Kayaking SBI
Short version: Recruited Norm my fishing buddy to take Andy Gary and I out to SBI to try kayak fishing the island. Got squid from Larry and made a short run of it in flat conditions, getting to the Island right after the sun rose. No Yellows for us but we caught of mess of critters with Nine Seabass and a nice fat flatty. Good times with good friends is about the size of it.
Long version. (pic heavy)
I have always loved fishing SBI Santa Barbara Island. It's the first place I actually fished other then the surf in So.Cal. and over the years I have caught some quality fish there.
It's way out in the middle of nowhere..
So even on busy days it usually does not get much pressure. For me personally I find the island is either hit or miss. If it's on it's great, but if it's not not on it can be really slow with nowhere to go.
When I heard Andy "Iceman" was putting on a kayak mother ship trip to SBI I took notice and called him up. The word was wide open yellows which sounded good. After a day or so though it became apparent the he was going to have trouble filling the charter so I started looking for alternatives.
My buddy Norm and I have been fishing together a long time, and he and I had discussed the idea of a Kayak trip in the past. He's got a great boat a Maycraft 23 CC with a sweet top and tank that I built (welded up) myself.
That boat is great in rough water and hauls *** cruising 30knots on a 3mpg burn.
He knows Andy as I introduced them and Norm bought a kayak from him. Norm Kayaks freshwater, but doesn't like to yak in the salt, so I wasn't sure he'd be into it but when I told him Andy wanted to go he said sure no problem if we can get squid.
The closest run for us is out of MDR and it also has the best angle if it get's rough. I used to fish MDR all the time as it's the closest harbor to my shop but have not been around much since I got into kayaking.
That said I still have a few connections there and I just called Larry of Inseine bait co. fame. Fortunately I got him on his cell on the Ahi and he was headed out to SBI to fish Yellows. I told him what we wanted to do and he said after they got done fishing he'd make some squid for me and have it at the receiver Wednesday Morning.
So then I knew we were on. Called Norm and formalized the boat, called Andy to tell him it was a go, then called Gary "Bubblehide" another buddy I kayak with all the time to fill the boat, let's just say it didn't take a lot of arm twisting. :D
So we met at MDR ramp at 4:00am and loaded all our gear the yaks and secured everything for the 40 mile trip. When we got to the bait dock there was already another guy waiting for squid so we pulled in behind him.
Turns out Mike was still asleep and I don't like banging on the boat if I do not have to. So we hung for a while until "Critters" came by and think they called Mike on the cell to wake him up so he could bait us up. (thanks guys)
When Mike came out he was a little sleepy and the first thing he said was: "No Squid!!!" turns out the were expecting a full load but it did not float. My heart just sank. It's like all this effort and no bait.
While Mike baited the boat in front of us with dines we debated what to do. I finally asked Mike if they had any fresh dead and he said to hold on that there may be a few pieces for me on the AHI.
Well those few pieces turned out to be two pristine scoops that Larry had put aside for me. If have said it once I probably have said it a dozen times but Larry is the Man when it comes to bait in So Cal. and I love him like a brother..
THANKYOU!!! LARRY!!!!
Now I don't know about you but some days it seems everything's against you other days it's like you can do no wrong. Well with the bait situation it was starting to feel pretty good, and when we cleared the harbor it just got better as it was dead calm and glassy.
By gray light we were up to 30knots and well out in the shipping lanes.
By sunrise were off the west end of Catalina.
Nice sunrise! Those pics crack me up as you can tell by the suns position relative to Catalina. we are really moving
By then we were getting pretty close to the island.
When we got there there were maybe twenty boats, roughly a third of them Sportboats scattered on the edge of the reserve in 50 to 120 feet of water. Norm stopped well off the fleet and we started launching the kayaks. First Andy, then Gary and then finally mine.
I loaded up some squid into my tank then paddled over to the outer edge of the fleet, in a 120 feet of water and started to rig up my gear, as I had kept my rods in the yak for the trip over.
