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Yellow and White out at Anacapa
Saturday July 26th.
We left the house after just 2 hours of sleep at 2:30. The boat was
prepped, gassed, iced and ready for the 45 minute drive to Channel Islands
Harbor. It was to be my first trip to the islands with Kathrin, my
beautiful Swiss girlfriend. She, though very tired, was excited to
finally get a chance to see our Channel Islands up close.<br>
After launching the Marco Polo, we headed down to the receiver at "The Landing
Formerly Known as CISCOS" for a half scoop of squid.
We headed out into the inky darkness and left the harbor at around 4:15.
I have made many night crossings and most of the time, there is some
light from the moon to see the swells, but this morning, there was absolutely
none. I have never driven into the dark blackness like I did this morning.
There was a slight wind bump, but nothing to be concerned with.<br>
After cruising for about 40 minutes we arrived to the east end of Anacapa
Island. As we turned the corner, it was like approaching Las Vegas
in the middle of the night. Total darkness, then a flood of bright
lights. There must have been over 60 boats in the area, clustered around
Fish Camp
It started out with a legal White Seabass
http://www.whiteseabass.com/whiteseabass1web.jpg
We lost about 8 hookups, it was very frustrating, watching fish being caught
around us, but not being able to get any. Hooks pulled, anchors wrapped
our lines.
Kathrin was not feeling great, so she got into the little cabin for a little
nap.
Talking to Jenny-O from Allcoast Sportfishing, we chatted about the bite,
as well as other things. It was really nice to meet her and her crew,
as well as the other Allcoasters we met during the day. She mentioned
that the Seabass bit until about 7, and about 8 to 10 the yellows came through,
so I decided to stay and not run up to Santa Cruz and wait out for more yellows.....
little did I know that it was the right call!
I kept hooking fish that would make a long run down, come up to the surface
and then turn and fight on the surface with throbbing runs. They were
classic "Mud Marlin" battles. I intentionally pulled the hooks as the
bite was on and I wanted to catch some Seabass. After the 4th one,
I decided to bring him in, to the boat so that Kathrin could see him and
maybe it would make her feel a little better. About 5 minutes later,
I saw a flash of white and thought that he was coming up upside down. I
was about to wake Kathrin when I took a double take and saw a nice yellowtail
dancing the death circle. Two more circles and I had him on the boat.
I whooped in joy and Kathrin lifted her head up for a moment to see the fish.
http://www.whiteseabass.com/yellow2web.jpg
I then lifted the anchor as the wind had turned and the I was now fishing
right next to an anchor line. I decided to drift, with the motor idling,
drifting amongst the anchored boats. My boat is small enough that I
can just kick it into and out of gear if I drift too close to someone. My
4 stroke Mercury is so quiet, I cannot hear it when I am diving near the
boat and it is idling.<br>
<br>
Hooking a few other mystery fish, and then losing them, I decided to start
throwing a scrambled egg iron. I had a rod with a jig and squid just
off the bottom, and another rod with a squid rig, and then my lighter 25lb
setup with a dropper loop and 3 oz sinker. <br>
<br>
Firing off the iron, I feathered the line as it sank out into 80 feet of
water.
"ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz" screamed the reel on my
25lb stick. Quickly setting the jigstick into the rod holder, I picked
up the rod, felt the fish chewing and then with a 6-count, I set the hook.
WOW, this fish felt big, peeling off line, I looked for a boat that had snagged
my line because it just evenly peeled line off towards the horizon.
Good, it seemed to be pulling me and my boat out of the fleet. There
was just one little boat out there in the way. SHOOT! This fish
was actually pulling my boat at a pretty good clip. I tried to wind
in the jigstick while my fish was making strong runs, and tried to turn and
tire the fish when it stopped.
Now this fish was really taking off, so I kicked the boat in gear to try
to catch up.
"Hang on honey..."
A mumble came out of the little cabin. Poor Kathrin, she was not well.
