OK, here is the long version for those with nothing better to do. When I posted this on another board, I was asked for details. Since I wrote it there, I might as well copy and paste it here. But for those who are results-oriented, the bottom line is one yellowtail and two calicos. But maybe it might be of some interest to those who wonder what these great boat trips are like, and maybe good for laughs for those who always make better decisions.
Jeff has been working far too much for far too long, but he had Wednesday and Thursday off, so it was the only chance so far this year for him to go to Clemente. The problem was that the Navy web site showed Pyramid Cove closed Wednesday until 5 PM, and then closing all day Thursday starting at 8 AM. That severely limits options, but we decided to try it anyway. Sometimes the ship or aircraft don't show up as scheduled.
Terrafin showed a big blog of warm water out there, so we decided to head for the 277, then turn south through the warm water to the 289, then head for the middle of the front side and hit some of the spots between there and Pyramid.
As noted in another thread, the paddie diving turned out to be a complete bust, so we arrived mid day at the island. We saw just a couple of yellowtail and couldn't get shots. Finally, we headed down toward Pyramid. In my experience, even though the closed area extends way up the front side, you can often get away with being there as long as you don't round Pyramid Head. But in this case, we were almost to the east end when a RIB with scruffy looking non-military looking guys with beer guts (Blackwater?) ran us down and said we had to go about 8 miles back up the island. They were running some other boats off too. So we ran back up as far as they told us, but this screwed up the fuel plan. We had already taken the long way to the island and didn't have a lot of extra gas to work with.
While waiting for the OK, we anchored near a kelp bed with a steep dropoff outside. Jeff went into the bed with his 50" gun and shot a couple of very nice calicos. Eric and I went out in deep water to look for yellowtail. I saw one lazy one that wouldn't give me a shot, so I dove away from it, not looking, and then hung at its depth. This often does the trick for me, but in this case I never saw the fish again.
Later I was coming up from a dive and saw a pair below me. I took a wild shot and Eric says that he thinks I touched it, but it was about at the full length of the shooting line.
A bit later, Eric and I were near each other, and we looked down and saw a huge school of yellowtail going under us about 25 feet down. Then I noticed that they are swimming and acting funny, and they were actually white sea bass. In my experience, you can usually dive on whites that are straight under you without spooking, but these split in two halves and spooked before we could even dive.
The RIB came by about then and said we could go to Pyramid, so we did. When we rounded Pyramid Head, we found it was windy, choppy, and with two different swells going. We anchored behind the kelp bed where we hoped to spend the night. The plan was to dive it until dark, and then get up early and dive it again before the Navy kicked us out. Eric jumped in and found the current to be pretty stiff, which is usually not great for whites. Jeff and I stayed in the boat and fretted over our options. It looked like a night in Pyramid was going to be miserable, so we could either head for home or go back up to the front side and find a spot to anchor. But if we went up the front side, then we wouldn't have time to get back into Pyramid in the morning, and we wouldn't have the gas to comfortably run all the way up the front side. We decided to anchor on the front side, do the best we could in the morning, and then get an early start at paddies on the way home.
So we anchored behind a front side bed, and while I set up the barbecue and food, Jeff and Eric swam out off the dropoff and Eric got the yellowtail. At least we had the skunk off. Jeff had brought three ribeyes of about a pound each, and as usual he cooked them perfectly on my propane grill, so we stufffed ourselves and drank a few beers. We stlll had left over steak for the opaleyes, but you can only eat so much.
So then came the night with the flying fish sea lion show. At about 6 AM I was finally sleeping soundly when I was awakened by Eric grabbing my feet and shouting at me to get up. I thought we had finally gone on the rocks for sure. But it turned out that he had been taking a leak and a 40 pound white sea bass swam right under him next to the boat.
I usually start the engine to warm up the fresh water shower so as to heat up the clammy wet suit, but of course now I had to jam into that thing with no prep and no breakfast, with my back killing me from sleeping on that v-berth. But ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
Of course it turned out to be for naught. We never saw a white sea bass, and the bait that had been there off the dropoff the previous evening was gone and there were no yellowtail, so we headed for home, vowing to look at every paddy.
The surface was glassy and it was a great day to see the paddies. We saw a lot, but none of them held dorado or yellowtail. However, we were treated to the sight of a swordfish on the surface, swimming with the dorsal fin and tail sticking up. I went over to it and it let us follow it around for a time while the guys watched from the bow. When we were just five miles from the mainland, we came upon a string of floats with a flag on the last one, and I'm pretty sure a swordfish was towing it. That is the way the stick boats operate. After they harpoon the fish, they just throw the line and floats over and let the fish tire itself out while they go look for another one. I could see a stick boat a few miles north of us, and I bet this was his fish.
So there is the very long story of how we had a bad trip. Or at least bad for getting big fish, but it was still fun as long as you can ignore the $345 for gas.
