5-28-07 Memorial Day trip on the Ultra - Newport Landing

[Sea Hag]

I did this trip last year, and signed up again this year. I'll be on it next year as well.

The Ultra is a great little sportfisher. She's a 50' Delta, running out of Newport Landing, with a maximum of 8 passengers on an overnight trip. (Sweet! Love those light loads!) While she is mostly a charter boat, they occassionally run some open party trips.

This was a two day trip, leaving Saturday night. Fishing at the San Clemente Island and Catalina Island, our usual destinations had been slow. We opted to try Santa Barbara Island. Long story short: Nothing. We sat it out for a few hours Sunday morning, and the Captain made the long run back to San Clemente Island.

The rest of Sunday: Slow. No current, little bite. We got into a nice chew of Calico bass, landing a few nice sized fish. As most of the true "professional" type anglers, the calicos (aka. Kelp Bass, a slow growing fish) were mostly released. A few sheephead in the mix gave a few of us something to take home to eat.

At sunset we landed two nice white sea bass, but as darkness fell, the day's fishing had been less than epic.

By monday morning, not much had changed. No wind, no current... no fish. But shortly before noon, another sportboat captain called us in... he was not far away, and landing a few nice yellowtail! We were off! Within a few minutes we were anchored up in the zone, and not long before we had our first fish on the boat!

Five or six hung, on iron and bait… we landed two. I hung one on live squid that ran deep, and cut me off. (“@#$&%!”) In this kind of bite, it could have well been my only chance. Then nothing.

After another 15 or 20 minutes, one of our anglers hooked and landed another on surface iron. Soon everyone was throwing iron. We could see the anglers on the boats on either side of us catching them… I switched back to live bait, floated one back a ways, and hooked up again. This one made it to the boat!

I landed another, and farmed another. I was fishing 25# on a single speed Avet JX. I had another Avet, JX 6/3, set up with spectra and 40 pound Hybrid line, rigged that with a quarter ounce slider and 2/0 hook, and sent out another squid. A few nibbles, then with a steady draw of line, I set the hook. Fish On!

A steady pick at them lasted until our bait ran out, and it was time to go, both events falling pretty well simultaneously. My sixth fish barely would stay in my sack, and the deck hand hung a second sack with my number, #1, on it.

When I landed my seventh fish, I considered hanging up my rod for the day, when one of our fellow anglers, Tim, inquired on our Yellowtail limit. Captain Brian informed us we could take 10 a day. Tim declared he was going to outfish me, he had 6 on the boat, so I headed back to the rail. Goaded on by two captains, Tim, and soon the rest of the passengers joined in… in the half hour or so we had left I put another three fish on the boat to end the day with my limit of fish! (And held my lead over Tim, but Tim walked off with the JP that day!)

We ended that lovely run with 41 yellowtail for the 8 of us, plus the two white sea bass on Sunday night, and awesome catch’n’release calico fishing.

Here's me with one of my fish, and that pile in the second picture is the 10 fish I landed in those 3 hours... all 15-25#.

[texasbasser]

Great read and sweet fish!!

tb

[Granny Fish]

Three tails in a half hour - that's work'n it! Glad to hear the yellow tails showed up for the party.