Freelance Exploratory trip 2/17/08

[Ricky-Ray]

Fished a limited load trip of 22 on the Freelance today for an exploratory trip to Catalina to see if the bass were biting. This trip was setup when TV angler Ronnie Kovach and Don Brockman owner of Davey’s Locker were discussing why anglers were doing some winter bass fishing. After some discussion Ronnie brought out the idea of taking a limited load group of anglers to Catalina and see how the bass fishing was.

I arrived at Davey’s a little after 5am and got signed in and my ticket. Already on the sign in sheet I immediately recognized some name’s and some of the regular’s that fish with Ronnie were on this trip too. Sweet, I haven’t fished or seen some of these guys in a long time and it was a blast to see them again and catch up. A little while later Ronnie show’s up and so does Dennis Yamato, GM of Owner Hooks. Once we got the go ahead to get on board we put our gear away and got the safety speech and info from Captain Norris Tapp. We were going to head to the backside of Catalina where one of the squid boats would be waiting for us with fresh live squid, and since this was an exploratory trip, Norris was going to take full advantage of it and fish till sundown. We made the quick run over to Catalina and the weather was great, little bit of wind, flat calm ocean and the sun was starting to come up and it looked like it was going to be a great day.

Finally met up with the squid boat and took on 50 scoops of squid. We also have frozen squid available too and fresh dead too. These squid were HUGE!!!! Hopefully we could get the bass to bite. Pretty much the rest of the day was the same story, pulled up to a kelp bed, we would see some signs of life on the meter but with no current and the water still pretty cold, the fish just didn’t want to bite. The guys that did manage to get a bite would either come up with some really short calico’s or some nice size bass. We did get about 4 sheephead’s which were all realease but there was one that looked to be almost 4 pounds. Hopefully we can catch him again after March 1st. So the rest of the day we moved from one spot to the other and the story was pretty much the same. Finally at about 5:30, Norris finally called it quit’s and pointed the Freelance back for home. Arrived at the docks at about 8pm and for a few guys who were lucky got to take a few fish home.

Fishing wasn’t the best but then again it was an exploratory trip. The weather was great and I got to see and fish with some friends that I haven’t see in month’s and that alone was worth the trip. Thanks Davey’s Locker, Ronnie Kovach, Dennis Yamato, Norris Tapp and the crew of the Freelance, for putting this trip together. The crew worked hard to get us on the fish and they did but it was one of those days where the fish just didn’t want to bite.

Sorry no pics. There wasn’t really much action the whole day.

[Sea Hag]

Sounds like a fun day anyway, Ray! Next time you hear about something like that let me know! I'm always up for a limited load trip...