Clubfish Charter on Amigo to San Clemente Is.6/2/07HugeHali
My fishing club went out Saturday night leaving Newport Landing on the Amigo. We loaded up with fresh Squid and some huge Sardines at the bait reciever and off to the island. The ride out was very smooth which surprise the hell out of me. I got some shuteye and woke to the anchor chain noisely dropped at 3:30 AM. The skipper told us on the way out that on their previous trip some lucky anglers caught white Seabass around that time in the morning so I got on deck and started fishing. No action on deck for at least 1 hour or so and then one lucky member caught a 20 plus pound white seabass. Then another came over the rail . Pretty soon another one . As my usual luck fishing for the white seabass goes , I never got one. That apparently didn't matter on this trip . Later on that morning while picking and scratching for bass, whitefish, and sheepshead, my rod goes bendo ! First, I thought it was a large stingray since it didn't move much but then it took off to the other side of the boat and I followed along , then back again to the other side. After a while the fish started to come up . When it hit the surface , my eyes could hardly believe the size of the halibut. The deckhand Shawn gaffed the beast and it hit the deck with a huge thump. Believe it or not , the halibut hand scaled out to an even 30 lbs. and topped out the four large white seabass for jackpot. This is my largest halibut to date. Later that day I also caught the largest whitefish I have ever seen. It looked the size of about an 8 lb. yellowtail . I didn't even have it filleted. I had it steaked out that's how thick the fish was ! All in all for me it was a great trip but for most anglers on board , the bite never really went off out there and a few guys came home empty handed. It was that kind of trip, wierd, good, but just enough to get you to go out again. The crew of the Amigo did a great job as always . We were fed well . The skipper never stopped trying to put us on fish. We have another trip later this year on the Amigo going out to tuna grounds and hopefully will end up with full sacks and happy anglers.
Tight Lines and good fishing,
Dave Finkelstein
Clubfish Chartermember
P.S. That's a 27 lb. white seabass behind me on the deck !
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