Club Trip on the Mirage - 05/19-07

[The Sea Hag]

From Nolan:

Hi Everyone,
We had another successful on the Mirage despite some windy rough conditions that finally subsided later on in the morning. We left before 10:00PM friday night since we were all onboard early and headed out to Santa Rosa Island where we tried for some squid. There were seals around so that made it almost impossible to net or snag them. Only a handful was snagged up and luckily we had a lot of quality fresh frozen squid available and a tank load of anchovies to use for the day. We tried for a while in the squid grounds for the sea bass at gray light to no avail and left to go rockfishing a little after daylight. We made about a 1/2 hour move to the grounds and it was fairly calm and we started catching some nice rockfish but not the quality our skipper Joe wanted so we move farther out and the conditions were a little rough but the quality was much better. Big reds were being caught along with large chuckleheads and various other rockfish and then the salmon grouper started to hit and after everyone caught their limits of one grouper, Joe wanted to move away from them because that was all that was being caught. We made another move and the conditions calmed down but we encounter cross currents that really had us moving around to keep our lines in front of us to keep from getting tangled. If you dropped in at the stern, you ended up at the bow. But we were catching a lot of really nice reds and other quality red rockfish. Dave Nies won the Jackpot with a huge stray 9 1/2 # bonito that hit one of his shrimp flies and got it's tail wrapped up on his two hook ganion so it was a tough battle to get it to the gaff. We all ended the day with limits of great eating rockfish and the ride back was great.

Everyone enjoyed the trip and the crew Captain Joe Villareal and co-skipper Louie Abbot, Cook was Tim and crewmembers Tucker, Miguel and Chase all did a great job and we are looking forward to our next trips in June and july on the Mirage.

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More from Brian:

Hi guys:

I just wanted to say that I went on this trip with the Challengers and I had a great time! I must admit the fishing conditions were a little rough and I did get seasick yet again, but the fishing was pretty good. If you guys are going to come up to port hueneme to fish, the trick is to use some of that Berkeley Gulp. I put some onto my hooks and I was getting some pretty good strikes, even with fish hogs like Nolan and James Lee around I was able to get a limit of some really nice fish.

Anyway -- the pictures I'm attaching show Dave Nies with his Jackpot bonito, his brother-in-law Steve Ruffino and friend Sergio Lopez. Also shown is John Hartz with a couple of nice rockfish. Finally, my guest Matt Hussong is taking a picture with one of the big reds I caught. That Berkeley Gulp really works! I just wish I could figure out how to embed the pictures into the email. I know AOL does it -- but Outlook express doesn't seem to be able to.

It was great to see some stalwarts like Bob Mode, Bob Kirk, Don Stratton, and of course Pete Skibba and Pat Knox on the trip. Lynn Adams brought his daughter Dana and her hustband Mike. Everyone was able to catch a lot of good fish and if not, they still were able to get some good chow from Tim.

See ya next trip!