Hooping with Brandon!

I had booked a hoop netting for lobster trip with Brandon Hayward (One Man Charters) to Catalina Island for January 4th.  The date was selected to coincide with Jason Fleck's vacation here in California so he could fish with his old friend and ship mate, Brandon.  Jim Carlisle and Jeff Chuang were joining us. 

El Niño storms were rolling in one after the other.  It was iffy at best that we would get weather good enough to get out.  The morning of the trip Brandon texted us that there were small craft advisories and he was stuck at Catalina Island and couldn't pick us up in Dana Point as planned.  He offered us the option to take the Express to Avalon or cancel.  We decided to meet Brandon in Avalon.

By the time we reached Avalon, the winds had subsided.  We arrived in beautiful, sunny weather - apparently Catalina was in the eye of the storms.  Brandon met us and brought us 4 lobsters to take to the Lobster Trap to have for lunch.  They were delicious too.

We met Brandon on the pier at 1 pm.  His wife and two boys were on the pier to say goodbye.  They would take the Express back to Dana Point.  Brandon kept their suitcase to take back with him.

We headed up the island trolling for lobster bait.  When we reached our limit of bonita, we headed to the lobster grounds and set the nets.  We filled the bait cages with bonita and salmon heads and guts.  We dropped 8 nets then jigged for the 9th net that was 20 feet under water from the previous night's hooping.  Jason caught the net.  He's not only lucky but very, very good.  We set the last hoop then did a little fishing.  We had a variety of small critters but nothing legal.

We were in a dead cell zone along the island and our phone batteries died trying to connect.  Fortunately, I brought a Berkley 12 volt battery along.  It has a USB port for charging phones.  We were able to charge three phones from it.  Handy little thing.

We made 5 or 6 pulls throughout the evening fishing and chatting in between pulls.  Jason and Brandon reminisced about their work on the Excel and trip to South Africa where Brandon met his wife.  They seemed to enjoy reconnecting.

Brandon has the Ace Line Hauler.  Boy that makes pulling hoops easier.  I would say the lobsters weren't very cooperative but we did capture 22 for our efforts.  Plenty for the 4 of us and considering we had eaten 4 of Brandon's, we were close to limits anyway.  Thanks Brandon.

We could see the black clouds along the coast and around us, but we still had blue skies and stars above us when we headed back across the channel from the west end of the island.  It was 2 am before we reached Dana Point Harbor.  It was evident that the rains had drenched the coast.  We considered ourselves lucky to have slipped out fishing in the only good weather window for the week.

January 5th, Jason and I (mostly Jason) dispatched with the lobsters early.  We had a delicious lobster dinner that evening.  Jason cooked down the heads for lobster bisque which we had on the 6th.  Not only was it delicious, but I have 6 batches of lobster base for future meals of lobster bisque. Thanks Jason.