Another one of our boats made it out for the nice Dorado bite. Sailfish are just around the corner folks.

October 2008

The FAT CAT is back! We’ve been working on the boat for months to get it to the point of fishing again. She now has new canvas, new seats, a new stereo, updated electronics gear, some new fishing equipment and a new compass. It all came together Friday night at about 1700hours... I got a call, "the boat is ready", this was like a lottery win! Immediately I called around and had Oscar and Richard ready to fish the boat for Saturday morning. Richard had fished with me before and was a Pacific coast veteran, Oscar on the other hand had "never been deep sea fishing" and had his biggest and best fish, a ten pound cat fish caught on the coast. We headed out from the marina at about 830 am with an overcast sky and the threat of rain on the Horizon. We stopped off at the #2 marker dropped our sabikis overboard and in a matter of ten minutes had a full bait well of "liveys", this was to keep an alternative backup plan open incase the ballyhoo were not the "special of the day". I had been hearing all week that the dorado were "in close and thick", so was not concerned over a few clouds, besides this is normal for this time of year. On the way out, listening to the radio chatter things sounded pretty dreary and I started to think of and to make alternative plans to fish the coast. At ten miles we found a nice "corte" which is slang for the weed line or trash line off the coast, dropped the lines in and ten minutes later had a nice 20 lb dorado on the line. It is always the first fish of the day which breaths that sigh of "ok we are good" and usually signals the begin of the days action. Since Oscar was the "boat virgin", he was up first and showed us he knew how to fish by quickly bringing in the first cow of the day. Richard plugged in his favorite music and with "Devo" blasting we trolled the line. We settled into a nice routine of stopping every ten to twenty minutes to pull in another big cow dolphin with Richard and Oscar having a blast fighting these big dorados. By the early afternoon the clouds were still out and we were getting a little "picado" some whitecaps however the fishing stayed consistent. Then Oscars turn came up and we hooked into a monster bull dorado, the fight was on with the bull doing all sorts of jumping and Oscar applying pressure to get him alongside, then with the bull alongside he managed to pop the line. Perhaps we could have called it an "involuntary release" but Oscar was crushed, his biggest fish, our biggest of the day, the "monster fish", "lost" to the "thumb on the reel type of pressure". Richards turn came with another niche size cow, then Oscar was up and again showed he had the lucky charm hooking another big bull. This time he kept his thumb far from the reel, and after forty five minutes, and a whole lot of pain, Oscar had him boat side, we gaffed him and got him into the boat. It was a nice bull dolphin weighing about 40lbs, Oscar was so worn out he could barely hold it up for the photo, but the smile was effortless.

On the way in we had a nice dorado ceviche washed down with a couple beers and talked about the "big one that got away".. and the ones that didn't, another day on Fat Cat!

Best Regards

John Seckinger