Rail Time June 2018

I love fishing on this boat because it's not only about fishing or catching fish; it's the total experience.  Jeff's Charter this June was no exception. 

Gary Adams, our Captain and boat owner, has a wonderful crew (Andy and Jake) keeps the boat in pristine condition, and works as hard as anyone trying to be sure his charter group has a great experience.  Some examples - as soon as we boarded the boat, Gary took off for Catalina so we could get in some fishing time before dark.  Then Gary and his crew spent several hours our first night at sea making bait - squid to be specific. Most operations require the angler to make bait, but Gary lets us sleep instead.  The next day, we were awakened by the smell of fresh brewed coffee - it's the first thing Gary does each day - start the coffee at 5 am.  As we stumbled out of bed, Gary was putting our dropper loop rods out so we were already fishing by the time we poured our coffee and walked out on deck.

Tuesday morning dawned overcast and cool at Catalina Island.  We hoped for white seabass but were disappointed.  Gary moved the boat all around the island succeeding in  putting us within range of some big yellowtail.  We hooked several, but failed at landing them.  I lost three myself.  Gary hooked three, landed one and handed off the other two. As it would turn out, these were the only fish to find their way into the fish hold. 

We caught many barracuda and small fish at Catalina before Gary made the run to San Clemente Island - a couple hour run.  San Clemente was even more disappointing.  We found a convention of bat rays that loved our squid and more small fish to steal our bait.  Barracuda were there too.  Crew made more squid after dinner then we headed back to Catalina. 

Wednesday morning was a repeat of Tuesday but without the yellowtail.  Lots of small fish, barracuda and loads of bat rays but no legal sized game fish.  It was disappointing but that didn't ruin the trip.  We had Andy working deck (always entertaining) and he was cooking in the galley making fabulous meals such a Prime Filet Mignon for dinner.  Plus I got to fish with a great group of guys - Jeff and his brother Steve, Miguel, Brian and Jim.  Each one is an expert fishermen and very enjoyable to fish with.  Here are more pics of our trip:

 Wednesday morning was a repeat of Tuesday but without the yellowtail.  Lots of small fish, barracuda and loads of bat rays but no legal sized game fish.  It was disappointing but that didn't ruin the trip.  We had Andy working deck (always entertaining) and he was cooking in the galley making fabulous meals such a Prime Filet Mignon for dinner.  Plus I got to fish with a great group of guys - Jeff and his brother Steve, Miguel, Brian and Jim.  Each one is an expert fishermen and very enjoyable to fish with.  Here are more pics of our trip

Another good thing for me is that my new knee performed well.  It's nice to have completed the recovery enough to fish again. 

We were back at dock at 7 pm.  We loaded our trucks, split up the 3 yellowtail between the 6 of us.  We are looking forward to being back on the Rail Time end of next month.