Catalina Island 8/3
Two months ago I received a phone call. “Hey Dufish, I got good news,” Breakwall Darryl enthused. “Ralphie broke his leg.”
In the few moments before his next statement I couldn’t come up with a compelling reason why it was good this happened. “He said we can use his boat while he’s laid up.”
Dang that was sweet of the poor schmuck. I remembered Ralphie’s boat as being stored in Darryl’s driveway behind his Ol’ Lady’s boat, the SS Chaparral. I vaguely remembered it to be one of those twenty-foot center console high-bow aluminum jobs with a hundred horsepower outboard and no seats, perfect for a quick skim across the San Pedro Channel to Santa Catalina Island for bass. Darryl wanted me to keep an eye on the local sportfishing counts (as if I don’t check every day anyway) for when the calico bass counts soar, then we’ll go.
Last week the counts were registering limits of sand bass (in the thousands) and hundreds of calico bass per landing. Further investigation revealed all the calicos were being yanked out at San Clemente Island, which is situated another twenty-or-so miles south of Catalina. I determined this by looking at each landing's counts from San Pedro to Oceanside on the internet to see which individual boat loaded up on the calicos. A pattern formed when every landing’s one overnight trip had them, as opposed to the half- and three-quarter-day boats catching all sand bass sans calicos. Since on the landing’s website they don’t say in which zone each boat fishes, I called their fish count recording hot lines as posted on the web. A review of five landings, the five boat names with the calicos all fished Clemente, and it was limit-style action.
Another check is to visit the Navy's SCI website to see if they have the island closed for bombing practice. Sunday only the south end will be off-limits, leaving the calico-rich north end open for all. When you arrive at the SCI site, click the Schedules link.
I let Captain Darryl know where the calicos are and that the swell chart was picking up a sea surface of only one-to-two feet, two-hundred miles out. The only thing, I said, is that Clemente is quite a haul with no seats, and how much gas does it hold?. Imagining standing up for the four-hour ride out there, fishing all day, then the five-hour trip home was not pleasant.
He said, what do you mean no seats? It has two captain swivel chairs. And as for fuel, it holds, like, eighty gallons.
Oh cool, you put the seats back in. And how does it hold that much gas, you have four twenty-gallon tanks?
Put the seats back in? We never took’em out!
I thought last time I looked at Ralphie’s boat there were no seats?
No, no, you ding dong, that’s his old boat! He got rid of that two years ago. You’ve been here since then, you saw it, it’s a twenty-five foot Crestliner Eagle 2450 walk-around cuddy sportfisher. It’s been sittin’ here for two years! We’ve been to Clemente three times in it already.
Okay, no more thing. Thinking back I must have looked at it, drooled, then conveniently blocked it out of my psyche knowing Ralphie would never take me on a cruise in it because he likes Darryl better.
To finalize our plans, I talked to our captain on Friday. I would be at his house in Wilmas at 1am Sunday morning, launch at Davies in Long Beach by 2:30, be at the East End of Catalina by four, hang a sharp right and reach Clemente by 5:30. One sticking point is that in two days the swell picked up. On the outside of the islands it was now four feet with breakers up to five on all south-facing mainland beaches. Still this wasn’t too bad of news as during a south swell episode we can travel south in the wave shadow of both Catalina and Clemente to avoid rough seas. The trick is once you round the East End, follow the backside of Catalina for about four miles then crank it south.
Upon launching this morning at 2:45, I was so Dang giddy about sitting in such a beautiful sportfisher I would have been happy just going on a harbor cruise. Kidding. Passing the main breakwall moments later, the sea surface was at ease, allowing for a fairly quick channel crossing at 14 to 18 knots and for me a snooze in the cabin.
At 4:30 the sound of the engine decelerating and an impact against the bow of the day’s first three-foot swell brought me out of my half-bass slumber. I suspected this meant we were rounding the East End and a quick peek out the starboard porthole sure enough revealed the lights of the quarry dock. I lied back down and could tell the captain was slowly circling around. The boat started to rock violently as Darryl again backed off the throttle. We could have made it to Clemente, but at such a slower speed we would’ve had less time to fish and conditions for the afternoon return voyage likely would’ve been even more sloppy and cautious.
And so Plan B was implemented: Fish Catalina.
