CAC Club Trip - 04-21-2007 - Pacific Star

[The Sea Hag]

Article written by Yeoman, Pam Sharp.
Photos taken by Pacific Star Galley Cook, Shane. (thank you Shane!!)

Well, rain and wind all day Friday made the prospects of yellowtail unlikely, and left me, in fact, waiting for a call from the Charter master to say the trip was cancelled. But the Saturday forecast looked good, so we all put on our fisherman’s optimism, and boarded the Pacific Star at 8:00 Friday night.



24 club members of the Challengers Angling Club and a few guests were introduced to the crew, Captains Mike and Richard, galley cook Shane, and deck hands Mike and Matt. Captain Mike assigned bunks personally, and took us down individually to show us around. There are a number of rooms with open bunking, 6 to a room, bunks in an open area in the bow, and two smaller two person staterooms, all really nicely laid out. There are also two heads, with separate shower stalls in each one, and a beautiful large galley! After a short safety speech from Captain Mike Bullard, we were on our way. First stop, Catalina to look for squid, then on to Clemente for some fabulous rock fishing. We departed from ffice:smarttags" />22^nd Street Landing at 9:00 PM, with a good load of fresh frozen squid on board already.

It seemed like a fairly quiet ride out. The conditions were quite nice. I woke up when we stopped at Catalina, came up briefly. A few squid floated, but wouldn’t take a squid jig. I went back to bed and slept pretty much through the night. In the morning I could smell bacon cooking, so I got up, ordered breakfast, eggs, sausage, and hand cut potatoes! And then got an update from the deckhands on recommended rigging. Fishing was pretty slow at the first spot, but we didn’t stay long.

The skies were pretty clear already. By 8:30 I had to get my sunglasses. By 9:00 I was rid of my jacket. By 10:30 the wind picked up, and it got a little bumpy, but it died out again late afternoon.



(Pam with an early morning sheephead.)

The next stop was very productive, and most of them were for the rest of the day. We had one stop that we pretty much got limits of huge salmon grouper, then moved on to spots for rock fish. We picked up a six legal lings on one spot.



(Pat with a nice ling, and Joe's red.)



(Galley cook Shane with his ling.)



(Guest Joe with the JP)



(Dave N. with his ling.)




By that time it was lunch time, with a choice of teriyaki chicken sandwich, which I understand were very good, and a cheeseburger. Mine was Wonderful!!


(The Pacific Star has a large comfortable galley!)

Our next drift was in deeper water, and we caught some fabulously huge reds! I finished off my limit there easily, and then started helping fill other people’s sacks. We had fished to our limits right about the time it was time to pack it in and head to the barn!



(Pam with a nice sized salmon grouper, one stop produced a lot of these endangered creatures in this size class!)



(Captain Mike shows off a few of the nice quality reds we were catching!)



(Two for one! Size doesn't matter... right??)



(Larry with a nice red.)



(We loaded up on these...!)







Shane took pictures throughout the trip, and a disk with the whole trip’s pictures (posted here) was offered to each angler, for a small fee. He also made time to fish some himself, and those were cooked up and offered as delicious fish tacos on the ride home. I was still full from lunch, but Shane insisted that I try one, and they were absolutely to DIE for!!!

We ended the day with limits on rock fish, of all varieties, including a few sheephead, a few whitefish, but mostly big salmon grouper and huge reds, plus the six lings. Jackpot went to Joe, one of our guests, for a big ling!

We would like to thank Captain Mike and the crew of the Pacific Star for a wonderful trip!!

The Pacific Star is running out of 22^nd Street right now, and in the summer will be moving to Seaforth. They run mostly charters, but also a few open party trips when dates are available.



Your Yeoman, Pam

[Briguy65]

Sounds like a really nice trip Pam! How deep were you guys fishing to get all those wonderful and delicious looking fish?

Brian

[The Sea Hag]

Hey Brian!
Mostly 180-250 ft. The Last spot in the afternoon before we headed back in he did a couple of drifts where we were picking up those big reds!! I had 5-6 of them size. The sinker would hit bottom, 1 or 2 cranks up, wait a few seconds, and wind them in.

Some good eats there!

Pacific Star is a really nice boat, too! Are you coming on any of the 2-day trips?

[Briguy65]

I'm thinking about the September trip, since I still have the Vagabond trip at the end of July. My buddy Ty wants to try his hand at Pacific tuna fishing, he's done some fishing for tuna, but almost always it's been on that small boat deal where you're just trolling and they have a fighting chair. I'd sure like to see him running around the boat with a hot fish on his line, hehe. I hope the albies will be back this year, last year was sorta slow on em, although Yellows and Dorado were nice off paddies. We'll just have to wait and see. Good to hear that the Star is such a nice boat -- it's always good to go with a great boat.

Brian

[The Sea Hag]

I'm on the September trip.... Hoping the fishing will be good, but if not, it will be a nice boat ride. Really nice boat.

I hope you decide to get on that one!

(Just stay up wind from me if you're going to do any chumming, please!)