Headed out on Saturday July 11th on my friends Gail and Kevin’s boat out of Newport Harbor. This turned into one of the best all around fishing days that we have had in the so cal area ever.
The gang consisted of 8 on the boat myself, my son Jonathan, my cousin Jason, my friend Chauhan, Gail, Kevin (our captain) and Gail’s daughter and friend. This was the first time for us to be out as a group on Kevin’s boat and he did not disappoint.
Got there right on time at 5:30 loaded up the boat with the important stuff and got out to the bait barge around 6:15 and loaded up the bait tank with anchovies and some mixed in large sardines.
It was a beautiful morning, nice and flat, no wind and clear skies. Left it up to Kevin on all the fishing calls today and he headed south to a spot he likes and dropped anchor. The tide was coming in with a peak around noon, so if the bite was good in the morning we were going to stay put. Kept the set up simple, #1 and #2/0 hooks with 1/2 ounce and 1 ounce egg sinkers. I also was breaking in a new Newell S-229-5 and my recently refurbished Penn Squidder which was my dads for over 25 years. Fishing 20# on both and they both performed well, but I found my Newell to be a bit more comfortable. Anyway, both reels got a work out today along with all of our equipment on board. Water temperature started out around 68 and peaked out around 70 (almost 71) today.
Jason was the first in the water and within a minute or so bam, fish on. Short barracuda, the first of about 20 we caught today.
From this point on it was non stop for about 3 1/2 hours. Got Jonathan set up and he hooked up right away with a nice calico bass, the first one he ever caught.
Jonathan’s first calico bass.
All 5 of us on the stern started hooking up with the majority of the fish being calico bass, most in the 8-10″ range, nice healthy fish, good fighting as well. The barracuda also were mixed in, and the mackerel came along for the ride.
Every drop was producing fish, on a ratio of about 3/1 to calico bass, sometimes a mac, mostly calico and a cudda mixed in. Jonathan caught his first calico bass, barracuda and mackerel on this trip. My friend Chauhan also caught his first calico, barracuda and mac as well. This was only his second trip out on a boat with us, he was missing fish but by the end he was hooking up well. Great practice for him and Jonathan.
Jonathan’s first mackerel.
How it was all day on the boat for everyone.
After about an hour and a half of a non stop bite I switched over to a light trout rod that we brought and fished with 8lb test with the same set up. The handle was set up for a lefty, which I did not notice till casting out, and while we were switching it over to righty, we hooked up with a calico.
It was fun fighting the calicos on the light gear. Jonathan and Chauhan kept pulling them in, Jonathan had Gail helping him and they started fly lining chovies, which kept the macs busy along the side of the boat. We kept around 40 macs to freeze for catfishing this summer. Can’t pass up free bait. The mac are fun for the kids, and fun on the light stuff as well. These were bigger macs as well, we had one that was around 2lbs that Jonathan fought for a while.
A good sample of the average calico.
As the day went on we landed about 15 nice sand bass as well mixed in. I landed the biggest bass of the day on the light tackle. Got hit hard the moment I hit the bottom and he started taking line, fought him for about 10 minutes till he showed color and it was a big sandy. Had to net him with one of the bait tank nets, could not find the bigger one. About 17 inches, 3 + lbs. After a few great pics sent him on his way to make other baby bass. Just a note, we released everything we caught today, except for 1 13″ sand bass (for the mother in law) and the 40 or so macs.
A few more pics, including Chauhan’s first cuda…
Double hookup.
Another turd roller.
A friendly seal pup came along to have some fun. He ran off the macs and cuda for a while, even killing a few cudas of the stern, throwing them up in the air and eating them. Did not kill the calico bit though.
I got the 5th species of the day, a rock fish. Nice fish fought hard on the light tackle.
As the tide came in the bite picked up more, and the weather was beautiful and warm so we decided to dip our feet in the water and sat on the rear platform on the boat. At this point we had gone through about 3/4 of our bait (a full scoop) and had started to reuse bait that had not been stripped and just threw it back out to get hit again. I did not want to rebait from the platform so I tied on a 3″ brown and read hammer bait and started casting. Every cast got a hit, every other was a hook up. The calicos were chasing to the surface and we started catching them on the fly line. The macs were swimming under the boat as well, the cuda would swim by chasing them.
I was taking a calico off and dropped by swim bait back in the water and hooked up with mac a few times when we were not watching. Fun holding a bass and fighting a mac at the same time!
Kiss Kiss
By 12:30 the water was too inviting, and we decided that it was time for a swim. Great way to end an epic day of fishing. At 70 degrees the water was great!
In the end it was the most fish I had ever caught in one trip. I had been counting up to the second hour so I can update our site my son and I have, but was too busy with my own fish and helping each other to keep count. Based on my first two hours of count and how the bite never died and talking it over after we got in we brought on about 200 fish between 6 of us. 100+ were calico bass, 20+ sand bass, 20 + barracuda (all shorts, but there were some big ones in the water and we caught a few in the 22″ – 25″ range), 1 rock fish and the rest were mackerel. Ended up taking about 400 pictures as well, I tried to take pics of all the fish coming on board, but could not keep up.
The calico’s and sand bass were all quality sized fish, we were measuring some of the nicer fish, and 9″ – 13″ were the norm, with nice green and brown coloring. The sand bass were a bit larger, and nice coloring as well. All were released, we believe in C&R with all bass especially the larger 15″ ones, only keeping the one sand bass for the day in the bait tank. Mother in law loved him.
Also got a bad case of bass thumb, those little suckers tear up your thumbs, the worst is on top of the thumb. Got it on both fingers.
Over all one of the best experiences out on the water, only one stop, didn’t have to burn a ton a fuel and we emptied the bait tank. I would like to thank Kevin for putting us on the spot and working with everyone, and making the day memorable for everyone!
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