Fishing Sat. & Sun. with John Cavour on his spiffy 24' Shamrock "Get Smart" and new friend Danny. We left Dana Point Harbor at 6:15 am Sat. morning. As we cleared the harbor, the seas were as flat as a pancake. The ride over to San Clemente Island was as pleasant as it can get, you could of water skied the entire way. Along the way, we spotted a lot of debris, with some very large logs still in the channel. As we arrived at the West end of SCI, the water temp was only 60.3 and dropped to 59.7 when we reached the nine fathom spot at 9am. A few sport boats were already working the area, but all that was being caught were assorted bottom critters. We found some great structure in 180 to 220 feet, and for the next 3 hours hammered the bottom critters.
Here I am with a very nice Copper Rockfish (Chuckle Head), caught on the iron.
Danny with an extinct Bocaccio (Salmon Grouper) and Joh with a big Whitefish.
John with a big Sheephead.
Danny with a nice Red Vermillion.
At noon we decided we would work our way up the backside of the Island, looking for fishy habitat, knowing we had to stay in 180' of water to fish legally. It was a slow and tedious trip up the backside, but the island was a green emerald, that kept our interest, as well as the ideal conditions. We reached China Point, and found some meter readings to our liking, unfortunately by this time the wind had picked up, and we could hardly hold bottom, with a one pound weight. We caught a few more whitefish, Johnny Bass, and a couple of Starries. The comfort of Pyramid Cove was calling, so we headed in to anchor up. Can you live with this setting?
We spent a fantastic evening, sipping on wine, ale, and beer. All we had to eat was, fresh charbroiled rockfish, deluxe sirloin cheeseburgers, with lettuce, tomato, etc., and for dessert, the hoop nets produced a couple of legal lobster, boiled in saltwater, and dipped in butter. OK, does it get any better than this?
Here is the catch of the day Sat.
Here is Danny with some nice Red Vermillion, and John with some great Sheep Head.
Here I am with a couple of Chuckle Heads & John with his sheephead.
We woke up Sun. morning at 6am. The wind had died but the skies were very overcast, and somewhat threatening. John had to take an early morning shower, as one of the hoop nets got tangled in the props, at least one of us didn't smell so bad that day. The tide was slack and the fishing poor, There are only so many opportunities in 180' plus water. We ran over to Purse Seine rock, on the front side of the Island, to take a look, but 58.5 degree water did not bode well. At 10 am, we decided to call it a weekend, I had to be back for my daughter's engagement announcement party anyway, so it was just as well the fishing didn't make me late for the party. All in all a fantastic trip.
John, thanks so much, what a blast of a weekend. Thanks for the invite. Danny so much fun fishing together, hope we do it again soon. Cory
P,S. Special thanks to the "Gunslinger" BD boys, for passing off some live squid to us Sunday morning, too bad we couldn't find any willing biters to take advantage of the candy bait.
Nice report as usual
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