Fishing Jack’s Whaler!

I met Jack yesterday morning at Dana Point Landing and we launched his 18 foot Boston Whaler and headed out of the harbor. We were on the water heading to the bait grounds by 8 am. The water was cooler than last week, just 65 degrees and glassy calm.

We headed towards the headlands and stopped short when we saw bait jumping. They were not anxious to jump on our Sabiki's but we coaxed them with bits of squid on our hooks. Eventually we caught 6 mackerel, 1 sardine and 6 spanish mackerel. We pinned baits on our dropper loops and dropped them down.  We were fishing.

Area that I caught the Thresher

We slow trolled our baits as we travelled toward the pipeline. Once we arrived in the area, our bait began shuddering. I had a hit that lasted a few seconds then it just took my bait. I rebaited and dropped back in then got hit again. This time I saw a thresher shark jump.  It was on my line. He jumped 4 times before I got him to the boat. He was foul hooked - right in his dorsal fin. He was a beautiful, shimmering iridescent pink. I pulled him close to the boat and Jack unhooked him. We watched him swim away.

We had porpoise around the entire day and the dolphin boat came by chasing dolphin. They were loaded with passengers, all on the bow watching the marine life ahead of them.

Suddenly Jack was hooked up. It was on a heavy fish! It acted like a big halibut - just a heavy weight swimming away. Suddenly it broke off. Bummer. That was a good fish. We fished until we were out of bait and then headed in. Unfortunately we didn’t connect with the white seabass as I had hoped. Last week Jack caught a 45 pounder off Dana and we were hoping to find them again.  We cleaned up the boat and headed home. I was home around 3 pm.

Thanks Jack for a great day on the water. I can't wait to get back out there.