Report by, Jayson Quimby
In a word, we struggled. Everything seemed to be pointing to a successful white seabass catching trip, but when it was all said and done, no white seabass were ever caught by us on this charter. We had live squid, great weather, nice tide exchanges, and even a fully booked charter with 10 other FIB’ers joining me aboard one of the most beautiful charter boats on the entire coast!
We fished the backside and some of the front side of Catalina hard for 1.5 days, but we never managed to connect with the white seabass we were on the hunt for. We did manage to catch quite a few Calico bass, 2 halibut, and several big bat rays. Although it hurts to think about, the captain and crew went back out the next day with their next charter and caught over 30 fat white seabass……as they say, “That’s white seabass fishing for you.”

For a short video captured by Walt Galen:

Round #4 of the SWBA took place in Newport Harbor on June 11.

62 teams lined up East of the PCH bridge for what would turn out to be a great event for some and a stumbling block to others. The format is simple: catch 5 of the heaviest Spotted Bay Bass over 13 inches you can catch in an 8 hour time slot and bring them back to the scales alive. Oh yeah, you have to do this without using any kind of bait because only artificial lures are allowed! At the end of the day, 34 teams did not catch a limit of Spotted Bay Bass and 10 teams weighed no fish at all. As you know, the FIB’ers have four teams competing in the series this year. Each of them did well, and this may help to secure their spots in the season finale in October.
Round #4 Results:
7th place: Shaka – Roy Fukushima & Frank Wong

11th place: Anchored – Ron Withers & Jayson Quimby


13th place(First out of the $$): Bassbusters – Jim Kiech & Dave Shill
26th place: Reef Runner – Tom & Val Handzus

The next event is an all night event held out of Long Beach on July 9th.
Going into the final two events the FIB’er teams are looking really strong, and each of them hope to qualify for the finale:
5th: Shaka
9th: Bassbusters
12th: Reefrunner
20th: Anchored

More images of the event can be viewed here:Round 4 Photos

We have a couple more spots for our June 15-16 Reverse 1.5 Day Charter on The Outrider. Book your spot by calling Dave Shill (949)246-6646
The Outrider – first FIB’ers trip of the year June 1-2,2011
The trip started with 7 happy anglers. When we looked into the bait tank there were already live squid swimming around. The skipper said that if we wanted to get more squid we would need to travel to Long Beach, but we decided not to do that. When we got out of the harbor we were met with 6-8 ft seas and wind at 20-30 knots. The boat road very well in the roughness and in about 3 hours we were fishing the front side of Catalina. Our first stop we had no fish, our second stop we had no fish, then at 6:30 we got a very few small calico bass. David was the first angler to catch the first white sea bass and he had the fish to the gaff in about 10 minutes. At about 7:30 we moved to a new location, it turned out to be a good spot as we had about 2-3 white sea bass hooked up at the same time. Everyone had at least one sea bass the first night. The crew helped with a few hand offs to our group. Floyd and David each had two for their first night of fishing. The bite stopped at about 8 pm, so we all went into the galley to have dinner. In the evening time the crew looked for squid, but they didn’t find any. Thursday morning some anglers were up at 5:30 and by 6:30 everyone is up and fishing. Paula got the morning going with a nice leopard shark, then Jim had what we thought was a nice sea bass, but as it got closer to the boat it turned out to be a batray. Then Bill caught a shovel nose shark. By 8:30 still no Sea Bass, the Captain said that he is marking fish under the boat, there are about 6 boats all around us and we are still not able to hook up any White Sea Bass. Through out the day we made 3 or 4 more moves and only caught a few calico bass. There were only 4 of us fishing at 2:40 in the afternoon. I started it out with my first white sea bass, there were two more hookups right away. Now everyone was pinning on fresh squid. After I landed my first fish I tied on a new hook and cast out and was hooked up with another white sea bass. The crew helped me 3 times around the anchor line. When I had landed it, it turned out to be the jackpot fish for Thursday. Thursday we ended up with 5 fish and on Weds the fish count was 9. That afternoon we weighed all the fish we had caught on Wednesday, Ken had the winning fish on Weds. Kens white sea bass went for 24.7 lbs. Mine went 26.3 lbs. Altogether we had limits of white sea bass and about 5 calico bass. Jim Kiech earlier had caught a nice black sea bass that was about 30 lbs. Took some great pictures and released the fish, he swam away in good condition.

PS The only way that I catch fish is because my wife prays, thanks Julia
Thanks, Rick Chalmers