Seahorse 2 day trip 7-25-08

[Ricky-Ray]

Jumped on the Seahorse out of Dana Warf Sport fishing for a 2 day 976-Tuna trip. Boarded the boat with about 20 other anglers and we left the docks on Thursday night. Today's crew would be Captain Tyler at the helm and 2nd. Captain would be Todd. Butch would be our galley cook and 1st. Deck, along with Travis, Mark and Jordan as deckhands. While we were loading up on bait Tyler gave us the game plan. We would head over to Catalina and see if we can get some squid from one of the squid boats and then hang around and see if we can get some seabass in the greylight. Then motor over to San Clemente Island. Day 2 would depend on how the conditions were.

We arrived at Catalina sometime in the night and picked up a tank of squid and by O'dark something some of the guys started to fish. By the time the sun had come up we had managed to deck a couple of seabass along with a couple of halibuts.






After the bite shutdown Tyler called it quits and then motored the boat over to San Clemente Island. After a nice 2 hour nap we were at San Clemente and we started looking for the fish.


The weather at Clemente was AWESOME!!!! Nice sunny day, just a little bit of breeze to keep you cool and the ocean was flat clam and it was full of life. Unfortunately there was also alot of fish that were there that didn't want to bite too, but everyone was enjoying the day and having fun. Still better than a day at the office that's for sure.






One kelp bed we pulled up on and it was wide open calico's. Lot's of shorts were caught and released and there were also some nice keepers too. You could easily have caught your limit in just a matter of minutes if you wanted to keep them. On the calicos I was using the Berkley Gulp jerk shad in the nuclear chicken color and it turned out to be a murderous bait for them. Every cast I would get a calico. I stopped counting how many I caught after 40. After that plastic got destroyed by the calico's I switched to a gulp shrimp one and I was still catching them like crazy. We finally left them biting after about an hour on that stop and then started looking for other fish.




We even caught a few yellowtail too, unfortunately the seals decided that they wanted a few for themselves too.




Did I mention that it was like a lake out there on Friday???


Saturday morning we found ourselves back at Catalina Island and although we didn't get any seabass in the grey bite we did manage to get 4 halibut's and a couple of nice yellowtails.




It was really beautiful on Saturday out on "Lake" Catalina.


Wide open bass and perch fishing again at Catalina.



And we even got some yellotail too, and of course the seals wanted their share too.


At around 2pm Tyler finally called it quit's and it was time to head home. The fishing wasn't wide open but then again that's fishing. We had a great time out on the water and shared some good laughs with some of our friends.

I have to give props to Captain Tyler, it must have been really frustrating for Tyler to meter fish and get a good chum line going and not have any of the fish want to come up and play. He was definitely not one to sit around and wait and see what happens. If the fish didn't want to play then he would pull anchor and go searching for other fish that would want to play. They definitely worked hard to get us on the fish.

[rtran]

the weather looks great

[JerseyBrian]

Great report! Nice Butt's and WSB's@! Some of the yellowtail are also very nice! Never hooked into a Yellowtail off Cali yet, but hope to soon! It's been a couple of years since I've been to Catalina...Looks like I gotta go back And damn, that's mirror flat!

I love the Calico Bass fishing off California. They are true suckers for the soft plastic in Electric Chicken

[Snagged]

Very good report

[STx Fisherman]

Beautiful pics....looks like a very fun trip.

[TBaker]

Great report! Nice yellows! Grew up fishing out there. Looks like you fished the backside of Catalina and San Clemente. That side on all the channel islands are often that calm during the summer. Lots of fun!

[Pope]

Man, that is some great halibut and WSB fishing for the summer. Nice photos and great eats!

[getsome]

Great report!
This year has been one of the best years in recent history for big yellowtail and seabass in California waters. I can't remember seeing this many big fish. They started showing up in February and haven't left. For whatever reason, the squid has stayed in the area all year in big numbers, which makes the yellows and seabass stick around as well. My partner that I fish with has caught yellows and or seabass every trip he's run this year on his boat (10+ trips). Most of the seabass have been in the 25-40 lb class (up to 60 lbs+) and the yellows at Catalina are slugs for the most part. Most of the fish are in the mid 20's to low 40's with lots of 30 lb+ fish in the mix. Not to thread jack too much, but here are a couple of yellows I got at Catalina at the end of May.

The best part is that they are biting the jigs..

[JerseyBrian]

Originally Posted by getsome

The best part is that they are biting the jigs..

Love the pic! Those are some Beastly Yellowtail for Catalina. And I also love those BIG tails peaking out from the bottom of the pic

[getsome]

Thanks!
Being 6'2" and 250 lbs, I normally make everything that I catch look small, so this is actually one of the very few good fishing pictures that I have...