SCI Backside

Mike Sakasegawa - San Clemente Island Calico

From: Sakasegawa, Michael
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 2:22 PM
To Bob Hara, Mike Naoe
Subject: SCI Backside

Bob….Mike…. Not sure if you received this info from Jay or Stewart, but the 3 of us decided to head out to fish Catalina. After loading up with several scoops of squid in Long Beach around 3:30 am, we headed out on a flat windless ocean at 20 knots. After a few minutes, we realized that conditions would be ideal for heading to the backside of San Clemente Island instead. Indeed, conditions were very ideal and in fact, conditions were even more calm on the backside for some reason.

When we arrived, we found very little current but after a few minutes of metering a kelp bed area just past the tip, we decided to just drop anchor and we were rewarded with immediate wide open Calico bass fishing with many in the 3 to 5 pound range.

Interestingly enough, we were having this success amidst a population of baby seals (20-30) which seemed more curious at what we were doing. As a result of their plain curiosity and non-interruption with our candy baits, we limited out after about an hour of fishing and wound up sticking around long enough to catch and release at least another 30 to 40. Conditions were so good, we decided to switch to plastics just to try to get to some of the larger bass, but would up having little affect on the Calico’s aggressiveness. Eventually, we decided to pull anchor and try searching for some other species and actually wound up trying spots around the entire backside, winding us up for a return from the east end of SCI.

Attached are some pics of this memorable trip.

Officer Maeda with a nice one

Check you guys out. Beautiful shots Mike.

Southern Cal Winter Fishing....What more could you ask for.