Shogun 1.5 Day Trip

I reached Fisherman's Landing July 13th around 2 pm in order to get a parking place prior to the scheduled 7 pm departure on the Shogun. Parked next to me was Pat Cavanaugh. He advised me he was taking his boat, the Pacific Dawn, back up to Ventura as fishing is so bad for the 1 to 3 day trips out of San Diego. Pat usually fishes the Channel Islands in the winter and spring and San Diego in the summer. White seabass, barracuda and halibut are biting well off the central coast currently.

Fourteen of us boarded the Shogun including Harry, with whom I have fished on other trips. It was nice to fish with Harry again.  One of our other passengers, Kim, was traveling with her father. She had never caught a tuna nor had she fished on a boat longer than 3/4 of a day. Her father had promised her this trip while she was fighting breast cancer. She was very excited to be on board and so was her father.

We made a quick stop at the bait receiver to top off the tanks and passed the Point about 8 pm. Bruce Smith (our Captain) gave the safety speech and told us about a new area 110 miles south. The spotter plane had spotted 5 schools of bluefin the day before in the area we were heading. I hit the sack early.

We started trolling at 6 am Thursday morning while Bill was still serving breakfast. The weather was overcast - a deep cloud cover - and misting. The water was a clear blue and 65 degrees. Seas were choppy with a few white caps. The winds were around 10 to 12 knots but they wouldn't stay that way.

We had one school of small bluefin boil up but wouldn't take a bait with a hook in it. After trolling another hour or so, we had another school of bluefin boil up and three fish were hooked and landed. These fish were all of 12 pounds each! The good part is that Kim caught her first tuna!! Congratulations Kim!  We threw everything we had (including live squid) at the school before they left us. 

The wind came up and the seas came up too. That was it for the day. We stopped on a dozen or so kelps and a total of two schools of bluefin for 3 small fish.

I had a bait picked up and dropped, but other than that, I just enjoyed chatting with Bruce and the crew. I am still in "Fishing" mode and really wishing for the "catching" karma to come back.

When I got off the Shogun Friday morning, I had a message from Ingrid Poole informing me that she had completed the sale of the Excel to Al Gross. He is an entrepreneur and long time Chartermaster/passenger on the boat. Ingrid said Al plans to keep the crew and continue to operate the boat out of Fisherman's Landing.  I’m looking forward to meeting the new owner one day.