I was lucky enough to get onto this 976tuna charter fishing on July 3rd onboard the Options. I arrived at Pierpoint Landing and boarded at 7:30pm and was greeted by the Options’ crew (Andy and Auggie) and Captain Tino Valentine. Capt. Tino discuss tomorrow’s game plan and told us water condition is a bit bumpy and we will be heading to SCI where the bruiser yellows and white seabass are biting in the early grey and informed us to fish with minimum of 40# line as the fish are averaging 25-40 pounds. We rolled off the dock an hour early (8pm) as Tino wanted to get to SCI early to anchor us on a good spot before it gets too crowded. We stopped at Catalina Island to get live squid from the bait boat as we all know that all the squid was wrapped up by the seiners at SCI a few days ago then we proceeded to San Clemente Island. Capt Tino anchored us on a good spot full of squid nest and very surprisingly we were able to raise the squid…indeed a lot of them too. We made two full tanks of live squid, then Tino decided to help out the local fleet by filling up an extra receiver and offer to help bait up the Aggressor from Newport Landing. As we reposition the boat the receiver got sucked beneath the boat and got stuck there….Tino took a swim with millions of squid to free the receiver from the bottom of the boat.
At 5:00 am everything was squared away and we have 6 lines in the water waiting for the grey bite along with 40+ Southern California sportboats and private boats in the area. At 5:30 am, we have this goddamn seiner “Ocean Angel 3” cruised in between boats and threw seal bombs everywhere as if he didn’t give a shit and hint to the smaller boats to get the hell of his way. The seiner then circled around a bait boat that was anchored next to us and threw out a set of net trapping them and forcing them out of their original position with their net set. The bait boat had a few words with the seiner. This all happened just 20 yards from us!!! Everybody onboard was like “WTF is he doing?” as the floats/net set was 50 feet from our stern as the damn seiner started to drag the net across the ocean floor ruining disturbing the possible grey bite and disrespecting the entire fleet of sport-fishermen. Tino knew that with the seiner wrapping up the squid and dragging those nets across the bottom just 50 feet behind our stern would very possibly shut down the bite. Tino then purposely place an underwater light to attract some of the leftover squid to the boat which later resulted into an epic 2 hour yellowtail bite. Tino was disturbed by the seiner’s action and yelled “THANKS GUYS FOR RUINING IT FOR EVERYBODY!” The seiner responded with a loud “HA HA HA…I MAKE MORE MONEY IN ONE NIGHT THEN YOU MAKE IN A YEAR”. A few more words were exchanged until we got our first hookup. The jacka$$ seiner responded by moving the vessel closer to us, dropped the anchor and dragged it right behind our stern. The worst part was that the DFG warden boat was just 200 yards away from us. Instead of doing anything to protect us (taxpayers, sport-fishermen, the sport-fishing industry), the DFG just took off like nothing ever happened…why the heck was the DFG burned all that gas to SCI and take off like that when they could have done something to protect us and the ocean???
What I thought saved the bite was the underwater light and Tino and the crew BRAILING scoops of squid when the yellows popped up. We ended up with 16 yellows (25-37pounds) in just 2 hours of fishing for the six of us. We moved around, drifted around, and at last anchored at Tino’s honey-hole to pick up another 4 yellows (5-10 pounds), approximately 50 calicos, 9 sheepheads, 2 white seabass, 1 halibut and a few bottom grabbers. This is the first time I fished with Option Sportfishing and I have to give major props for this operation. The captain and the crew know their shit and super cool to fish with!!! And the fish count tells the story. I have been out on 6 fishing trips for the past 6 weeks looking to get my first-ever legal WSB….and finally, Tino got me my first-ever WSB, my personal best sheephead, and my personal best yellowtail on this trip. I stayed persistent and listened to his advice on fishing the dropper loop the entire trip and it paid off. If you haven’t fished with Tino on the Options, you are missing out…they are the best for what they do. I will definitely be back!
Final fish count: 6 happy angler, 20 yellowtail, 2 white seabass, 1 halibut, 50 calicos, 9 sheephead, 1 whitefish, 3 johny bass.
I personal got: 4 yellowtail, 1 white seabass, 1 sheephead, 6 calicos, 1 whitefish, 1 johnybass and a hell of a fishing trip!
