Trip Report: July 10, 2022 Aboard The Promar
By Jeff Luzod
Customer Service/E-Commerce Support
Sunday Morning, July 10th we attempted to get into some Bluefin Tuna that were showing in our local waters. The backup plan is to fish the kelp lines at Catalina. We left the dock on The Promar just around 6:45am. Ben was driving the boat and me, Shawn and Dennis came along for the ride. We stopped at the bait barge and picked up some sardines. We also had frozen squid and a decent scoop of smelt that was caught at the dock a few weeks ago and kept in the bait motel. By the end of the day the smelt lasted a lot longer than the sardines did. No smelt died while in our bait tank.
As for the actual fishing, the plan was the head to the Avalon Bank and troll behind the island. We headed to the Avalon Bank and trolled for a few hours. There really weren’t any other boats out there trolling. We set out some Madmacs and hoped for the best. There was animal life but it was mostly just dolphin and birds feeding on bait fish. And the conditions weren’t too great either. The water temp had dropped and it was a little rough out there as the morning came. No bluefin anywhere to be found. That’s bluefin fishing for you. You do everything right with the right game plan and the bluefin don’t show up. Apparently, they were moving down south.
Mid-morning, we headed inside to fish the kelp line. Our hope was for some yellowtail or a White Sea Bass but they did not want to play today. Instead, we had steady picking on the Calico’s all day with a few other miscellaneous kelp critters mixed in. We did have a decent calico come on board caught by shawn (see the picture at the top of this blog post.) We tried a few drifts for Halibut but those did not want to play either. What worked for the calico bass was a fresh lively fly lined sardine thrown at the kelp. What also worked was throwing a leadhead with squid. We did lose a few to the kelp after getting hung up a few times. Lots of these fish we caught weren’t keepers but they all had big bellies. Maybe these fish were full of the bait fish in the water.
(Shorter Calico Bass with a big belly)
After stop and go fishing throughout the back side of the east end, we made our way towards the front near the quarry. Same story, calicos on the fly lined sardine. But we did a few drops with cut up squid on a double dropper looper for a mixture of smaller whitefish, sheephead, and even a garibaldi. I nosed hook a live smelt on a dropper loop and dropped it all the way to the bottom near some kelp strands. I get picked up and took a run for a few seconds and then it broke my thinner 20lb test line. I’m thinking either a shark or a black sea bass. Who know? On the way in it was choppy, wind was blowing more than 10 knots probably closer to 20. Bumpy ride but we made it home just after 6, giving us a slower but steady full day of fishing. That’s been the story of the year for us this year in so cal. More often than not, it was never the lack of effort but the fish don’t want to play There are some good days but the weather turns over and completely shuts off the bite. Still have a long way to go this summer hoping there is a window where the fishing stays consistent on more than a few days at a time.
(weather started to pick up as the day went by, water was choppy on the back side of Catalina)
Lastly, guys don’t forget, i post a simple weekend recap every Monday of the past weekend’s fishing on the Promar/Ahi USA Instagram page and have a vlog series that comes out every Friday morning on the YouTube page. Don’t forget to tune in and subscribe, like or follow on our social media accounts.