Got one bait out on a light 1/2 sliding sinker and was tying on an 6XJ Iron when I saw some fish cross the meter forty foot down. I finished my knot, dropped the Iron to forty jigged it up and wham!!! A fish nailed my bait rod. Talk about the wrong call. Here I was messing with Iron in the middle of a squid bite. By the time I got the Iron rod out of my hands, and then got the bait rod out of the holder the fish had already taken maybe forty yards of clicker and dropped the bait. To add insult to injury the closest boat hooked up maybe a minute later and landed a forty pound yellow. Hell I could of probably just thrown the reel in gear and got that fish. It's like what was I thinking?
So now I was in that should I stay or should I go mode. Don't leave fish to find fish kinda thing. So I stuck to it, and worked the area for maybe a half hour and did not see another fish....hmmmmm...
Now where I tend to be lucky with locations, whether I'm on my game or not..... Norm has a nose for fish that will not quit. I swear we can run a hundred miles, out into open water chasing tuna and inevitably he stops right on the fish. He's just got an amazing instinct for it. So naturally by the time I quit Fn around outside he'd already landed two seabass.
When I got near him it was clear why they were there, wall to wall squid. As usual he went right to it, like I said he's really got a nose for the fish.
I put a few squid down, and hooked one in pretty short order....
...and as you can see in Andy's pic: I'm fishing right on Norms stern... :D
I mean I'm not proud, and like what's he going to do? Not give me a ride back in? LOL
Andy paddled over near Norm and hooked up as well and came by for the classic Iceman slay ride.
I swear he always looks so calm!!!
Shortly after that I got another one...
Andy got another as well.
Norm got his third for a limit, and then there was Gary.
I mean where was the guy????
Turns out he was trying to be polite, staying outside of us, and actually still fishing for yellows, and sure enough he hooked one.... a monster that broke him off on I think structure.
Then he had another one hit that I saw and that one literally almost ripped the rod out of his hands. I was like holy ***** that fish hit hard.
It took a ton of drag and the broke off when he was trying to stop it from wrapping on some guys anchor.
I felt for the guy. I mean he's a good friend, and he was fighting the good fight, and frankly the fish were winning :D
I've been there and it hurts.
He had skunk so thick on him I was smelling it a hundred yards away with my nose in the water.
Finally when he hooked up again I pulled my gear and chased him down, and it was a good thing too because by then he was right in another anchor line.
I got there as quick as I could, grabbed the anchor line and I swear I could feel the fish head shaking on it. Fortunately the Farlon's owner was willing to pull his hook for us, so he fired up the winch and I gaffed the C right off the anchor line.
So now even Gary had a Seabass ( just teasing you Gary)
Can't beat that!!! It honestly pleased me no end.
Somewhere along the line during this confusion Andy picked up his third sea bass for his limit (he's such a FN pro) and he went out to where Norm was hanging in deeper water trying for Yellows.
The current died and I should of switched to a dropper or shortened flylined but I stuck with the Carolina and essentially got no fish for a good while and hung up maybe a dozen times. Didn't break off though, just pulled up a bunch of junk with the forty pound. I swear it's hard to break forty from a kayak.
Few boats hooked up blacks and I heard a quality white was taken, but did not see it myself. Several guys dropped by to show me their fish, several very nice yellows, and offered me squid, drinks etc...
Always cool to be offshore among friends.
One thing I love about SBI as it only attracts the hardcore, and they are always cool on the water. Like I said it's got to one of my favorite place to fish in So.Cal.
Finally gave up on my C limit and went over to Norm and dumped my fish.
At this point Gary and Andy were fishing towards the point, and you can see them both in that pic.
Needless to say there were no other yakkers out there and as far as I know this is the first mother-ship yak trip anyone has done with fully equipped "La Jolla rigged" kayaks. I could be wrong but I don't know any other yakkers that have fished out there. Personally what I like about using the yak in such situations is that if gives you the mobility to really explore the area and with the finder GPS I can mark what I see for later use. More simply the boats all were on anchor but we were constantly moving around which gave us an advantage out there.
At any rate I handed over my fish and Norm told me the cooler was almost full, and not to get anything big... :D
So I decided to head inside and fish for halibut. :D
I set up a drift in forty feet of water just outside the reserve and put out my dropper rig, and a bait on a 1/4 ounce egg.
