PFIC Catalina GTG 04/28/2012

This was the first year I attended the annual PFIC Catalina Get Together, and it was great fun. Day started super early Saturday morning with me leaving the house at 3:00 A.M. to drive and pick up my friend John in Whittier and get to the landing in time. After the wife dropped us off we waited for the boat and watched a huge school of sardines moving around inside the harbor. After a smooth boat ride over we arrived on the island at around 7:30 A.M. and set up shop in the SE corner of the Mole. Fishing started out pretty good with John catching a nice sculpin and whitefish and I caught a whitefish. Once the other PFIC people stared showing up around 10:00 A.M. we mingled a little meeting everyone and then the fishing derby started at 10:30 A.M.. Caught a 14" calico bass and a small rock fish (I think it was Boccaccio, but I am not sure) during the derby (I could have slaughtered the derby by catching my limit of pacific and spanish mackerel and blacksmiths and other assorted small fish, but being my first derby I did not want to show off, lol.). John caught a short calico during the derby. After lunch provided by a PFIC member (Gudude is the families PFIC handle I believe) and raffle trophies were given out  to the winners in each division (I got an "Awesome Angler trophy) and back to fishing we went. Caught a ton of small fish the rest of the day while watching schools of sardines, mackerels and other bait fish swim by, there was even a small school of juvenile squid cruising around.

All and all a GREAT day spent with AWESOME people on the best Island around for fishing.

Some fish and other pics below (I will add more when others post them on PFIC):

Catalina 11/12/2011-11/13/2011

Met up with Redkorn and Mahigeer for some fishing and bug hunting @ the Mole in Catalina. Mahi and I were on the 8:00 A.M. boat from Long Beach and Redkorn was on the 6:15 A.M. boat. Seas were super rough on the trip out, and as a result it was a miserable boat ride because literally 25% of the passengers were puking into little black plastic baggies...after that mess we arrived to cloudy skies, but no rain yet. After getting set up and making friends with Beaky the Cormorant...



















We dropped one net each on the off chance we could get a confused lobster out during the day. No luck there, but we did also have this nice visitor around most of the trip...






























Redkorn & Mahigeer both landed very nice Sheepheads (sorry no pics) and I landed a ton of Calico bass, most under sized, one just over legal but returned anyways. Once dark set we all put in our second nets and stopped fishing. Lobster wise, between the three of us we pulled at least 30 shorts throughout the night and 3 legals (all by Redkorn). I also pulled up this nasty looking octopus, which was returned since I caught him with my net, which is not allowed by the DFG rules.































Once the sun came up to clear skies we pulled up our nets and fished until the departing boat came. Caught a ton of Blacksmiths & Half Moons with an occasional undersized Calico Bass, Pacific Mackerel and Jumbo Spanish Mackerels.































Parting Shots































And the final catch in my sink at home. Great trip as always, even though I only got to bring home one keeper bug. Mostly because of the great company and friendly locals.