webmaster
06-21-2014, 11:19 AM
My buddy Eric, (E.A.R.G.) was in town for a day so we planned a trip to the island with hopes for a seabass or yellowtail. Crew members Sid and Nick joined along and we set out around 8pm, stopping at Nachos for a healthy scoop of squid. We had to return to the harbor to pick up Eric and 10:30 but I knew the barge closes at 10pm and we wanted some insurance bait in case it was hard to catch at the island. While fishing at the dock by the launch ramp we landed a 20 pound bat ray and a 3 foot pinback shark. Eric pulls up and we are off to the east end of the island were reports indicated a good yellowtail and seabass bite going on. We arrived to see about a dozen boats and 2 squid seiners in the area. We anchored up outside of the pack and started fishing. I didn't bother putting the squid light out because we already had a full tank. By mid morning we had caught nothing and there were about 30 boats around us with more arriving every 15 minutes or so. I guess this was where the hot bite was supposed to be but I didn't see anybody catch anything so we bugged out and headed west for some less crowded spots. We made a few moves and I went to an old spot that I knew had calico bass and possibly a seabass or yellowtail could swim through. Upon arriving we instantly hooked up on calico bass and while Nick was reeling one in, a 15 pound seabass chased it all the way to the boat! We are getting calico bass with every cast - nice size ones too, but now our eyes are glued to the water hoping for something else. We spotted 2 more seabass and a yellowtail swim right under the boat. We are still getting either a nice calico bass or log barracuda on every cast! Sid even had a dropper loop setup with 2 hooks on and twice caught 2 calico bass at a time! It was insane calico fishing with a big barracuda thrown in every once in a while. I knew somebody was going to hook the right kind sooner or later and that person turned out to be Nick who expertly battled and landed his first ever legal seabass! Not more than 5 minutes after we landed the fish a dive boat shows up and drops anchor near us. It was pretty much game over on the exotics after that. The calicos and cuda still wanted to play, and we probably caught over 100 calico bass and 20 barracuda there but never saw any more of the right kind. All were released except for 2 of the calicos that were bleeding badly and 1 barracuda saved as a seal deterrent in case we hooked another gamefish. It was great fishing with the "old crew" again. Hopefully we'll get a few more trips in this year.
http://fishinghotpage.com/images/jeff/nickwsb1.jpg
http://fishinghotpage.com/images/jeff/nickwsb2.jpg
http://fishinghotpage.com/images/jeff/nickwsb1.jpg
http://fishinghotpage.com/images/jeff/nickwsb2.jpg