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.

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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.
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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.

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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.
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We even caught a few yellowtail too, unfortunately the seals decided that they wanted a few for themselves too.
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Did I mention that it was like a lake out there on Friday???
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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.
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It was really beautiful on Saturday out on "Lake" Catalina.
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Wide open bass and perch fishing again at Catalina.
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And we even got some yellotail too, and of course the seals wanted their share too.
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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.

[supasportkid]

thanks for the great report. Looks like a very fun trip

[jplee3]

NICE report! The Seahorse is a GREAT boat with a GREAT crew! I'll be sure to get back on that boat at some point. Landed my first yeller on there back in May. Had a great time out on the water.

[SanDimasLMB]

Wow, NICE local yellowtail. Very nice pics and report! :Thumbs Up:


Time to get on a 3/4 or full day.

[sansou]

Looks like you guys did catch nothing but the tastiest the ocean has to offer: halibut, WSB and YTs !!! Very nice!

One of these days I'll motivate up north to Catalina and see what I've been missing....

[SAMIAM]

Looks like they are getting some tuna on this boat the last couple of days.

I have heard a lot of great things about the Sea Horse and Captain Elzig and look forward to riding it one day, as it is becoming prohibitively expensive to venture all the way to Sandy Eggo for a tuna trip. Either that or wait for the fall bite to hit the local LA landings and catch a 1.5 dayer out of LB or SP to Cortez Bank.

The counts :

07-28-2008 Overnight 12 17 Albacore
07-27-2008 Overnight 24 8 Bluefin Tuna, 3 Albacore

[pineapple express]

howzit ricky
sounds like a fun trip...!!! mahaloz fo sharing bruddah. awesome pix to boot.
man... that calico is huge brah...!!!
tight lines
PE