After some serious planning our much anticipated, annual Catalina camping trip was finally upon us, only this year we included the kids. It took a few late nights with some good friends to do all the little things necessary to get a new boat up to snuff but we pulled it off–barely. Ron headed over early fri. AM to get bait & attempt to capitalize on the grey bite. He had “Topwater” Tom Pack on board of the H.B. Yacht club and was also attending their raft up event. Mike Ramirez borrowed his buddies 22’ CC with his son Mikey, his daughter Jessica & her friend Jacob aboard. Karl took his little Whaler across with his boy Zach:
I had my daughter Raina:
Father Steve, sister Kira & her husband Jeremy. It’s nice to have them around again to do these things but it was nicer having them in Costa Rica.
All the kids were complete troopers during the casual 2-hour crossing:
to our spot in Little Harbor:
It’s quite a process unloading all the gear onto the beach but using Karl’s “Crystal Balls” instead of the raft was a nice touch. After setting up camp:
we ran out to catch some dinner in the form of rockfish. It only took a couple of drifts to catch way more than we needed & I think the kids had had enough:
Most of the fish were the small brown ones but there were some serous reds mixed in, couldn’t keep away from the big slimy grouper.
Insert Red Drum style fish slaughter photo here
Not wanting my daughter to wake up alone & not being able to get her up we opted for a casual breakfast before hitting the water around 10:AM. We bounced around looking for conditions & found a school of fin bait that was holding some marks. The first bite was a little croaker my daughter pulled up:
I was up next with a nice little flatty:
we were happy to throw in the box for the grill. After a couple missed bites Jeremy was determined to get the next biter so I wasn’t to surprised to look back & see the jig stick he was fishing fully bent. The fish was pulling hard & fast with head shake but up on the surface like a bat ray. I had to chase it down & was very happy to see the silver shine when we got on top of her:
53 lbs.
It was easy to call it a day at that point & get the kids back to the beach where they were having to much fun:
Took the group over to the isthmus for some showers & lunch, stopped by the HB Yacht boys to share some fish & take part in the abundance of hors d"overes that were being passed around. Followed that up with an outstanding dinner back at camp. We took the casual approach to packing up on sun. after another huge breakfast.
An outstanding weekend with the kids @ the island, probably fished a total of less than 2 hrs over the 3 days, spent more time cleaning fish. I guess the new boat is broken in.
Sure would have liked to have that fish in the upcoming Western Outdoor News WSB Tourney.
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