San Clemente Island trip 05/26/2007 - OEX/Islander

[lamb]

We took off Friday night on a smooth sees…

12 of us, super light load of very cool group of kayakers.

We got to the Island at the gray light…

We anchored North of China point, to work our way down South/SE throughout the day.

Smooth launch - Islander has really got the yak operation down… We were all in the water in no time.

Some folks went straight inside to fish the thick kelp and boiler rocks for calicos… some of us ventured out west hoping to cross path with some yellows.

It was dead calm, awesome conditions.

I started marking fish on the bottom in 120 – 130 ft. I dropped some sardines and dead squid down to the bottom.

That kept me busy for the next couple of hours… It was almost non-stop action… Mostly calicos, and many other bottom creatures.















My ol’ lady gave me lots of hard time the last time I went to SCI… This time I wasn’t going to come back without some meat, so I loaded my clip. I kept the bottom dwellers and a few calicos I ended up gut hooking.

This guy hit my dead stick Salas 6X 3 ft off the bottom:



You can imagine how the guys that exclusively targeted calicos did… I’ve never seen bigger calicos, neither have I seen a prettier ones (all orange, wearing some amazing colors).

While delivering bait to us, Islander guys picked up a 7# firecracker yellow on the surface jig from the Zodiac… Good enough to keep our yellow hopes high…

Right before the lunch, we tried for halibut for about 45 minutes on the 1st sandy beach right inside of China Point.

Dave spilled his first flat brown blood right there… Congrats again Dave!!!

We took a break around noon to load up on burgers.

Back in the water for a PM run… Around 1:00PM, the wind picked up a bit.

The things were not looking good for YTs – radio was quiet, there were no birds working to be seen…

In hope for some WCW points, I decided to pound some more sand. Islander guys tipped me where to fish.

I got the first raked dean in 70 ft. I turned back to work the same “sandbox” and soon brought this brown flat pretty guy on the deck.

Not a whooper by any means, but right on the ball for my 1st WCW submission:



Lamb on board!!!

Hear that Matt?

I continued working that patch of sand in front of those 2 beaches right in between the points hoping for his momma.

The wind kept building, making it tougher and tougher to work the sand.

I stumbled on some more fish willing to bite, but I just couldn’t hook another one. At that point, it was tough to position the boat… Looking at my GPS -the drift downhill was almost 2 MPH, and I could only do 0.2 / 0.3 mph paddling into the wind. With all the wind chop, it was so rough I could hardly tell I’m getting bit looking at the tip of my rod.

A few more raked baits and I gave up - around 4:00 PM, Islander crew called all of us on the radio to come back on board. They were going to load all yaks back on the boat and move to the lee side of the island. Hidden from what now was pretty stiff wind, we were going to try some more...

They were waiting for us downwind... It was the first time I was doing 6 mph on my eX, not even paddling too hard.

We found some great conditions on the lee side and jumped once again for our last shot.

A group of us refused to give up on our YT dreams so we paddled back to the Pyramid Head. WCW gang lol ... Other folks stayed in the cover of cliffs and worked the dropp off.

At the end of the day, we both did the same – some more calicos and bottom fish.

It was great fishing by all means, just no YTs or other BIG fish that some of us hoped hard for. That firecracker YT ended up the only one brought back on the Islander. The word was some of them were biting further down North 17-20 miles on the weather side of the island. With sort of action we found with bass and bottom fish, it’s hard to complain.

As always, Islander folks went out of their way to demonstrate their hospitality. They sure a running one smooth gig with these kayak mothers-ship trips. I’m sure it’s just the matter of time when one lucky group of yakkers will make the life of the crew miserable by making them fillet some big fish until wheee hours…

Master Chef Paul’s dinner on our way back – homemade jalapeño bread & neat coleslaw salad…



Spicy chicken with homemade mashed potatoes, steamed veggies… freshly baked brownie for a desert.