Fishing Catalina with Friends

I know I am about to sound like a Gulp! commercial but it is the truth. Myself and two other buddies made our way to Catalina Island on Tuesday, March 31, 2009, for a couple of days of white seabass fishing. We managed to reach the backside of the island around noon. We met up with another boat and got a couple of passes of live squid to go along with our scoop of sardines and fresh dead squid we had brought over with us. I had several reports from other friends that the seabass were in tight and unfortunately on the small side. We set up for our first drift in tight on some good looking water just above the Vee's to get a feel for the area so we could make a better decision as to where to anchor for our attempt at the gray ghost. One of the guys threw out the live squid on a sliding sinker setup i tight while another opted for the live sardine on the same setup based on reports I had form friends fishing earlier. I on the other hand, after seeing the boiler rocks, decided to use my Revo Offshore spooled with 30lb Spiderwire Stealth with a two foot section of 20lb Stren tinted Fluorocarbon coupled with an IM7 "Buzz Ramsey" rod. I tied on a 1/2 ounce Owner sled head and threaded on a 7" Berkley Gulp! Jerk Shad in Sardine color and started pounding the boilers. As our drift continued down the coast, I managed to pick off a nice Calico in the five pound range to get the party started. My other two friends on the boat were starting to get a bit perturbed at me fishing the Gulp! since we were on a mission for the elusive white seabass and I wouldn't touch any of our great selection of live bait. Two casts later, I got hammered in the shallow water with what turned out to be a legal white seabass. At this point, my friends are digging through my tackle bag trying to figure out what I was using. While they were trying to get rigged up, I nailed a halibut and the tide dropped off to nothing and the bite shut down. Needless to say, the Gulp! did indeed out fish live bait this day and I made a few more people fishing on the backside of Catalina believers since my buddies couldn't wait to tell everyone we saw what "we" caught and what "we" caught it on. On this day, the Gulp! produced all of our bites and made my friends believers who always told me that seven dollars for a bag of five baits was ridiculous. I reminded them with a smile on my face that "they" had just purchased close to fifty dollars worth of live bait that "they" would eventually throw away and I still had two more baits left in my seven dollar bag of Gulp! for the next trip.

Captain Horace Barge