The Adventures of Jeff and Dave

Catalina Island

By Dave Braun?

The bite at the island has been picking up lately, so we planned to catch some squid on the back side of the island and fish for white seabass, yellowtail and calico bass. Jeff Buck, his son and I quickly loaded his boat "Ain't Huntin" with rods, tackle, and provisions for the weekend. We brought a chum bucket of ground squid and two gallon bags of fresh dead squid that we caught on the previous trip for insurance in case we could not find any live squid at the island.

We left Dana Point harbor at 10:00 pm Friday night with a GPS heading for Avalon. It was slightly breezy with a full moon and a thick cloud cover. About two thirds the way over it started to get choppy so we slowed down to about 11 knots and changed our plans and decided to fish the leeward side of the island. We anchored in front of the old Casino at Avalon and got a few hours sleep since our plans for making live squid were changed because we were fishing the front side of the island and our fish finder fuse blew when it was plugged in at the harbor. We thought we had spare fuses for everything on the boat but the new color Si-tex fish finder had a small diameter fuse and we didn't have a spare. The new plan was to fish the coves around long point for bass, halibut and maybe a stray white seabass. We could see the clouds blowing over the mountains and we were glad that we had the island to protect us.

Since we were fishing blind, we moved from spot to spot trying to locate a hot bite. Jeff tied on a small white crappie jig tiped with a small strip of frozen squid and quickly caught four fat blue perch for our dinner. I ribbed him for trying to catch perch, because they are usually considered a pest when fishing for bass and yellowtail. Jeff just smiled and said you'll be glad I caught them tonight. The morning bite never really happened so we cruised into Avalon to top off our tanks and see if we could get a fuse for the fish finder. A guy at the repair dock gave us directions to the hardware store in the Arcade at Avalon. I was dropped off at the Green Dock and walked thru town to get the special size fuse. The salesman searched five different trays of inline fuses until he found the exact match. I was impressed with amount of things that were stocked in this store. I chatted with the salesman for a bit and he gave me a tip on where we might catch a halibut a few miles away.

Hoping to catch a big shark, we put out a big wired Rapala and Maurader on the Penn Internationals. Jeff circled some big balls of bait that were covered with birds a mile or so out of Avalon, but the birds were just sitting on the water and we didn't see anything push up the bait so we set-up for a few drifts for halibut with squid along the beach at a depth of 80 feet. Braden and I had a few biters but we didn't get any to the boat. I guess we would have done better if we had live sardines. I dumped a nice 4 lb. calico bass right at the boat and said "There goes dinner" as it swam away.

By sunset it was blowing pretty hard and we knew that we had better anchor in a protected cove for the night. I wired a 12 lb. downrigger ball to the top of the anchor chain for an added measure safty. Jeff filleted the perch and set-up the barbeque for dinner. Wow, that fresh blue perch was great. I don't know why I never tried it before. I guess it was because they are so easy to catch and it seems like nobody ever wanted to catch them. I assumed that they were no good to eat, but now I know better.

The morning greeted us with much calmer seas and since not much was happening for us at the island, we thought that we should quickly head back towards Dana Point and maybe make a few drops for cod on the 14 mile bank. Braden took the helm because he only likes to drive the boat when it's going fast!!! When we started to get close to the "14" we noticed the sea temp was 62.2 degrees and their were gulls making bait all over the place. The bait was spread over a wide area just to the north of the "14". I rigged a mackerel on a sunshine leader and snapped it to a "Top Dawg" Shark rig and sent it down to 120 feet on the downrigger. The other international had a CD-24 Rapala on it. We had gotten to the bank right at high tide and something was feeding on the anchovies because they were jumping right out of the water only to be greeted by a huge fur ball of birds that were picking them off. We slow trolled the entire area for two hours with out a knock down. We thought maybe this could be the beginning of Thresher Shark season. There were 4 or 5 other boats that were slow trolling through the thousands of birds around the 14 mile bank. When we arrived at the boat ramp we talked to a guy who caught the season's first thresher shark. It was a respectable 200 pounder caught at the "14" on a ballyhooded mackerel. It looked like we were at the right place at the right time but we didn't score. As we entered the harbor we noticed "Mako Mike" and George going out for a shot at the sharks aboard the "Godfather". It looks like Shark season will start a bit early this year.