Then I saw one of the weirdest things I have ever seen on the water. The sun was getting low and this weird mist or steam was rising off the shore right at the waters edge. There also was all these weird shiny shapes, like dots all along the water were moving around and then there were several lines lines of them moving up the hills.
Here's a pic.
It took a while for me to figure out what it was and it turned out it was thousands and thousands of seals. The lower areas were so overloaded with them that the water was steaming off their backs making a weird kind of a fog tight to the beach. The chains of dots climbing up the hill were actually seals, with sunlight glinting off their wet backs as they literally climbed up the hills to get away from the beach to find a place to lay down.
It was surreal, and kind of disgusting like maggots swirling around in the guts of a corpse. I spent a lot of time at SBI in the early 90s I never saw anything like it. I bet there was a hundred times as many seals there as there was the last time I hiked on SBI.
Think of all the fish those things eat on a daily basis, right in the middle of a huge cowcod closure, and a no-take reserve. It's just totally absurd. Something really needs to be done about their population numbers out there.
Well enough ranting back to fishing...
That drift I got a nice cabbie about four pounds which I just released. Then I saw a boat nail a 40+ pound halibut out at deeper in maybe 65 feet.
Next drift I set up out deeper and promptly hook a Nice Butt on my dropper.
Here's my pic.
Fortunately Gary was there to take a better one:
Next drift I hooked another fish, and it was big. Initially I thought it might be a big yellow as it did the old SBI Yellow go for deep water thing.
It took me right to Norms boat and I literally had to pass under his anchor rope to get by.
Andy not only took the pic but then helped me get by pulling my long rod on to the skiff, and lifting the rope. (thanks Andy)
They asked what I had and I told them though initially it felt like a big yellow, it already had drug me over a hundred yards and it could very well be a Black. I said whatever it was it was big, because it felt like I hooked a submarine in gear :D
After that close call it quickly became apparent it was no yellow but a big Black Seabass, and when I say big I mean a friggin toad.
Since I was fishing my new Tyrnos 8 with forty spectra and a forty fluorocarbon topshot I was interested and seeing exactly what it could do. I also knew it was definitely going to be my last fish of the day, as it was really working me, and definitely going to wear me out. It's a lot of work pulling up big fish on a kayak, but I'll admit honestly after all of Freddie's 300 pound black seabass stories related SBI I wanted to get a good look at it, just to see how big it really was, as I had never seen one over 200 pounds.
Well let's just say it took me for quite a ride.
It towed well off the Island, then actually turned around and towed me back. I don't know exactly how much it weighed but when I finally got it to the surface and it was huge.
I know it's stupid to talk about a Big Black Seabass because they are all so big, and it's not like you can keep them but this fish was just a monster :D
Like I could of put my whole head and most of my shoulders in his mouth. Probably the largest fish I've caught or even seen on the water other then a shark.
My usual MO is to grab them at the narrow point of the tail and turn them over, but that narrow part was over ten inches tall, so I couldn't even get my hand a 1/4 of the way around it.
I tried to roll him over a variety of ways. Every time I tried to grab his jaw he'd literally almost pull my arm out of the socket, and at on point I thought he'd broke my wrist. After while he seemed to be getting stronger, and he just swam around me in circles not allowing me to get close to him.
I was not going to leave that fish floating so finally out of desperation I paddle right at him, pushed his huge belly sideways with both hands, tilting him on his side but almost falling out of the kayak in the process. At that point he first went on his side and then rolled over and took off.
I swear I yelled "WAHOO!!! so loud they probably heard me all the way back at the skiff, which must of been a good 1/4 mile away. :D
Such a cool fish, I was so glad to see him swim off in that gin clear water.
So that was pretty much my day. Paddled back and loaded the Yak, gave Norm my butt which did just fill the cooler.
Whitemeat ....
.......and more whitemeat.
Headed off as the sunset.
We were back at MDR in less the two hours. Amazing conditions, great fishing. All and all You could not ask for a better trip as far as I'm concerned.
So there you have it. Can't wait to get back out there again.
Jim
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Originally Posted by DockRat
