Although attendance seemed below what we had last year, many FIB’ers came out to participate in what has become a tradition with the FIB’ers – The July Monthly Meeting with special guest: Chef Daniel Mattos.
The meeting began with a short devotion and announcements. One highlight was hearing about Tom and Val’s recent 3rd place finish at the SWBA event in Marina Del Rey.
Not only did they break a long streak of bad luck with their new boat, but they managed to beat nearly the entire field of the West Coast’s best anglers with an impressive 23.17 pound 5-fish limit, and they burned less than a gallon of fuel fishing the breakwater right in front of the harbor! Another FIB’er team who finished well in the last SWBA event were the Bassbusters Jim Kiech and Dave Shill.
It was shared how they placed 7th while accomplishing a few firsts for them in a tournament. They caught all of their fish while on the anchor, they broke the 20 pound glass ceiling with an impressive 20.34 pound 5-fish limit and they had their best finish in an SWBA event. The winners of the FIB’er Long Beach Calico Coastal event, Eric and Jerry Bent, told a humorous story of how they nearly caught two Calicos with one cast.No one spins a fishing story quite like EB, so you kind of had to be there to get the full effect, but while they were fishing a boiler off of Palos Verdes, Jerry hooked a nice Calico on a 7-inch Gulp Jerk Shad. While he was fighting the fish, he noticed another Calico biting at the Jerk Shad that was hanging out of the hooked fish’s mouth, so he told EB, “Net ‘em both!”
EB tried, but was not able to….Jerry and EB graciously donated their winnings back to the club – Very Cool! Thanks guys!
Fresh from the Pacific Voyager 2-day trip, an Albacore was donated by Jim Kiech for the cooking demonstration.
Chef Daniel Mattos spoke on a number of topics, most of which were generated by our questions throughout his seminar. He prepared a fresh salad with seared Albacore, and ceviche Albacore (fish that is “cooked” by the acids from citruses such as lemons, and grapefruit).
Daniel spoke about knife sharpening while he demonstrated the proper way to cut a mango, and a grapefruit. He also provided several tips on how to make each meal more appetizing by manipulating its presentation.
Immediately following Daniel’s presentation, every one lined up to get a taste of Daniel’s cuisine, and even though he made plenty, none of his delicious offerings were left over.
We look forward to seeing you at the Newport Harbor event on July 24th and our next monthly meeting on August 19th when we will have Bob Hoose as our guest speaker – you will not want to miss one!