From California To Cow Town...3/19

**Capt Josh** · 03-19-2007 11:36 AM

There is a certain satisfaction one garners from fishing new waters...and after an obviously successful trip up to CA i have to admit i'm feeling very good about the fact that i had the opportunity to catch my first calico, sand bass, california bucket mouth, so cal ling, and other such creatures...and i owe a huge GRACIAS to my northern amigos whom took the time and effort to get me out there...

It seems funny that after thousands of hours on the water the first thing i want to do when i head out of town is go fishing...but thanks to Bogii and the Tiger Lilly 2 that's precisely what i did the morning after hitting the tarmac via LAX...

With regulation so cal conditions awaiting us we loaded the gear and splashed the Tiger Lilly 2 down in Del Rey by noon...just as we were pulling away from the bait barge a scream penetrated the air...snapping Bogii and i to attention...and as we turned around to find a 250# white male galloping straight at us screaming and waving his arms like a madman we pondered the not too distant outcome of this particular development...

"WAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTT" the man bellowed...his breath coming in great labored gasps as though he had not completed the 50yrd dash in many seasons... "WAIT...WAIT...PLEASE!!!"

Bogii and i are giving each other the OKEYDOKEY look as he spins the boat around for another pass along the dock...

"WAIT...hey good...thanks for stopping but i just had to ask about your boat...that girl is a piece of art..."

And while the strange sweaty man may have been right...we had fish to catch...so Bogii yells "Skipjack..." out the cabin door/window and hammers the throttle down leaving more than one unanswered question in his wake... i couldn't help but laugh...and so began my so cal fishing adventures for the week...

Well i won't go into great detail about the circumstances of Bogii and mine's trip together...but i will say thanks Bob Hoose for the tip on the Berkley GULP! baits...and special thanks to Bogii for getting me my first calico et al that afternoon...you're one hell of skipper amigo...going so far as to let your guest outfish you...by a lot...even though you were using bait...superhost material for sure...

With my first calico in the bag the next day or the day after...i can't remember which...i headed out to Diamond Valley lake with Illarcher for a little pork rind and crank bait tossin...and while there were no pork rinds and very little crank bait tossin in actuality i once again managed to "geet eentwo em" as we like to say in BASS circles...

Matt has a great Champion bass boat that is capable of speeds well beyond the advertized limits posted around the lake...and while Matt would never dream of actually exceeding these limits...i sure did take his word on the fact that it was indeed possible...

We roared off across a very still...and very beautiful DVL where we covered every concievable piece of water between the dam and the boat launch...i of course struck first...only because Matt told me exactly what to use...how to fish it...and where to throw it...all the while trying to re-spool his reel...

I tossed up along the shoreline and sure enough...tap...tap...tap...YANK!...i had that critter and after a quick tussle Matt scooped it with the net and ol' JT had his first bonafide california bucketmouth...and galdarn...she was a beauty...

After the ice breaker we roared off to another spot at unimaginable speeds where i proceeded to yank a certifiable DANDY off a bunch of submerged branches...at nearly 5lbs she did stirr up some comotion at the scales at the end of the day and i'd be lyin if i said i didn't act like it was nothin...

Matt scored a couple of fish just in the nick of time as the day was drawing to a close and i'd have had him comboed if he hadn't pulled those two off before the buzzer...all in all one hell of a great day and i can't thank Matt enough for the hours of driving and all the work that went into it...i'm really looking forward to making that a yearly event...

From there i think it was Catalina the following saturday on Steve D's 68' Pettigrew pleasure palace the BOOMER for white sea bass...we had a great dinner at the Cannery and then VAMANOS we were off to Catalina where Rob E arranged to meet us at Avalon and even went so far to get up in the middle of the night when we got there to load us up on fresh caught squid...thanks a ton for that one Rob...

In the morning we found ourselves close to the rocks and fishing hard for the elusive WSB...i struck first once again...what the hell beginners luck...and we all got excited when the rod bent deep...but it was not meant to be as we carefully hauled a monstrous bat ray up from the deep for a careful release...well another first i guess...but not what we were looking for...

Back out go the baits but despite our best efforts and the fact that we moved a lot in attempt to find the fish we struck out on the endangered WSB but saved the day with a wide open sand bass bite back by the harbor during which i caught my first so cal ling...another notch in the belt...

From there it was a sunset squid trip with team Pelagic...i'll let the photos speak for themselves...but i will say this...ol Mick down there in the galley can sure pour one hell of a Cuba Libre and those double decker cheeseburgers were the BOMB...talk about midnight munchies...and we slayed them...big nasty creatures that were a pure blast...particularyly on four hundred rum and cokes...thanks Ron and Mike for another epic boys trip...

Speaking of boys trips...over the last few years i've put Mike on some world class fish...and fishing...huge tunas, marlin, you name it we've had some fun out there together on all manner of boats...so when he offered to take me thresher shark fishing the next morning how could i turn him down...the mojo had been good all week and since JT had done nothing but deposit into the Mike Offshore Fishing Fund it was time for JT to take a little back...

Mike has a sweet Grady that is pimped out for local fishing...particularly thresher fishing...and Mike has scored some very big sharks on that boat including a 427# fish that nearly broke the CA state record...so i knew i was in capable hands...

While we spent the better part of a glassy so cal day trolling for big game we were a bit early for the peak migration and thus ended up without a strike...but who cares...we had flying gaffs and heavy duty stand up gear deployed and i'll tell you what those fruitless hours of trolling threshers were some of the most exciting moments of my trip...thanks Mike looking forward to you getting me my first thresher...i hope it's this next trip in april...

Well somewhere between and after all this fishing there was a trade show to attend...which was for the most part business as usual...except for the huge PV contigent which made the journey up this year...it was awesome to hang with all the boys on foriegn turf because even though we are all competitors we are first and foremost friends...just another reason why Puerto Vallarta is one of the most amazing places to fish...and live...in this world...

Except for Manny throwing me under the train with a certain someone (i'll get you back for that cabron) everything went extremely well and we all walked away with a ton of shwag and made plenty of new friends...

It's always tough to leave but when you have great fishing to look forward to it makes the transition from saying "goodbye" to "HOOOKUP!" a little easier and with a bunch of fond "ADIOS AMIGOS" we were off for wild pastures once again...

Our first two days of fishing since i've been back have been full of looking around as far away as the sand bank and everywhere in between...we are catching them still...nice ones...and i'll go into all that in the next report as i'm getting rushed out the door right now so it'll have to wait...

We're fishing tuesday, wed, thurs the latter two of the three on an overnighter so i'm looking forward to that one...aaaahhh...lots to say but i gotta go...