almost 5 minutes when the hook came loose, very frustrating. Less than a 1/2 hour later I got a second chance and everything went according to plan. Well, almost anyway, I will explain.

The nice 18# plus halibut in the picture hit a Zoom "Salty Super Fluke" drop shot rigged on a 2/0 VMC wide gap worm hook on the uphill bounce. After about 10 minutes on the 8# test I finally got to see color for the first time, nice fish! After a couple more short runs I saw color for a second time, she rolled on her side and I made a perfect head shot with the gaff. Almost perfect, I lost a $150 watch in the process of gaffing it. The band picked that exact moment to break, that's about $12 per pound for those fillets. Later in the morning I got a third hookup on a fish that was even bigger. I was drifting into the boat lane and I let the fish get his head and turned out to the main channel. That was all she wrote and I popped the 8# test trying to turn him.

This uphill bounce technique also works well in the Newport Harbor. I use it in the main channel fishing for sandbass with the occasional halibut thrown in for good measure. However, the Newport channel is much wider. I set myself up along the buoy line and cast whichever direction the tide is coming from and just lift and bounce along and then work it back uphill to me. This is a great area for this technique because you have so many species of fish that will nail your bait. Halibut, sandbass, white seabass ( the harbor is a nursery) and even the occasional striper. I also have used it in the triangle area where the harbor makes the first split by the Coast Guard tower. Here you just position your boat on the high sandbar and cast out into the tide and bounce back uphill.

The "Uphill bounce & twitch" a tried and true technique that will work for you if you just give it a chance. I hope this article helps you catch your next trophy halibut.