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Thread: "Just Another S****y Day at the Island"

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2015
    Location
    Burbank, CA
    Posts
    66

    Default "Just Another S****y Day at the Island"

    Hey FNN,

    Been a long time since I posted a fishing report. Truth be told, there hasn't been much to report. Very few times with wet line in the last couple months, but I did have the opportunity to get out to Catalina aboard an old family friend's boat, The Phantom, out of Pierpoint Landing in the LBC. It had been nearly a decade since I fished with the owner/captain, Zack, and I'd been looking forward to this trip for a long time since we first got to talking about it.

    Ducky, my fishing buddy, and I made it down to the landing at about 5 p.m. Sunday night after the Father's Day festivities, and I was greeted by an awesome surprise: my uncle Brian, sometimes referred to as "Niney" or simply "Nigh" after my little brother's famous 2 year old mispronunciation, haha. Zack had told me that Brian wasn't available, the bastard! It was an awesome surprise, and I knew it would be a great trip even if the fishies didn't cooperate, because now I got to be back out at the Island with family and friends.

    Nigh, Zack and Zack's deckhand Tyler (who turned out to be an awesome dude) had already loaded up on 3 scoops of really nice squid before we arrived, and we were off as soon as we hit the boat. More chop crossing the channel than there was supposed to be, but it was a decent ride. Lots of good ocean spray on a warm Sunday, and one hilarious and wet moment when Niney needed to get some beers from the forward cooler up at the bow.

    Got to the island right around dusk, let down some dropper loops just in case while we grilled steaks and watched the sunset behind the island. No bites, but the company, the food and the scenery made for a magical evening. That's when Niney hit the nail on the head: "Just another s****y night on the island, huh boys?" Indeed, if this was as bad as life gets on a boat by Catalina, then we had it pretty damn good.

    Went to bed with the reels in clicker, but no takers overnight. Woke up around 3:30 a.m. (in hopes of making some more squid before sunrise and because we wanted to reposition before grey light) to find a little horn shark hung on one of the dropper loops, and lots of seaweed on the others. Sent the little dude back on his way after what was surely a stressful night for him and headed to West Cove to try a couple honey holes.

    Action was slow in the morning, with a couple sheepsheads and several short calicos. We kept working around the back side of the island, changing spots every 15 minutes or so until we found that productive spot. Well, we got to that spot around 8:45 a.m. and were able to stay there until about noon. It started with a wide open, and I mean the every cast, WFO, booger on a hook would get bit kind of wide open, calico bass bite. Most were in the 12-15 inch range, but a couple around 16-18 inches were landed also. We were having a great time on these little guys for easily 2-3 hours and must have landed 150+. I mean, just ridiculous. Soon the Bongos was parked near us, and a couple sport boats were out deeper in the same area. Seemed like we found the productive spot of the island before the pros!

    "Just another s****y day at the island."

    Right when we were starting to get a little bored of the calico bite, and wanting to go in search of yellowtails, Niney shouts "Yellow at the stern, free swimmin' with the perch!" It was a school sized yellowtail, in the 6-8 lb range. Zack grabbed a 20 lb. outfit and immediately dropped some squid in his face. 3 more came from out of nowhere zooming at the squid, all around the same size. One of them succeeded and, bang! Zack was bendo and the whole boat was hooting and hollering. Zack got broke off around some kelp on that first yellow, but just then Niney goes bendo on his own. Few minutes later I go bendo and now it's on. Everybody got at least one at this spot, all in the 6-10 lb. range. Not the monster 25+ pounders you hope for, but Niney put it best again: "A yellow is a yellow is a yellow is a yellow." Awesome little fighters.

    We hit a few more spots for the rest of the afternoon to mixed results on the yellows, the largest we found all day being about 10-ish pounds by Zack and Nigh's best guess. Nigh ended the day with 5, Tyler with 1, Zack with 0 (spent most of his time keeping the Phantom in position. What a dude. Still captaining even on a friend's and family excursion.), myself with 3 and Ducky with 1 (he busted off 2, one in kelp and one on the prop). I also wound up with limits of sheepshead throughout the day, (everyone was calling me the goat herder haha).

    Tyler also caught a nice bonita, and a 3 foot leo. We all thought the leo was finally our big white seabass, but alas, none were to be found this day.

    We all came home to fill our freezers with fish, and fill our hearts and minds with great times and memories at Catalina with friends and family.

    "Just another s****y day at the island."

  2. #2

    Default

    Nice report, thanks for sharing.

    Wish more people were on this site.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2016
    Location
    Long Beach, CA
    Posts
    295

    Default

    Great report, thanks for posting!

    I haven't been out to Catalina since I was a teenager. Maybe one of these days....

  4. #4
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Redlands
    Posts
    190

    Default

    Great report! Bithcen! Congrats!

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