Newport Saturday, Wife's first trip
 

I'm introducing my wife to Newport this Saturday in the AM, mostly chasing spotties, .but if she seem comfortable I may take her out side the harbor to troll for bonita. We'll see how it goes. I can get some a anchovies if you think they will work better than krockodiles but it really depends on how she feels leaving the harbor. What do you guys think? Which way out of the harbor? Straight out, south, north? I would like to give her a good chance to be successful.

ill be on channel 68, a group of us are launching from kids beach harry, around 6:30, we are going for rock fish and we never get skunk, if you decide to tag along just text me or hit me up on the radio :)

Will do Jesse, I have to wait and see how comfortable she is. I don't have a radio yet so I'm staying close to shore until I get one.

Congratulations on taking your wife out. I tandem fished on a Hobie outfitter with my wife for 5 years 90% offshore.

Rented an Outfitter for her first time out. We just cleared the channel at Newport and the first little swell scared the hell out of her. He screamed turn around and I did. Her confidence quickly grew and now she is fearless (a little too fearless at times). We easily covered 10-15 miles almost every weekend on each outing.

Getting older means we upgraded to an Tandem Island. Now we can make La Jolla from Dana Landing:).

If I can just keep it from taking on gallons of water in mild seas I will be happy.

P.S. Never go completely against your wife's will to ensure her safety. Gently push the envelope on her comfort zone and she will grow accordingly.

A tandem will never work for us, two different fishing styles we would drive each other nuts. I don't worry about her getting afraid but she is more cautious than I am. We have been skunked the last three times on the lake and that is getting old. So even if she doesn't catch any keepers she will at least be catching fish. I'll set her up with a krockodile so when ever she's paddling she can be trolling, maybe catch a bonita, that will get her pumped up. I'm 66 and she's a few years younger so we are in the same age backet you are. Once I get her used to Newport I want to get to La Jolla before all the El Nino bite is finished, I hate to be missing out on all of this.

I hope you get that leak fixed, that can't be fun paddling all that water around.

My son (age 10) and I just started fishing last year and picked up a tandem kayak this past summer (after much research and lurking on this forum). Still trying to put it all together. Prolly spend more time untangling lines and birds nests than fishing :doh:

We stuck to the harbor for pretty much the entire summer and just started venturing outside of it recently.

We usually head out straight towards the buoy and then hang a left (south) towards Corona del Mar and Crystal Cove. We've had luck trolling for bonita (using Lucky Crafts) and sometimes come across kelp beds where you can get into calicos --all short ones so far though.

On another note: for quick sessions, we've launched out of North Star beach and fished south side of the PCH bridge. You can only fish from shore until you get to the south side of the bridge, and harbor patrol & DFG are pretty vigilant about monitoring that area. We've had some pretty epic sessions there for spotties, and we both caught our first halibut there. They weren't legal (17" & 19.5") but we were still stoked. All caught on plastics.

Good luck!
Phil