FIB’ers Jayson Quimby & Ron Withers were blessed to fish the 2011 SWBA California Offshore Challenge.
The format is pretty simple: Fish anywhere you want, and bring back to the scales the five biggest Calico Bass you can catch.The following is a report sent in by Jayson Quimby.
Team Anchored’s COC Report
Ron and I were super stoked to have the privilege to participate in the COC this year. Since it’s inception, three years ago, fishing this event has been at the top of my list of things to do. We did not get to prefish at all for this one. My last trips to Catalina and San Clemente Island in November yielded very limited success, but I was stoked and we made a plan to fish the backside of SCI both days of the COC. For the entire week before the event, I had trouble sleeping. While visions of sugar plumbs danced in some people’s heads, I had KelpKritters, swimbaits, and Calico bass swimming though mine. Thursday night, before the event finally arrived and my boat and gear were locked and loaded. Ron and I both decided it would be best for our employers to work on Friday, and although we got a late start, we made the crossing from Huntington Harbor to Two Harbors in less than an hour – just in time to grab a mooring can and get into the Harbor Reef restaurant for the Captain’s Meeting. At the captain’s meeting, we received the good news that most of SCI was going to be open for both days of the event.
Day 1
We woke up at 3:30AM amping for the 5AM start. A couple of guys were so amped they didn’t even sleep that night. They just hung out and swapped stories under the cabana. The first hour of making our way to SCI was a bit sketchy as there was no moon, and no stars due to cloud cover. Running at 25 MPH not being able to see anything in front of you is a trip, but we made the 50 + mile trek to the backside middle of SCI in less than 2 hours. We soon found the fishing to be tough – PERIOD. Basically, there were really small windows and spots that bit. We got into a nice spot of Calicos that bit for about an hour and a half. Ron got on the board first with a long and skinny one. We thought it was going to be heavier, but it ended up weighing 4.33# – she looked heavier. We rounded out the limit with another 4 pounder and a couple 3’s. Then, kind of like a light switch was turned off, we did not find any more biters. We reeled them in and fished most of the water from the backside middle, east all the way around to some front side spots. Other than the fish we caught at the hot spot, we only caught one other Calico – it was on the front side, but she wasn’t quite big enough to cull out our smallest. Conditions were decent; we had a 4-6 foot NW swell breaking on most of the points, and wrapping into most of the coves, but very little current, and tough to fish, especially with the ripping 5-8 knot NW winds. We made it back to the weigh in with time to spare. We traveled over 130 miles and weighed in 16.59 #’s – good enough for 9th place!!!
Day 2
We ran straight to our hot spot on the backside of SCI. The seas were a little smoother, but we still had a modest 4-5 NW swell and 3-6 knots of NW wind. We found some biters right away, but it was a real pick bite with no real pattern to it – some were caught on a slow crawl, some we caught burning it to the boat and when you stopped it at the
boat they’d eat it. I even got one on a 6-inch slug. Unfortunately we had a very small limit and it was time to just go fishing.
Since we traveled East on Day 1, it made sense to work our way West. I began to get discouraged as we passed team after team who were working the opposite direction, and we were not catching any fish. The conditions just felt wrong. Although there was plenty of swell and wind, there was no current and the kelp was just laying on the surface. We finally found some ripping current, but it was out on a high spot and it was going the opposite way of the wind and swell; kind of tough conditions to fish…..we never even got a bite.
We passed a bunch of the coast/kelp and traveled all the way around the west end and down the front past the closures, and began fishing the shallow kelps. Ron got one more biter who culled out a really small fish. That was our last bite of the tournament. We ended the day with 7.57 pounds. Unfortunately our small limit on Day 2 pushed us down to 16th place – 24.16 pounds. If I had to do it all over again, I would have just stuck it out on the backside on day 2. Apparently, we drove right past the areas where many of the winning limits came from. Got to hand it to Evan and Jared of Team Basstic, we were neck and neck going into Day 2, but they remained consistent on Day 2, weighed another 16+ pounds and were able to win 4th place and a decent check!
Congratulations to JB and Doug for setting a new COC record (49.45#’s) and pulling down the win!
I’d also like to give a huge thanks to Brant McGlothlin and Carne Theresa for your sponsorship of the event and our team.
Thanks to EB, James, Super Susan, Craig, and all the anglers who make the SWBA events so much fun to compete in. Everything is run so smoothly, and everyone gets along like one big happy family!
You can view the final weigh in sheet here:
http://www.saltwaterbassanglers.com/2011cocweighin.htm
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