Spotted Monster
 

Between school, work and moving, time spent on the water has been nonexistent lately. Sunday I was able to break the cycle and planned on heading down to Mission Bay. Woke up after my alarm and realized that driving Seal Beach to SD half asleep just wasn't in the cards. After reading reports the night before that Newport was fishing a little slow for a few members I decided to stay close to home and make a quick run to Huntington Harbor. First cast short bite...2nd cast....short bite. It was a day of short bites. I was liberally applying unibutter and still couldnt find any love in the eel grass; every short hit came when the swimbait was suspended high above the grass, about 4-6 feet from the yak. Started to head in near the peak of high tide and decided to toss a few more casts on the way back to the launch.

Cast...freespool, sink....slow retrieve.....war...

The fish immediately tried to saw me off, then proceeded to get hooked to the weeds and barnacles on the dock pillar. I pried her away, made quick lip grab and she was on board.

http://s4.postimg.org/ao53a5dj1/IMG_...3_121013_1.jpg

http://s3.postimg.org/lg9oqftyb/FB_I...6473132574.jpg

http://s16.postimg.org/6wws4gw6t/1446497770594.jpg

I don't carry a scale so I don't have an official weight. My Dad took a look at my photos and said, "Easily in the low 4's." He is solely a tournament bass fishermen in the FLW and various other tournaments so that's what I am running with.

Toad! I've got no experience with spotty weights, but length wise that looks like a 18? 20? Super toad in my book. Congrats!

Stud spottie indeed. What did you fool her with?

3in. MC Swimbait. It was a bait fish pattern, black stripe with silver flake and purple.

Any other signs of fish life? Almost every time I went during the summer I usually had short cuda follow my swimbait to the yak.

Nice job on the spottie.

Yep, HH holds some good sized ones.

Way to hang in there and not give up. Nice spotty

Nice post and catch!

When you are used to seeing 8 to 12 inch Spotties year after year, it can really blow your mind when you get one that's 18 inches or better. I caught one in the late 90's that size and haven't seen another like it since!

I have only hit the 3# mark twice in 8+ years of fishing HH, that is a big dark rock dwelling beast :luxhello:

Freckled Monster! Nice one! 4lbs for sure! :D

Nice fish!
Short bites suck, those things will keep you on your toes with the shotgun hook-set at the ready.
Ive had success trap rigging those small hammers with a small treble or single on the tail and fluoro ran through the bait, kinda tedious but not bad if you have them pre made up before the trip.

Beautiful spottie, WTG!

That is one nice Spottie! :luxhello:

Man oh Man!! any tourney fisherman would die for that!!

NICE SPOTTIE!!!! She is a toad for sure, 18"-20" are close to 4# for sure!!

Thanks guys, it is definitely a catch that's hard to repeat. I've had a few 3's from huntington harbor so I know there are more toads out there, only took a few years of weeding through dinks.

That's a pig for sure. The only thing we have to go on is the size of your hand and the mouth and shoulders of the fish. Not knowing how big your hands are and looking at both photos you've posted, I would estimate that fish at 2.5. - 3.25lbs. Not that the weight makes any difference, that's a very nice fish indeed! Congrats!