Westwind II youth fishing report

[johnlgarrison]

Westwind II fish report
3day trip June 25th. – 28th.

Well we left on Thursday night around 7:30 pm. We headed for Huntington flats to target sand bass. We arrived around 9:00 pm and found the sport fishing fleet there in full force. Every boat we passed had hook ups. Ed took his time finding just the right spot, finally the meter “lit up”; we were in the right spot. We knew it was going to be good when many of us hooked on the first cast. The sand bass were very hungry. We caught a hundred or so keeping about 20 fish. At around midnight we headed for Catalina Island. Ed took the wheel and the rest of us got some sleep. We arrived at the east end of Catalina around 3:00 am. We anchored at the east end light where we have had luck in the past for White Sea bass. Well no luck this trip, in fact there was not one fish to come over the rail here. With a few more hours of sleep under our belts I took the wheel and headed for the 43-fathom spot. There had been lots of albacore caught in this area in the last 10 days. At sun up we put the trolling feathers out in hopes of hooking some Tuna. The weather was perfect flat water, blue sky’s not too hot not too cold just beautiful. If you have not already guessed it, when I talk about the weather and not how many fish we caught it is because WE DIDN’T. We went all day without a single strike. Listing to the radio no one was catching anything; the only thing worse than not catching any fish is listing to the radio and finding out you are the only one who is not catching fish. At around 2:00 pm we headed or San Clemente Island to look for yellowtail and calico bass. We fished the white rock area of the east end of the island. This is Ed’s specialty; he is the best skipper I know when it comes to finding these kinds of fish. We were fishing this area two years ago and found a rock holding a huge amount of fish and had a great day fishing this one small spot. The rock is only about the size of a pick up truck but it held a huge amount of fish. Above this spot on the island is a huge hole in the rocks; there fore we call this spot hole in the wall. We anchored up and it had not changed in 2 years there were lots of white fish and sheep head on the bottom and Calico’s on the surface. We caught lots of quality Calico’s. Nick caught a nice Calico on iron, it was close to 5 pounds, and we fished till around 7:00 pm and headed for Pyramid cove to anchor for the night. Pyramid was very crowded everyone fishing the tuna grounds like to anchor here. After a day of getting pounded searching for tune it is nice to spend the night in a calm anchorage. We had a dinner of fried white fish and got some sleep. Saturday morning we pulled anchor and headed for purse seign rock on the east end of the island. When we arrived we found 10 to 12 of the big sport fishing boats there. We anchored up and started fishing, we caught 1 yellow tail a 17 pound fish and 5 Barracuda. There were a few more hook ups but were lost. We went back to the hole in the wall and caught a bunch more fish. The navy had closed Pyramid cove they like to use this area for bombing practice, good thing they let us know when they are going to do this. We headed for Catalina Island. It is about 25 miles from San Clemente to Catalina. Our plan was to stop along the way and fish for sharks for an hour. We stopper about 14 miles from Catalina and started chumming. It did not take long to get our first bite. It was a small Mako about 3o pounds, not very big but still fun. We released it and hope to see him again when he is all grown up. The next customer was a 40-pound blue Shark, Matt got to catch his first shark, We wanted to get to hen rock on Catalina before dark and had to leave shark fishing. We arrived just before dark and anchored up. We caught a bunch of Calico bass. Erik gets the award for the most off the wall catch of the trip. a lobster. We would have eaten it if it were only a lot bigger and in season. We got a good night sleep and left the island at 5:30 am to head for the Avalon bank to spend some time shark fishing before heading home. We set up the chum line and it was about an hour before the first shark showed up. It was a 50-pound Mako. Nick had fun fighting it and we released it. The next shark was a lot bigger, well over 150 pounds. Jeff Woods took the rod and did a great job fighting the fish. Unfortunately I blew it at gaff. I miss judged the size of the fish and used the wrong sized gaff. I should have used our large flying gaff but did not. He pulled free from the smaller gaff and broke the line. We hooked 2 more Makos the same size but one broke the 80-pound line and the other bit right through the 200-pound wire leader. I will do two things differently next time, use the big gaff when in doubt and buy some bigger wire. We will get em next time. We headed home with a great trip under our belts and some new friends. A final note, it is such a pleasure to see the boys leave the dock and come back a little closer to being to being Men. This trip we saw a great example of this. One of our newest crewmembers that really did not know what to do really stepped up. He went from having to be told to help out to just stepping in and getting it done. We make a big deal of being part of a CREW. Everyone did a great job on this trip, but I just wanted to say “Great job Matt” welcome to the crew.

We have another 3 day in 2 weeks; hopefully we will catch more fish.

[jstcrzyengh]

Wow, sounds like a pretty good trip. Sorry you guys didnt get into more yellows or the tuna, but getting into a lot of fish on smaller Lb test is a blast. Good job out there.

[fishinkid]

hey john check you private messages

[Wahoo!]

Great report John! It sounds like you guys had a great time out there. I'm looking forward to meeting you and your crew at the meeting in a couple weeks.

[DementedFish]

How much does it cost?