I met CalicoHunter at the harbor at 5:15. I brought one stick, a box of assorted plastics, and my dept of fun & games permission slip hanging round ma neck.

We started at the 1-mile and had a decent pick going. He commented on how the wind was strangely blowing out of the south-east and that he thought it might lay down after sunrise...and it might have set up the kelp properly up North. Naples was calling.

He made the call and headed up the coast. Once we lined up and started our first drift over the thick kelp beds, we immediately started getting a lot of good fish. Of course I was catching about a third of the fish (and he 2/3), but I was having a blast being the "slow guy". Several fish over 3 pounds were dragged out from under the canopy...most of which had a beautiful golden/bronze color on their face...as is common with the ones right in the thick kelp. We each got broken off once or twice but that was probably due to line nicks.

When naples stopped producing, we started hopscotching back, hitting up many of the kelp beds south of Naples and north of the harbor. Larry nailed two short WSB at one...one of which was very close to legal. We also found a small area of kelp fringe that was holding some more aggresive fish that kicked out another dozen fish or so.

We ended up back at the one mile and Calicohunter motored around for a bit searching for some fish on the hard bottom. He found some and set us up for a drift. At first we didn't get bit. I had a short bite and started to wind up quickly to check my plastic, and got hammered by a nice fish. Really bulldogged it to the boat. Another 3 pounder. After that Larry started nailing 'em by working the plastics faster and more erratically.

We ended up releasing about 45 calicos with 5 of those going 3 pounds or better. Big fish was 4.75 and caught during that last flurry of activity.

Apparantly this was one of the better days this spring for calico fishing in SB. I was really surprized to see so many good sized fish. Great trip on a great boat with a great guy.