09-11-2003, 07:48 PM
Hey there guys,
I went out on the 3/4 day boats Mon/Tue/Wed this week. The boats went to Catalina Island a mere 23 miles from the Los Angeles/Long Beach Harbor. The number of anglers ranged from 25 to 40 on boats that hold from 70 to 96.
I fished on two different boats with the majority of the time on the backside west end (just around the corner where the little squid boat has been hanging out recently (Pacific Carnage). Over the 3 days, a good number of sporties including the Persuit, Victory, Sea Spray, Pierpoint, and Premier to name just a few fished the area.
The fish on the backside were consistantly bigger ranging from 20 to 35 pounds with yellows on the front side being smaller firecrackers or rats of 5 to 10 pounds.
If you go, take 30, 40 and 50 pound outfits as the crew of certain boats really care more about the fish count and bragging rights among their buddies than the enjoyment of even experienced customers only fishing 25 pound line. Competition is keen amoung these boat captians and nobody better get in the way! ha ha
To be fair, no one wants 10 guys hooked up all at one time to be way under gunned (20lb) but when the bite is a slow pick (one hit by one or two people every 30 minutes or so) that's an entirely different story. One captian show us how a real sportsman did it and hooked an 30 pounder on 60 pound test and winched it on board in a minute or minute and a half. Real sportsmanship! ha ha
Did I catch fish? Yep! Had decent luck on the fishies (Yellowtail and Halibut) and fished with a lot of familiar and friendly anglers.
JapanRon
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