SoCalSalty – Trip Report: Weekend Fishing Odyssey

Capt. Andy of the Enterprise

I was kind of bummed about the weekend activity 2 weeks ago. I had looked forward to the Central Coast Safari trip up north, but the status of the boat with it’s landing was in question, so I decided to cancel.

I tried to make the best of it and fished aboard the Toronado and followed that trip up with a 3/4 Sunday on the Enterprise. What a glutton for punishment. The captains and crews did their best, but it was an uphill battle all weekend against the conditions. Still, it was time on the water. Last week, I didn’t fish at all. I was in need of a good fishing weekend.

Saturday I decided to stay local and get back on the Enterprise. Capt. Andrew Siratt was working. I love fishing with Andy and it was good to catch up with him and the rest of the crew…Nick, Alex and Smokey on deck and Skeeter in the galley. They had a decent day yellowtail and a great day bass fishing on Wednesday. Then the weather got lousy and water temps dropped. I was a little surprised to find myself among 40 anglers when I got down there. My buddies Tim and Nick met me at the landing and we ran into Sivvy and his buddy Seth on the boat.

Red menace

After picking up bait (small choves and mostly bigger sardines and greenbacks), we crossed the channel to Cat. We chased yellows all morning. The bait was good enough. Andy found fish. They just didn’t want to go. I tried everything…surface iron, yoyo, flyline, slider, dropper. I had one dogboned bite to show for the effort. The boat did slightly better with 2 fish for the trip. We would find out later they were jugged with red crab. Why chase a bait?

Oh well. Andy made the best of it. We did some bass fishing for awhile. I caught some shorts and a nice sheepie (I catch this fish now apparently). Then Andy took us to a little rockfish honey hole.

I had brought 4 rods and left 3 of them setup for yellowtail (just in case). I used the 20lb setup I brought (Terez 80M and Calcutta 400D) to rockfish. For whatever reason, Cat isn’t much of a ling spot, so I figured I’d be fine. I was fishing double choves when I got rocked. Drag puller. Head shaker. Ling? Bigger model goat? Hmmm. I got it to about 3/4 of the way up when the line went slack. Awwww…then Andy yelled that it popped up on the other side! It was a monster red. It had completely snapped my dropper loop, but its overinflated swim bladder didn’t allow it to get back down.

We drifted the spot multiple times and it really produced. On the way home, we even got a bonus whale watch show (video below). A humpback breached for us 3 times! I’d never seen that in real life, so that was a treat. Although the yellows didn’t want to play, it was a great day on the water. Thank you to Capt. Andy and crew for a good time.

I wasn’t done for the weekend though quite yet…