great Offshore bottom trip on the morning star

[Squidnation]

Well I know this ain't a billfish report but man what a blast. I have not fished with captain monte hawkins in almost 14 years. Decided to join Al, gunnar and merrit on on offshore scout trip for some tog. we ran into a bit of a surprise in OC. aside from the glassy flat calm seas and comfortable weather we had the best cod day in recent OC member from what i was told. Hell it was great for me since i caught my first cod. We ended up catching about 33 cod keeping 22 and tagging 11. It was a disappointing tog day in numbers but two guys made up for it in quality. My buddy gunnar caught one that was 16.999999999999 lbs that was surely to be the pool winner only to be outdone in the 11th hour by Alex's 17.11111111111lb tog. Two beautifully ugly fish. congrats to both of the guys. Capt Monte and Mike were and incredible crew. Can't believe I have been around OC for 30 years and only fish with monte twice. I need to correct that. Here are some cell phone pics.