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Sooooo.......
I got a call a few days ago from Bill. He wants to go halibut fishing and he thought I knew a few good spots. We agree on Saturday morning.
I got to the launch ramp a little early and had to break the seal on the box of donuts before wils showed up right on time. While I was waiting another guy shows up waiting for somebody else. After talking for a fer minutes it turns out it was Mike waiting for Matmatician. They were headed up the line just like us.
Bill shows up and we left the dock around 6:30 without a hitch. As we are motoring down the main channel wils asks "Where's the bait dock?"
I point behind us and say "Right there next to the launch ramp." So we turn around and get our bait. Then it is game on so and we are ready.
When we got to the breakwall it was pretty obvious that it was going to be a little bit more bumpy than the past few days. At that point Bill makes a comment that I am not wearing deck boots. I had never been on a Whaler before and decided that morning to wear shorts and sneakers. It looked like a beautiful day. I didn't realize that whalers are only about 3 inches above the water when there is no swell. Then Bill says that he brought his foul weather gear and a spare cheap set from little 5 or wally world or whatever. I had tried a cheapy set once before and knew that if i put them on i would be soaked insdide of 10 minutes. I began to wonder just what kind of a three hour tour I had gotten myself into.
So anyway we left the breakwall and headed up to Arco Island. On the way we talked and many get benters names came up in the conversation. We got to the island without incident and mostly dry (Bill had put me on the windward side of the boat).
After a quick drift Bill pulls in a just legal checkerboard and we decided to drop the hook. I opened the locker and found at least 4 dock lines, a full set of foul weather gear, a mistery package in yellow that claimed to be waterproof gear, and finally something that Bill said was his anchor. It was underneath all the rode as well as everything else. I tossed it out thinking it might just hold back a bathtub battleship, and sure enough we pulled it up a few minutes later and never used it again.
We then decided to drift past the island and on one drift I hook up to what at first felt like a halibut in about 35 feet. It shook it's head, took some drag, and then finally showed itself. A good size ling that measured 27" was in the boat. On the same drift Bill gets hit on plastic and pulls in another big Calico. Being the sport he is, the Calico is still there to be caught again tomorrow. Everyone commented that the Ling tasted great tonight at dinner.
We tried a few more drifts for zip and decided to try a halibut drift. That was the original reason for being on the water in the first place. We try a few drifts and all we pull up are rockfish and sand bass. Fun to pull on but not what we wanted. The wind started to pick up again so we called it a day and came back in. We never did see Matt and Mike. Hi guys!
There were no pics on this trip. Bill released his Calico too quick for me to get a shot, and there are lots of pics of a fat guy holding a Ling. I don't want to hear any comments from the peanut gallery on this. At least I posted a report. That is more than you can say for some guys, Joey.
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The measure of a fisherman is not in the size of the fish, but in the size of his desire to repeat the adventure.
Dark Kings of the Abyss Fishing Club ><(((ΒΊ>
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Forever!)
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