San Miguel Island

Bob Hoose asked me to handle the May 17th Berkley Sponsored trip on the Apollo for him. Bob was working the Western Outdoor News White Seabass Tournament at Two Harbors, Catalina Island (also sponsored by Berkley) all weekend. It was a great opportunity to promote Berkley products and do some shallow water rock fishing too.

The Apollo http://www.apollocharters.com/ operates out of Sea Landing in Santa Barbara during the winter. The boat moves back down to Fisherman’s Landing in San Diego for the summer. The May 17th trip was the Apollo’s last trip before moving back to San Diego. Drew Card was our Captain and has been running the Apollo’s trips for the last month since J. J. Gerritsen (Apollo’s owner) sprained his ankle. Sy was the second Captain, Nick Nichols was our Chef and Kenny and Tyler were on deck.



I drove up to the landing early Saturday in anticipation of traffic. It was a good thing too as the Oxnard Strawberry Fesitval had the 101 Freeway at a crawl all the way through the Valley to Ventura. I arrived at 6:30 pm just in time to see the Apollo return from the day’s fishing. DFG’s Game Wardens were there to check everyone’s fishing license and bag of fish. It took them an hour to clear everyone and another 30 minutes for crew to clean the boat. We boarded around 8 pm and signed the manifest. I introduced myself and handed out the Berkley goody bag which contained a Berkley Visor and a spool of 30 lb. Big Game Monofilament. Passengers were very happy with the gifts.

The trip was scheduled for 24 passengers but went out with only 14 passengers. This was an open party trip but many of the passengers were loyal Apollo passengers who fished the boat often and loved fishing the Berkley sponsored trips. This was my first trip on the Apollo and I was impressed with the boat and the crew. It’s a very comfortable boat. The Galley has four booths that will seat 24 for meals. There are single and double bunks in the bunkroom downstairs plus some staterooms in the bow.


Galley

Drew gave the safety speech as soon as we boarded so passengers could set up their gear, go get dinner or go to sleep, whatever anyone wanted. Some passengers picked up take-out for dinner while others brought out the beer and started up a poker game to celebrate a passenger’s birthday. I set up my gear and hit the bunk by 10 pm. Drew pulled the boat out sometime after 10 pm heading for shallow water rockcod fishing at San Miguel Island.



I woke up at 3:20 am. We were idling around the Island although you couldn’t see it due to the fog. I went back to sleep and got up again at 5 am when I smelled the coffee brewing and bacon cooking. We began fishing around 6:30 but the rockfish didn’t really begin to bite until 7:30 or 8:00 am. The seas were flat calm and the fog was so thick we couldn’t see the island at all and it was cold, cold, cold!

We had live sardines, frozen squid and a few packages of Berkley Gulp Grubs for bait. I set up a two hook gagnion with long shanked easy-baiter hooks on 50 lb. spectra topped with 6 feet of 30 lb. mono spooled on my Tyrnos 12 II. I cut a half inch off the top of the Gulp Grub and thread it on the hooks. I used New Penny and Nuclear Chicken. They seemed to work better than the pink and white. Ten ounces of weight was plenty for me but others were using one to two pounds of lead.

Drew began our drifts in 160 to 175 feet of water. It was a slow bite but most the fish were quality. I only saw 4 to 6 salmon grouper caught all day, one of which was my first fish of the day. Unfortunately, it just dropped off the hook back into the water. Oh Well. Slowly we started catching big Johnnie Bass, Reds, Chuckleheads, and blue bass. All fish quickly got tagged and put into the Refrigerated Sea Water (RSW) keeping the fish in pristine condition.



Little by little, Drew moved us into shallower water until we were fishing in 24 to 45 feet of water. Most passengers stuck to the sardines as bait wanting to catch that jackpot lingcod. I switched to an 8 ounce leadhead with a Gulp Grub. Even though I donated 6 big leadheads to the sharp rocks below, I caught several nice Reds, big chuckleheads and two lingcod including the biggest fish of the trip. It wasn’t the jackpot fish as I didn’t join jackpot and never do when I am representing a sponsor. I found that some passengers think it’s unfair for a Pro-Staff person to participate. Whether that’s true or not, I feel its better not to upset a passenger.

Our last drift of the day was close in to the island trying to snag a halibut. Instead we caught a couple rockfish and I caught a nice Cabazon to finish the trip. Around 2 pm Drew called it a day and announced that we had limits of rockfish for everyone plus 11 lingcod. The weather was still foggy and cold but the sun was peeking out of the clouds just enough for us to see the bottom of the island where it meets the sea.

Crew pulled the fish out of the RSW and sorted the fish by number. Jackpot was weighed up and crew began filleting fish.

Nick had the grill going strong pleasantly accommodating everyone’s special order. Some wanted burgers and others wanted chicken sandwiches. One insisted on sautéed rockfish over a green salad. I had a blue bass burger and it was fabulous. Lunch out of the way and it was time for our afternoon nap. While we slept, crew finished processing our fish and cleaned up the boat. When we got up, we were entering the harbor. Time to pay our tabs and say our goodbyes.



DFG’s Game Wardens did not greet us even though they had warned us they would be back. The crew brought our fish out to the parking lot and handed us our catch. I had one bag of lingcod filets, one bag of Reds, one bag of Cabazon filets and 4 whole Reds gill and gutted (gifts for my kayak buddy Tim Boyer). It was fun fishing with this group of guys and I look forward to fishing on the Apollo on a future trip.