Day trip to San Clemente Island

Started by scrinch, September 23, 2019, 05:01:27 PM

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scrinch

My younger daughter's father-in-law has been suggesting that he and I go fishing together in Southern California for a couple of years now. So finally this past Friday we made it happen. My wife and I flew down to Orange County on Thursday afternoon. Thierry picked us up at the airport and we went to his house for a quick birthday dinner and early bed after rigging up the fishing gear.

Friday morning we got a 4:30 start to the Newport Beach harbor with Thierry and his neighbor Paul. We talked over the fishing options with the captain of the Bongos II... we could spend the day at San Clemente Island fishing for yellowtail and calico bass, and then look for schools of porpoise in the afternoon on the way back to port, trying to pick up a yellowfin or two, or we could spend all day offshore in Mexican waters looking for a school of yellowfin tuna. Since this was my wife's first time fishing in the ocean, we decided to go to the island which was a little closer and more of a sure thing to catch fish.

Having decided that, we picked up some live sardines on the way out of the harbor and started the 56 mile run out to the island. It was a long but calm ride out, and we arrived at the south part of the island at about 8:30. We dropped anchor about 40yds from the steep rocky shore and started flylining the sardines. Right away a couple of seals showed up and started to swim around and under the boat, putting on a show for my wife. She loved it, and surprisingly, although they hung around all day, they only ate our chum and never went after our bait or the fish we had hooked up. We had planned on moving along the island fishing at various sites, but we ended up with a steady pick of small yellowtail and decent sized calicos all day long at that one place. We ended up with only a couple of fish shy of limits for both yellows and calicos by about 1:30.

We decided at that point to go out to slightly deeper water to fish the bottom for a while. We made a few drifts over bottom structure and came away with about a dozen rockfish, a lingcod, and a sheepshead.

Following that we decided to start back in search of porpoise and yellowfin. As it turns out we didn't find any yellowfin, but we did run across two big schools of 100+lb bluefins. They were all worked up, churning up the water and thrashing around after the bait fish. We tried for about an hour to get close enough to the bluefins to have a realistic chance of catching one, but we could never get closer than about 75 yds before they would dive. We tried throwing surface iron and slow trolling sardines as close as we could get, but with no luck. So eventually we pulled in the gear and settled in for the long ride back to port.

We arrived at around 6:30pm after another warm, smooth ride, and were back at the house BBQ-ing calico and sheepshead filets about an hour later. Overall the day was a great success. The weather was warm, the seas were calm, both the fishing and the catching were good, we saw some big exciting tuna, and no one got seasick at all!

Crow

Looks like a great time ! Great report, too!
There's nothing wrong with a few "F's" on your record....Food, Fun, Flowers, Fishing, Friends, and Fun....to name just a few !

alantani

very nice.  i wish i could get my wife out fishing!!!!!
send me an email at alantani@yahoo.com for questions!

Hardy Boy

Looks like fun plus the unbeatable weather ........... nice job roomy!! Those are the kind of days my wife likes to be on the water' although she will fish in the rain if there is a ton of fish around.

Cheers:

Todd
Todd

Vintage Offshore Tackle

Thanks for the report in the photos Rich.  It sounds like you had a wonderful day on the water and made some great memories that will last forever and scored some major points with your daughter and son-in-law.

Ron Jones

Looks great. That's it Professor; you, me and our wives have got to get on a boat together.
The Man
Ronald Jones
To those who have gone to sea and returned and to those who have gone to sea and will never return
"

MarkT

Good times!  Bongos operate out of Newport Beach.  There is no harbor in Laguna Beach.
When I was your age Pluto was a planet!

Gobi King

Good fishing!

Grandma is the only female member of out local chapter of spoonplugger club.
2 thumbs up for the fisherwomen :-)
Shibs - aka The Gobi King
Fichigan

Brewcrafter

Congratulations!  That is a GREAT day and a fun report to share!

scrinch

Quote from: MarkT on September 23, 2019, 06:27:51 PM
Good times!  Bongos operate out of Newport Beach.  There is no harbor in Laguna Beach.

Right. They have a house in Newport Beach and one in Laguna Beach. We stayed in the one in Newport Beach. I got my beaches mixed up.