After a week long debate about what we were gonna do this weekend, Bob and I decided that we'd jump on the Freedom and get some YTs, WSB and anything else bigger than a barracuda. On Friday, find out that Mr. Flea Flicker (aka Walter) was to join us...COOL!
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Short Story: We went to San Clemente Island. The bite never went WFO today. There seemed to be some spurts of action on the calicos, but never consistent...it's still early I guess. Unfortunately the WSB didn't show up, but the YTs showed up in limited quantities and only 3 were landed. Guess who got one???
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9:00pm I get to the landing, call Bob who's on his way...or should I say, just left his house....mind you, the boat leaves at 10:00pm. I meet up with Walter and laugh about Bob and how he just woke up but still took the time to take a shower...interesting priorities....
9:42pm Bob shows up. Me and Walter were already on the boat getting situated and setting up.
10:00pm WE'RE OFF!!
Walter...doesn't like getting his picture taken...thinks it's bad luck. (ymin said the same thing...hasn't stopped Kevin and me who take pictures of ourselves!!
!!)
Bob...smelling fresh, like an Irish Spring!!
We get bait, get the seminar and get to bed!!
5:00am Wake up.
5:05am Grab rod and fish!!
GOOD MORNING!!
Well from here (as always) I did not keep track of time.
But how could you, you're either fishing or taking pictures of this beautiful island!! Right Walter??
Right Bob? Uh, Bob??
Anything Walter??
Go ahead...talk amongst yourselves...
Then Bob "The Miracle" lands a sheephead...man Bob, how do you do that??
(look carefully inside the mouth of this sheephead. You'll see a yellow jig head that has been in there for a while. We could tell it's old cause it was rusted when we pulled it out!!! Amazing!!)
Then he lands the only barracuda!!
BAM!!
BAM!!
BAM!!
(classic kung-fu movie triple take!!
!!)
At around 11:30am or so, we hear our favorite words - "Yellowtail BOIL!!"
Bob is yelling at me as I was sitting in the galley talking to people (I was a little tired of fishing for calicos...). I get my butt out of the galley and start to fish.
Nanette (aka. Warrior Princess - which by the way, SHE TOTALLY IS!! If you ever meet her on a boat, be respectful and let her tell you stories. Dude...you'd think she was in the UFC cause she is a fighter!!)....anyway....hooks up on to a Yellowtail. Unfortunately, this one got away as it wrapped around the anchor. I had been tossing jigs/megabaits up to this point, but once I realized that Nanette was using live bait...I had to give in.
As I come back from the bait tank, guess who's hooked up AGAIN!! Yep, Warrior Princess!!
So as she fights her fish, I slip into where she was standing when she let her bait go.
--- 5 SECONDS!! ---
--- BAM!!! ---
--- Oh s--t!! WOO HOO!!!! ---
--- I hear pull!! WIND!! PULL!!! ---
--- And I hear myself yelling "I only have 20# test mono!!! I'm not gonna pop it off!! ---
--- 100yds of mono fly out of my reel, I'm into my spectra and then I feel it...kelp. Yeah, the Yellowtail ran into the woods! I just kept pressure on it but stopped winding and waited to see if it'll work its way out.
--- 15 minutes later ---
Yep, Tsuribaka Joe of the NBU STRIKES AGAIN!!! 18.5# Yellowtail!!
My go to setup, Kencor QNZ-IS800HC w/Avet SX (20# mono top/50# Spectra)
So at the end of the day, Capt. Mike tried relentlessly to put more fish on the boat, but like I mentioned earlier, the bite never went WFO. Just pickin' away at the Calicos. We ended up with 3 YTs, 2 Sheephead, 1 barracuda and a bunch of calicos.
Credits:
Thank you Freedom, Capt. Mike, Capt. Woody, Deckies and Galley crew!!
Thank you "WP" for luring the Yellowtail closer to the boat!!
Thank you "Big Guy Upstairs" for letting me win JP and break my bad "2nd place" streak!
FJ74
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