Kayak Fishing Adventures on Big Water’s Edge - Catalina Mole 4/23/2016. A memorial trip. Non-kayak.

This would be a memorial trip in honor of a late dear fishing friend.
For more about him, here is a link to my previous post.
http://www.scsurffishing.com/forums/...+mole+memorial

1-My good friend with a good size bonito caught during one of our yearly get-to-gather events at the Mole.
http://i444.photobucket.com/albums/q...DSCN6000_1.jpg

To add verity to this report, let us suspend disbelieve and imagine that Mr. James Earl Jones is the narrator and he is reading a report about an angler nicknamed Mahigeer which means angler in Farsi.

Saturday, April 23rd, 2016

Mahigeer had planned to go to Santa Catalina Island which is located about 23 miles south of city of Long Beach, west of city of San Clemente in the Pacific Ocean.
He changed his plans of going on Saturday to Sunday and then back to Saturday. The rain prediction for Saturday was cancelled. Good thing since on Monday the predicated strong winds would have made conditions unfavorably for fishing.

He was once again first in line at 5:00 AM at the Catalina Express Terminal in Long Beach. The boat ride was fairly smooth and by 8:15 he had setup camp at a bench on the north side of the Cabrillo Mole (Mole for short), which is considered a California public pier. No fishing license required, though he had one. The Fish and Wildlife regulation must be followed even without the license requirement.

2-The wind would pick up at times; and then again it would be calm and flat water.
http://i444.photobucket.com/albums/q...s/DSCN5995.jpg

A single red small craft warning flag was raised around 3:00 PM. It was predicted that the wind would get strong as day goes into night. When in fact it turned out to be the opposite as the weather got nicer. It got better from afternoon to the next morning and almost half a day the next day.

3-An artistically made map highlights the city of Avalon at the Mole to greet the visitors.
http://i444.photobucket.com/albums/q...DSCN6022_1.jpg

4-Some early indication that the kelp maybe starting to grow. With kelp, snags and possible more fish will arrive.
http://i444.photobucket.com/albums/q...DSCN6018_1.jpg

Mahigeer had gotten permission to post the regulations from the Harbor Master. It has been liked by the Harbor Patrol officers to aide them as well as public who want to fish, but are not familiar with the regulations. See picture number 1.

As usual he rigs many rods. One with cast-a-bubble and feather and one with torpedo sinker and feather and one with a Megabait lure. All for catching bonito. Another rod was set up with float and a small hook to use peas as bait.

The normal routine for Mahigeer is to start with casting bonito rigs for a while, and if there is no response from bonito, switch to bait fishing. Targeting opaleye, but catching many short bass as well as verity of other fish.

Once again the cruise ship was already at the island. See picture number 1. Similar to his last trip, when another ship was there and the bonito was a no show. It is theorized that the bait fish maybe using the ship as protection, and bonito is hanging around the ship which is too far to cast from the Mole.

He was fishing alone for a good while even though it was a weekend.

5-It feels like fishing on a private pier at times.
http://i444.photobucket.com/albums/q...s/DSCN5989.jpg

6-A small bass was hooked and a cormorant grabbed it. The bait rig had a #13 leader and even stronger line. So it was a tug-a-war for a while.
http://i444.photobucket.com/albums/q...DSCN5997_1.jpg
The cormorant has a hook at the tip of its beak. It is almost impossible to free a fish from it. A net was used to land the bird. Once on the pier, the bird had let go of the fish.
It was released unharmed.

That was the last time Mahigeer was harassed by the bird. A sea lion was hanging around for a short time, but was not around when the bonitos were being caught on Sunday. More on that later.

7-This almost legal bass went for the green fly which was looking for bonito.
http://i444.photobucket.com/albums/q...s/DSCN6004.jpg

8-By the end of the day Mahigeer has a limit of good size opaleye in his basket.
http://i444.photobucket.com/albums/q...s/DSCN5999.jpg

Mahigeer had decided to stay overnight at the Mole. This eliminated the packing, loading, unloading, unpacking and resetting up the gear which is necessary if he stays at a motel overnight.

He sets up a bait fishing rig and uses frozen anchovies as bait. While resting in his comfortable camping chair, he waits for the clicker on a conventional reel to go off. He caught two rock fish and one bass during the night.
Later he took some catnaps to get some rest for the upcoming early morning fishing session.

9-Full moon over Lover’s Cove.
http://i444.photobucket.com/albums/q...DSCN6008_1.jpg
The name Lover’s Cove was given to this cove, since when the town was small couples could enjoy privacy without being visible from the houses in town.

10-The moon was visible even in the 6:30 AM and with sun coming up.
http://i444.photobucket.com/albums/q...DSCN6009_1.jpg

Sunday, April 24th, 2016

11-Sunrise over the horizon is a signal for another day. Another chance to catch bonito. To be on the Mole at this moment is why Mahigeer endures the cold, lonely hours of the night waiting at the pier.
http://i444.photobucket.com/albums/q...DSCN6016_1.jpg

At this point Mahigeer started to cast with the cast-a-bubble and feather. After several casts, he saw a boil and a fish attacked his feather, but missed.

Later the fish was successful in hitting feather and getting hooked. That happened twice and two bonitos were landed. They went into the wire basket, but later were stolen by a sea lion. More on that later.

12-Once again Mahigeer had the pier to himself for some time.
http://i444.photobucket.com/albums/q...DSCN6020_1.jpg

Mahigeer was resting when he heard a young lady visitor fresh off of a boat tell her companion ---“look, how cute. A seal is coming under that basket to take fish”. Having heard that Mahigeer rushes over to his basket full of fish. Once on the pier he notices that the two bonito caught earlier and four opaleye are missing.

13-What the sea lion did to steal fish from the basket. A lesson learned by Mahigeer to never leave his “sea lion proof” bucket at home.
http://i444.photobucket.com/albums/q...DSCN6027_1.jpg

14-Sea lion proof bucket that he had made a while back.
http://i444.photobucket.com/albums/q...i/DSCN2901.jpg

Fish caught were mostly opaleye and short calico bass. Some halfmoon a couple of rockfish were also in the mix. Two bonito provided good action and made his staying overnight at the Mole somewhat rewarding.

15-This is a sad sight for our angler. The boat which he will take to go home to reality.
http://i444.photobucket.com/albums/q...s/DSCN6030.jpg

The channel crossing was smooth. The traffic home was flowing and he was in bed by 11:00 PM. He stayed in bed until noon next day.

What a life.

Another trip to his favorite pier was in the bag. Next time he will be there on June 6th to celebrate a friends BD, since the friend gets a free ride.

THE END

P.S. I hear that the Catalina Express may cancel the free BD promotion trips. Apparently some scumbag visitors were perhaps using the money saved to indulge in over-drinking, and or demanding freebees from other merchants who were not offering anything. It has put the merchants in an awkward positon.
It is has been discussed by the CE management, but so far the trips are still on. I hope they stay that way.