Zane and I took Knock Down on her first overnight trip of the season to look for a few sea bass at San Clemente Island.  Zane(17) brought his bass fishing buddy Andrew (16) along for his first Clemente adventure.

We tanked up on live squid at the Newport bait receiver and started across the channel at 25 knots into a stiff west breeze with a large south swell running through it.  The big Contender with the twin Yamaha 250’s fairly ate up the nasty conditions, with hardly a hiccup during the 50 mile crossing.  We did take some spray over the top in the outer channel off Northwest Harbor, but our full polycarbonate helm enclosure did its job and kept us and our gear completely dry.  The 48-mile crossing only took 2 hours in the ugly conditions.

I have to say that Knock Down runs through snotty conditions better than any small sport fishing boat I have ever been on!  Every boat owner thinks his boat is the best, but after 40 years of running around in center consoles and small express-style fishing boats, I am loving this Contender!  Our cockpit enclosure and tower is working out great, the bait system is solid, the motors are powerful quiet and reliable, and the hull design is perfect for our style of run-and-gun fishing.

We started out at 9pm in Northwest Harbor at Clemente, and Zane had a 15lb sea bass on the first cast in 5 fathoms along the east kelp.  We caught and released a bunch of bass and a second sea bass before the current changed and the wind increased.  We moved back inside the kelp line and grabbed a couple hours of sleep.

We woke up Saturday to 15knots of west wind, which ruined our plans to fish around on the back side of C.  We spent most of the day fishing the front side west with uphill current all day, going against 15 knots of west breeze.  We managed to catch a bunch of nice bass on surface iron, plastics and squid.  We saw a few yellows, but none that would bite.Water temp was 61-63 all day and was relatively blue with lots of breezing mackerel.

The Navy had both Pyramid and NW harbor closed Saturday evening.  Most of the boats left the island, but we opted to stay just below Wilsons at Hole-in-the-Wall.  As we were approaching the spot Zane scrambled down from the tower after spotting a big bull sea lion with a huge sea bass in his mouth.  This same bull had grabbed several of our big calicos and had dogged us all day up and down the island, and it was time for some payback!  As I ran Knock Down toward the surfacing seal, Zane grabbed our 8” gaff out of the holder and ran to the bow.  The big bull immediately dove with the big bass, but couldn’t go under with the fish in his mouth.  As we drove by the thrashing sea bass and seal, Zane lunged with the gaff and he and Andrew hefted the still-kicking sea bass over the rail!  I didn’t have my digital scale aboard, but I estimate the big sea bass would have weighed around 50 pounds.  If we wouldn’t have taken the fish, the bull seal would have ripped her guts out and the fillet would have been wasted.  The big bull chased us around for half an hour, and we had a good laugh to go along with a load of big fillets!  Revenge is so sweet!

Saturday evening we bbq’d steaks and caught big bass in the dark until we all were too tired to continue.  The bass bite was very good on the late high tide under the full moon!

Sunday morning we woke up to beautiful, flat conditions with no boats in the lee of the island.  We ran east and caught a few more bass before heading home in flat conditions at 32 knots.  The water off shore was very blue and 63 with a few birds and some bait around the mackerel bank and in the deep water outside the ridge.  We caught some bass, had some fun (and revenge), and brought home some fillet, after another great adventure to Clemente aboard Knock Down.