Ralphie and Darryl have had much success here lots of times because they know all the hot spots. As long as the sea temperatures are over 63 (it’s 71 all over the place right now) and we can find a downhill current through the kelp stringers, which means the breeze flows in the same direction as the water, I was confident we would fill the holds.
As dawn encroached upon the darkness, we hit a couple spots west between Avalon and Long Point tight to shore just outside the kelp thickets. The fish finder encouragingly picked up many readings in the column from five feet to the 120-foot bottom, however there wasn’t much of a current as indicated by the stringers bent but dawdling.
I likened Darryl’s attempt at finding the best spot as dowsing for fish with a boat. You know, just cruise along and DOYNG! Something happens and you know they’ll bite here. Off the point near Goat Harbor, voices from within heralded it was time to drop anchor, so that as we fished, the stern would stick into our beaming faces a rock to cast to surrounded by weeds.
Whenever he and I take a boat out, I usually handle mooring chores by picking up the fluke stem, tossing it overboard and hanging on to the rope until it hits bottom. Not on this vessel. By golly it has a winch. All I had to do was listen for the captain’s verbal account of the depth, then detect when the chain/rope combo hit. I would then yell, “Set!”
I’d say his dowsing paid off quite quickly. Using his favorite Catalina rig consisting of a 3/16 ounce red leadhead with a strip of frozen squid pinned thereon, Big Darryl instantly nailed a 1 ½ pound calico, then proceeded to post two 13-inch calicos, five halfmoons, a barely legal (28 in.) barracuda, a mackerel, countless short calicos, a two-pound opaleye and five more 13-inch calicos the next hour.
In that same time I caught three halfmoons, two short calicos and a pair of jacksmelt using the same bait.
One apparition at this spot that just about made me nuts was a school of two- to three-pound opaleye passing under the boat. They just kept coming and coming – like I just about did – until the 1,000th individual swam by saying, see ya! Unfortunately, at this time of year the Colorado Lagoon slime pit still does not have enteromorpha available.
Alas the current went haywire, which sent us motoring west towards the isthmus. As the usual anchor boy of the crew, let me tell you how bitchen it was to have a winch. Before I would have to grab the rope, pull with much force to get the flukes out of the rocks, then hand-over-hand bring 200 feet of rope and chain up to the deck. No more. The captain flips a switch, I wait about two minutes, then grab the anchor stem to make sure it seats properly in the holder.
Alrighty, on over to the isthmus it was really crowded. Hundreds of boat moored, folks on kayaks, jet skiers, boy scouts, campers, etc. While we were drifting along sampling the current, casting leadhead squid strips, along came a group of kayakers, who were a friendly lot. They would stealthily come up five feet from the boat to say, “Hi, catch any?” We responded with HOOK UP and threw halfmoons at’em hoping they would get the message and also inform their buddies to not pester the fishermen. Funny thing was that as many people as there were over here on this spectacularly beautiful Sunday, there were us and only two other boats bothering to wet a line.
Offshore from the Isthmus a quarter mile, we investigated Ship Rock but there wasn’t any current so we shined it.
Starting at the point just west of 4th Of July Cove we saw better currents. We anchored and caught a few more legal calicos out of twenty landed and countless more halfmoons. Darryl had another two-pound calico in there at the start. Since we were in fairly deep water, around 100 feet, I tied on a ¾ ounce red leadhead to try to get a whole squid past the pests to where perhaps a lunker lurked. Five casts here and there and nothing doing.
Then at around eleven the breeze kicked up, causing whitecaps and to our chagrin, the evil uphill current. Bad, bad, bad. You want the stringers to lay in one direction or the other, not in circles like what was happening at the moment.
We pulled up and kept on towards the West End, trying out a few points around Starlight Beach. It was more halfmoons, jacksmelt and only a handful of calico bass, so around we went to where Darryl said the sheephead hang out.
Once you round the West End you will see a prominent point consisting of striated rock. Something like a half-mile past, just before Cactus Bay, there will be a boiler rock 50 yards from the shoreline surrounded by kelp. That’s the one, and this is how good our captain is. We anchor, the boat has perfect downhill current, he tosses the leadhead squid strip to the outside and BAM, he not only catches a female goat of two pounds but also a three-pound male and another one-pound female all in three casts! We kept the two larger ones.