Regarding the seiner drama, this is my take. We all, as sport-fishermen and recreational anglers have to pay for ocean enhancement stamp and fishing license to fish our water and have to abide to the rules and regulations, which I think is totally reasonable. BUT when you see these seiners raping…I meant wrapping up every source of life out there is seriously heart-breaking and NOT FAIR! They can have “accidental catch” as much as they want and they can get away with almost all the time. We as fishermen got BLAMED for overfishing but in reality it is the damn seiners raping our ocean and screwing up the biomass and screwing everything up for everybody. When they wrap for squid, their nets drag along the bottom wiping out the squid nest. In those sets, they get squid AND a massive amount of “accidental catch”. Each “accidental catch” probably outnumbered the amount of fish taken from the entire fleet for the entire day! On top of that, wrapping up all the squid (like they have been doing) screws up the biomass…all fish at the island relies on squid as their food source. They leave when there is no food. We CARE for our ocean but those damn seiners don’t give a shit. There should be some sort of regulations that STOPS their bullshit on “accidental catch” and some sort of regulations on the amount they are allow to keep just like us sport-fishermen. DFG have to do something about this…if they really care about the ocean, they should start with the seiners. Everyone was surprised the DFG took off like that and DIDN’T do shit when the incident happened…for both regulation purposes and safety reasons. Why are we getting MPLA closures when those damn seiner can wrap all they want? Us fishermen gets a pick on fish here and there comparing to damn seiners raping the entire school or even population....do the math. Who hurts the fish population and environment more....fishermen or seiners....it is not rocket science. One more thing I didn't quite understand is that...if the seiner was REALLY wrapping for squid, why didn't he wrap in earlier hours when there were shitload of squid floating...why did he have to throw out the net at grey when fish comes in to the island to feed? What was his purpose...only god would know.
I believe in Karma and thanks for reading.
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 in just 2 hours of fishing for the six of us. We moved around, drifted around, and at last anchored at Tino’s honey-hole to pick up another 4 yellows (5-10 pounds), approximately 50 calicos, 9 sheepheads, 2 white seabass, 1 halibut and a few bottom grabbers. This is the first time I fished with Option Sportfishing and I have to give major props for this operation. The captain and the crew know their shit and super cool to fish with!!! And the fish count tells the story. I have been out on 6 fishing trips for the past 6 weeks looking to get my first-ever legal WSB….and finally, Tino got me my first-ever WSB, my personal best sheephead, and my personal best yellowtail on this trip. I stayed persistent and listened to his advice on fishing the dropper loop the entire trip and it paid off. If you haven’t fished with Tino on the Options, you are missing out…they are the best for what they do. I will definitely be back!</P><P> </P><P><o:p></o:p></P><P>Final fish count: 6 happy angler, 20 yellowtail, 2 white seabass, 1 halibut, 50 calicos, 9 sheephead, 1 whitefish, 3 johny bass.</P><P> </P><P>I personal got: 4 yellowtail, 1 white seabass, 1 sheephead, 6 calicos, 1 whitefish, 1 johnybass and a hell of a fishing trip!</P><P> </P><P>Regarding the seiner drama, this is my take. We all, as sport-fishermen and recreational anglers have to pay for ocean enhancement stamp and fishing license to fish our water and have to abide to the rules and regulations, which I think is totally reasonable. BUT when you see these seiners raping…I meant wrapping up every source of life out there is seriously heart-breaking and NOT FAIR! They can have “accidental catch” as much as they want and they can get away with almost all the time. We as fishermen got BLAMED for overfishing but in reality it is the damn seiners raping our ocean and screwing up the biomass and screwing everything up for everybody. When they wrap for squid, their nets drag along the bottom wiping out the squid nest. In those sets, they get squid AND a massive amount of “accidental catch”. Each “accidental catch” probably outnumbered the amount of fish taken from the entire fleet for the entire day! On top of that, wrapping up all the squid (like they have been doing) screws up the biomass…all fish at the island relies on squid as their food source. They leave when there is no food. We CARE for our ocean but those damn seiners don’t give a shit. There should be some sort of regulations that STOPS their bullshit on “accidental catch” and some sort of regulations on the amount they are allow to keep just like us sport-fishermen. DFG have to do something about this…if they really care about the ocean, they should start with the seiners. Everyone was surprised the DFG took off like that and DIDN’T do shit when the incident happened…for both regulation purposes and safety reasons. Why are we getting MPLA closures when those damn seiner can wrap all they want? Us fishermen gets a pick on fish here and there comparing to damn seiners raping the entire school or even population....do the math. Who hurts the fish population and environment more....fishermen or seiners....it is not rocket science. One more thing I didn't quite understand is that...if the seiner was REALLY wrapping for squid, why didn't he wrap in earlier hours when there were shitload of squid floating...why did he have to throw out the net at grey when fish comes in to the island to feed? What was his purpose...only god would know.</P><P> </P><P>I believe in Karma and thanks for reading.</P><P> </P><P> </P><P><IMG alt=)
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