Catalina Island / 02-06-2016

[C.W.C.]

It wasn’t either one of our birthdays, but one of our last chances to get away to the Island for the weekend alone, before our little one arrives..
Catalina offers us up the perfect little getaways, as both my wife & my schedule’s are quite demanding as of late, and are very difficult to synchronize with me chasing fish night & day. Since this was a very special trip for us. I decided to ship out my PA 12 Via Catalina Freight in LA. Having fished Catalina from a basic rental paddle kayak & other Hobie MirageDrive models countless times, this marked the very first time I have been on my Hobie Pro Angler out there! All the portaging and hauling was quickly appreciated as the Checkers kept coming over my H-rail in style & comfort. With all my electronics previously set up to my liking, I was able to ride my desired contour lines precisely this round & it sure paid off right around lunchtime as the tide fell. As soon as I approached the first reef section, I was greeted and followed by a sea lion who was also fishing..
I thought this was going to prove to be a very difficult morning, as he tried to work alongside me for over a 1/2 hour. Finally he got discouraged on the slow action strictly due to his presence & then my day quickly changed for the better & warmed up the action. My morning of February 6th, 2016 started off extremely slow, so I quickly switched back out to the Warbaits Slayer swimjig in 3/4 ounce, +6” SwimmerZ trailer in Redbone Glow & ProCure UV Flash Shrimp Gel for scent. Got picked up by about a dozen smaller Calicos until the morning sun was working higher for me in the day right on my back as I worked up the barren lanes. It’s really amazing all the different color variation Calicos exhibit out there. From light lime greens all the way to those dark golden bruisers! The toads all came on the larger red flaked baits this session. 8” Mag SwimZ in “Calico Candy” with an upgraded “Green Pumpkin Craw” Z-Tek skirt rigged on a 1 ounce Project Z ChatterBait in “Blueback Herring” found some good ones. My shoulder was killing me after all the lugging around coupled with my torn Labrum, so I didn’t get to throw the WaterWolf camera very long this session as compared to previous outings. However, it was more than enough to capture some cool tight structure / small kelps below the surface in the vid. Hope to get back out in a couple months. I was targeting the usual inshore tight kelp lanes sans kelp. No matter, as this provided unobstructed views of my offering to the reef dwellers below. I thought the regrowth would have been more established back by now, but previous storms sure wreck serious havoc on the Islands vegetation. Had a decent twenty+ class Hali chase right up to the kayak before getting spooked & she bailed. C&R!




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