Left Huntington Harbor about 1:30pm with a great crew and more gear and beer than this boat has every carried before (or will ever carry again!!!). Went out to the bait barge and got a great scoop of dines from Nachos and then took off for Cat for an evening of hoopin'. Flat calm ride across the channel made for very pleasant traveling and gave us time to get the hoopin' gear ready.

With the gear in early, by the time we got all 10 Ambush nets deployed it was barely dark but the bugs where crawling. Our first pulls where on the deeper nets and it didn’t take long to find that it was game on. The first net we pulled had a couple shorts to get the guys all fired up, and from then on there was lots of action with many shorts and near limits of legals to about 5lbs. Just prior to pulling our last string of hoops we took a break for another killer surf and turf dinner.

  Ron and John with a nice Cat keeper

Some of the previous nights catch

After dinner, while pulling the last string the current had come up and swept away one of our deep hoops. After a long look of scouring the water we gave up and started up toward SBI and happened to look over the side a ½ mile from where we had been hoopin’ and saw the light stick and top of the float tipping the surface of the water. When we pulled it, luckily it was empty or the weight of the bugs would have kept it down. Earlier we had a similar problem with one of our shorter ropes and it was a miracle Jamie got it back. The float was 25’ under water and Jamie managed to snag it with a jig. As a bonus it had two bugs still in it.

SBI sunrise

We left Cat about 11pm and headed to SBI. Conditions where still flat calm and made for very pleasant traveling. There where only two boats in the anchorage at SBI which is one of the reasons I like fishing there, lots of room to fish. We set up for daylight in the same area we where fishing c-bass in the spring and saw a total of six squid but massive tonnage of sardines. In the gray Robert started the day with a hookup that at first looked like he had snagged the bottom but then it started to swim off. By the time we got the anchor up he was nearly spooled but unfortunately broke off the fish shortly thereafter. Those big blacks are tough!!!

That was it for the morning in the anchorage. We checked another spot then moved around back checking conditions for c-bass and didn’t find much so it was time for cods… and they where biting. A full mix of SBI bottom critters and a very green ling cod. When the fish taco meat department was fully handled we came back in and did a couple drifts around the anchorage. We tried to settle the jackpot and had our chance but a frayed dropper loop setup (that should have been retied but wasn’t) let something of good quality get away. Oh well!!!

Realy green ling



Business end of a ling cod








We made one more stop on a structure spot which provided a good bite on big bonito to cap off the trip and then it was time to get rollin’ towards home. Seatemp at the Island was 62-63 and up to 64 and blue inside the West End. It’s hard to feel the offshore season is winding down, but it will be interesting to see what an El Nino winter brings…some of the past ones were memorable!!!

The beautiful weather continued on our way home making it easy for the fish processing dept to clean and package the trips catch as all pitched in to help. Thanks John, Ron and Robert… you guys are great and we hope to see you again soon.

Good luck and good fishing…
Captain Mark Wisch
For those looking to join us on one of our ”Hookin and Hoopin” charters or our 5pm to 10pm local hoopin charters check our website at www.PacificEdgeTackle.com
or call us at the store at 714-840-4262.