Hawkeye
03-30-2008, 12:15 PM
Sorry I forgot my camera but I thought I put this report out.
Went on the Pursuit on Thursday with 36 anglers on a weekday! Pursuit usually has double the size of people and more on the weekend so obviously I decided to take a day off and go on the weekday. The weather started out fairly okay but man the water was very choppy and lot of swells from and to Catalina. The bait was live anchovies and really dead frozen squid, so dead that I didn't even see the body, not sure what happened but as we were approaching the island, I saw the deck hand cutting up the squid so I thought okay we are going to have squid but then after we got to the island and dropped anchor to fish, I saw a medium sized plastic container so I reach in thinking squid strips but was mostly all heads, tentacles and entrails so I am thinking where are the bodies that the deck hand was cutting to make strips? Maybe it was just intended to be used as chum but then where did the squid strips go? hmmm.
The swell was bad through out the day, the boat was just rocking pretty bad and occasionally a big swell would literally knock around everyone so bad that we had to grab on to the rails to make sure we were not going to fall. The swells made many people sick and there were number of people were just spewing chum. I generally do well using an over the counter motion sickness pills when I anticipate a long trip with potentially rough waters but the one I took that morning before the boat left the docks didn't seem to be effective. I had to take another one in the late morning hours to make sure I didn't contribute to the chum line but I know I was getting close to also spewing some chum.
Our first stop was for a place the captain had success with bonitos the other day and sure enough it produced some quality bonitos ranging up to 4 to 5 pounds. You were able to see various swirls on the water and people on the starboard side facing an underwater current were nailing the bonitos using, irons, flylining anchovies. People on the port side facing the island were not doing too well. It was mostly kelp so some of us on the port side were trying to go after some bass or sculpin using some plastics or plastics tipped with squid (again just tenticles and squid entrails) but no love there.
The second spot produced nothing so we proceeded to a third spot approximately 250-300 feet deep with some structure on the bottom which yielded plenty of salmon groupers. People were catching from all sides using a dropper loop with live anchovies but gosh darn it, you are limited to one grouper so while people on the boat and myself were catching some quality groupers you were allowed to keep one legal size. I settled for one 3 pounder along with some macks. Few people caught one or two sculpin on some squid but otherwise, we stayed there most of the afternoon and the captain called it a day little sooner because the waves were just getting too rough and had reports of gale force winds coming.
You know I tried to find the official fish count for that day and for some reason when I checked various fish count websites, the 27th of March fish count is missing for the Pursuit so I am afraid I can't give you the official count but overall, few quality bonitos and lot of salmon grouper with a hint of sculpins.
Went on the Pursuit on Thursday with 36 anglers on a weekday! Pursuit usually has double the size of people and more on the weekend so obviously I decided to take a day off and go on the weekday. The weather started out fairly okay but man the water was very choppy and lot of swells from and to Catalina. The bait was live anchovies and really dead frozen squid, so dead that I didn't even see the body, not sure what happened but as we were approaching the island, I saw the deck hand cutting up the squid so I thought okay we are going to have squid but then after we got to the island and dropped anchor to fish, I saw a medium sized plastic container so I reach in thinking squid strips but was mostly all heads, tentacles and entrails so I am thinking where are the bodies that the deck hand was cutting to make strips? Maybe it was just intended to be used as chum but then where did the squid strips go? hmmm.
The swell was bad through out the day, the boat was just rocking pretty bad and occasionally a big swell would literally knock around everyone so bad that we had to grab on to the rails to make sure we were not going to fall. The swells made many people sick and there were number of people were just spewing chum. I generally do well using an over the counter motion sickness pills when I anticipate a long trip with potentially rough waters but the one I took that morning before the boat left the docks didn't seem to be effective. I had to take another one in the late morning hours to make sure I didn't contribute to the chum line but I know I was getting close to also spewing some chum.
Our first stop was for a place the captain had success with bonitos the other day and sure enough it produced some quality bonitos ranging up to 4 to 5 pounds. You were able to see various swirls on the water and people on the starboard side facing an underwater current were nailing the bonitos using, irons, flylining anchovies. People on the port side facing the island were not doing too well. It was mostly kelp so some of us on the port side were trying to go after some bass or sculpin using some plastics or plastics tipped with squid (again just tenticles and squid entrails) but no love there.
The second spot produced nothing so we proceeded to a third spot approximately 250-300 feet deep with some structure on the bottom which yielded plenty of salmon groupers. People were catching from all sides using a dropper loop with live anchovies but gosh darn it, you are limited to one grouper so while people on the boat and myself were catching some quality groupers you were allowed to keep one legal size. I settled for one 3 pounder along with some macks. Few people caught one or two sculpin on some squid but otherwise, we stayed there most of the afternoon and the captain called it a day little sooner because the waves were just getting too rough and had reports of gale force winds coming.
You know I tried to find the official fish count for that day and for some reason when I checked various fish count websites, the 27th of March fish count is missing for the Pursuit so I am afraid I can't give you the official count but overall, few quality bonitos and lot of salmon grouper with a hint of sculpins.