Rail Time in July!

Jeff assembled a charter group of Jim, Fumio, Randy Sharon, Cathy and me for a two-day adventure on the Rail Time. Gary moved our trip up two days in order to provide us a better weather window for fishing around the islands and offshore.  We met up at Peters Landing July 7th for a 6 pm departure.  Once on board and food put away, Gary pointed the boat straight for Catalina Island and we were fishing before sundown.  We hoped the seabass would bite like they did the previous trip.  Unfortunately, the seabass were a no-show.

I went to bed early but heard the engines turning on and off during the night while crew made flying fish and tried to scoop squid.  Sometime during the night we made the move to San Clemente Island. When I got up at 5 am, Gary and Jake had been up before daybreak setting up our dropper loop rods and trying to scoop more squid. 

By 6:30, we were all at the rail trying dropper loops, Deanoheads, gitzems and sliding sinkers.  There were several other boats fishing the same cove all hoping they would be the lucky boat.  We heard yells coming from the Thunderbird first indicating someone had hooked a fish.   It wasn’t long until we were hooking yellowtail too.  It seemed like everyone was hooked up pulling on a fish. 

The first one I hooked was on my 60# dropper-loop.  That fish raced straight towards the island then made a left turn and got caught in the anchor of the light boat next to us.  Jake pulled as hard as he could but that 60# Berkley Big Game line would not break.  We had to cut the line off including at least 100 yards of spectra too.

I don’t remember who caught what in which order, however, when the bite ended around 7:30 am we had 15 yellowtail including Jeff’s 36 pounder.  Fumio, Jim and Jeff had 3 each, Cathy and I had 2 a piece and Randy and Andy had 1.  We took a few photos while Jake and Andy put the fish in the hold.

 

What a great way to start the trip.  We checked our tackle and grabbed some food while Gary took us down the island looking for seabass.  We fished several of the usual coves that seabass haunt trying a variety of methods to entice a bite.  Randy had the lucky ticket landing a beautiful white seabass.  The rest of us found calico bass, barracuda, whitefish, sheepshead and leopard sharks but no seabass.

 

Around 11:30 Gary said we are changing gears.  Get out your bluefin tackle.  It took a couple hours to get to the area and get all set up.  We could see schools of foaming bluefin in all directions.  As we approached one school of big bluefin, Gary had Cathy and Randy drop back live flyers.  When we came to a stop, Gary and Jake put me up on the balloon with a live flyer.  The weather was much cooler than I expected as it was in the 90’s at home.  We had overcast skies but the seas were calm. 

We had been fishing about 30 minutes when Randy got bit.  After his fish took him around the boat a few times, he managed to subdue it on the starboard bow where crew stuck a gaff in it.  A nice 140 pounder was pulled through the gate.  Congrats Randy!

 

We fished another hour or so until Gary said “these fish are not acting right so we aren’t going to waste our time here” and we headed back to the island. 

We spent the rest of the day testing our luck at cove after cove.   As the sun went down, Gary settled us in a quiet cove for us to enjoy our dinner.  We enjoyed BBQ ribs and chicken, Asian coleslaw and ice cream sandwiches.  Crew filleted the yellowtail and seabass before enjoying their dinner.  I hit the bunk right after dinner exhausted again.

I was up at 3:30 the next morning.  The cove was quiet and the waters glassy.  I had some coffee while getting set up for the day.  Gary and Jake got up at 4 and started scooping more squid to top off our tanks.  We set out our dropper loops right where we had spent the night.  After daybreak, it was obvious the fish either weren’t around or weren’t hungry so we were off on the search again.

Clemente wasn’t producing so Gary made the decision to move back to Catalina to try our luck.  He took us from cove to cove around the island for the entire day.  Randy managed to land another yellowtail, Jeff caught a rare fantail sole and Fumio teased a shark into a wild jump close to the boat. Around 3:30 it was time to return home.  Jake and Andy filleted the bluefin tuna and one yellowtail, the only gamefish of the day.

Steve was waiting for us at dock and he brought ice so we didn’t have to make a stop on the way home.  Thanks Steve!

As always, Gary, Andy and Jake were terrific!  Thanks to them, Jeff for being our chartermaster and the other angler/friends Jeff brought together.  I treasure these times together.