"DOUBLE SHOOT" the fish went under the last boat in the fleet, and took a
turn after passing the anchor line. I could feel it trying to cut the
line on the rope, then it took off on a long run. Not wanting to lose
the fish, nor cut the anchor (you would be surprised to see what 25lb mono
can do to an anchor line under load, it can cut three inch rope like
butter)
Minutes passed as I would back off completely when the fish took off.
The line would pulse with rhythm, a staccato as though a woodpecker were
hammering the line. Each second that I was tangled with the anchor
line was one second closer to losing this fish. Looking up, I noticed
a friend of mine was on the anchored boat.
"Hey Robbie, can you grab this line, I am in your anchor line and it is a
big fish.
"Yeah. no problem" He replied as he took the line in hand.
I cringed as I laid my nice rod and reel into the water. Taking the
opportunity, I saw that the other three setups had now wrapped themselves
up and it was not pretty. I quickly brought them in and threw the rods
on the deck. Looking up, I see Robbie, holding my line in his hand,
just as he yells "Did you drop your rod in?"
"Yeah, can you untangle it from your anchor?"
Two twists later, he set my rod down into the water as I brought it back
to my boat. This whole time there was a bunch of slack line. I
was really hoping for the fish to still be there as I wound in the slack,
and it was. It had been a good 15 minutes that I was stuck in his anchor.
I was fairly ginger with the fish as I figured that the anchor had
really chafed up my line.
About 20 minutes later, after stopping the fish from tangling in Robbies
anchor again, I finally got a look at the fish, and boy did it look big.
I was trembling with Adeline and exhaustion as the fish began it 's
death circle as it got closer and closer to the boat. This the the
time when so many things can go wrong and many big fish are lost. I
got it to the surface and grabbed the gaff in the bait tank.... but I grabbed
the wrong end and tried to gaff the fish holding the hook end in my hand!!!!
It was a tenuous 10 seconds as the fish began banging it's head and
tail against the bottom of the boat. Any second the line was ready
to break. I finally got the gaff turned around one handed and as it
turned I got a solid gaff shot and heaved it on board.
"YYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" I
yelled as loud as I have ever. This fish was big, bigger than I had
thought. I was now worried that the rails on my boat were so low that
it might flop out. I tacked it to the deck and put my dive knife through
its brain, severing it's spinal cord.
http://www.whiteseabass.com/yellow3web.jpg
http://www.whiteseabass.com/yellow4web.jpg
http://www.whiteseabass.com/yellow5web.jpg
After an hour of battle with my yellow slickers on, and all the adrenaline
rushing through my body, I was burning up. I stripped to my skivvies
and dove into the drink. I really needed to cool off. Thank you
to Jenny-O for taking the photos. She also had a digital scale and
I weighted the fish, it weighed out at 52.9 lbs. I also weighed it
on a spring scale and it bottomed it out well below the 50lb mark.
After taking Kathrin freediving for the first time. She had so much
fun looking and pointing out the different fish. We saw Garabaldis
and Bat rays, bait and Blacksmiths and a bunch of Calicos. We ended
up at another spot aand finished out our White Seabass limits. It
was so exciting watching Kathrin catch her biggest fish, then catch two more
that were even bigger as she got her first limit of nice Seabass. It
was wide open, we got them on squid, plastics and the iron.<br>
http://www.whiteseabass.com/wow.jpg
We ended up with 2 limits (3 fish each) of White Seabass to 16lbs and 2 Yellowtails,
24 & 52.9 lbs.
What a glorious day! The big fish was slabbed and given to my friend
who was getting married the next day. Half the wedding party was from
Hawaii and the Philippines and they really enjoyed the fresh fish. The
rest of the fish fed more than 20 of my family and friends, and I sent my
girlfriend home to Switzerland with 10 lbs of fillets that will feed a dozen
or more people. All in all, almost a hundred friends and family on
two continents shared the fruits of this blessed fishing trip.
Marco Farrell and Kathrin Gschwend
"Marco Polo" 15 foot Radon powered with a 75 hp Mercury
http://www.whiteseabass.com
mailto:have2fish@yahoo.com
Santa Barbara, CA
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