While we were here we also managed several calico bass, two legal, and many more of the ubiquitous halfmoon. Darryl went to lie down while I kept fishing. With the calico action at this particular spot waning and nothing left but nibbling halfmoon, I beguiled some angling time to feed the fish, as it were. I chopped up a few squid, tossing pieces into the water to watch the hundreds of halfmoons, blacksmith and small opaleye fight over them. The little blacksmiths would nab a chunk, race down with it until a bigger opaleye yanked it out of its mouth until yet a larger halfmoon stole it from that guy. Each piece was passed to 20 different fish before it disappeared. Lots of fun to watch, for me anyway.
Darryl crawled out of the cabin and said he didn’t hear me fishing anymore. I said that’s because I wasn’t catching anything important. With that we pulled anchor and headed out.
Back around the West End to the front side, we tried anchoring around a few points up to Arrow Point, but the wind and. current weren’t cooperating.
By 14:00 we were nearing Ship Rock again only this time the current was rip-roaring toward the northwest as was the wind. We positioned the boat within casting distance to the left of the rock to see where we would go. As we checked, Darryl grabbed his squid strip set-up while I flipped a 4 ½ inch Channel Islands Chovy pattern Fish Trap with the molded fins. On the second cast as we troll-drifted past the kelp stringers I hooked up, and it felt big. Darryl asked if it was taking out drag. I said hell yes as I babied it in. It pulled straight down a couple time but soon tired. With net in hand, Darryl announced it was coming to color and… it’s da kine! Nice and checkerboardy gold and big and fat. Jackpot, a four-pound class calico, largest of the day. I had to eyeball the size due to the battery for my Normark scale being dead.
Now the boat was too far away from the rock and surrounding reef. We fired her up to put up current. Once there, I made a perfect cast into the corner of where the reef met the rock, keeping the lure just our side of the kelp. I let it sink about 15 feet and then used the rod to give it a jerky motion as I reeled. HOOK UP, the second largest calico of the day was netted at three pounds.
In there Darryl caught three more short calicos on the squid strip with one being over the 12-inch legal minimum.
We fired up again only this time we anchored up so the boat was positioned perfectly in front of the rock with lots of kelp stringers in sight to cast to. Too bad the effort didn’t pay off as all we caught were more halfmoons and some jacksmelt.
We pulled up and anchored on the right side of the rock. There Darryl caught a few more calicos with one keeper. And myself? Something big took my Fish Trap. It pulled pretty hard but speedy unlike a bass. Coming to color was a barracuda looking very legal, so I loosened my drag a little in case its teeth got in my line’s way. Funny thing was right along side of it was another ’cuda of the same size trying to snip the line to free his buddy. It didn’t do him much good, as soon I had the tiring slime stick up to the boat where Darryl gaffed it up onto the deck. Holding it to the measuring chart, it came in at 31 inches and weighing around five pounds. I like keeping one barrie of that size because they taste great when they’re fresh. After two days in the fridge or freezer they get funky, unlike calicos or opaleye, which freeze well for a year.
At 16:00 we called it a day and headed back. Darryl promoted me from anchor boy to First Mate, then set up the GPS unit in highway mode. He informed me to make sure the point of the arrow is always aligned with the center line of the ‘road’ as I drove us home.
He crawled into the cabin for a snooze but after an hour of smooth sailing the motor suddenly conked out. I hollered, hey what the hell is this.
He jumped up and asked, what’s the problem?
I said she quit on us all of a sudden.
He thought the one tank we were using all day of the two on board was empty and we had to switch to the other. But, he thought, we shouldn’t have ran out of gas on the main because it holds 70 gallons and that’s almost a Clemente run. There were two places just below the deck under screw lids where you flip a tube switch. We spent twenty minutes trying various settings, finally having both on main before she fired back up.
We were back at the Davies dock at 18:00, then on to the gas station on Westminster. We discovered we were sucking on the auxiliary tank all day, never even touching the main. No biggie.
As far as statistics go, I’d say between us we caught 100 halfmoon none kept, 70 calico bass15 kept, 3 sheephead 2 kept, 2 barracuda 1 kept, 1 opaleye kept, 1 mackerel and 10 jacksmelt none kept. Darryl caught 66% of the total. It cost $62 in gas and $8 for parking or $35 per each, better than the $40 to go on a ¾ day Pedro boat with 50 aboard.
*****
From Breakwall Jerry:
Six pound cut-bow from Henry's Lake ID earlier this year: