There is a young man, we’ll call him young Garrett, who was born about a year ago with a hole in his heart. This situation was entirely unacceptable to his family and friends…. Now, a faith in God and the power of positive thinking, along with a healthy dose of skilled surgeons fixed that problem, or at least is well on it’s way to being fixed. By the power of positive thinking the decision was made to get Young Garrett started as an archer, at the tender age of 3 months. Every archer needs a good bow to call his own, so a friend donated Young Garrett a 50 lb. draw recurve. Obviously Garrett won’t a have a need for such a bow for some time but a bunch of us from around the country decided that maybe we’d use Young Garrett’s bow, just to build up the MOJO so to speak. In it’s travels Garrett’s bow has harvested turkeys and deer, but right now they are out of season. So,,,,when my turn came up to give Garrett’s bow a stretch I took it fishing, errrr I mean hunting, except only it was in the Pacific Ocean…. I say I took the bow hunting in the ocean since what I do is not much like fishing, it’s a lot more like hunting. Hunting in the ocean requires the hunter to travel vast distances, scan the surface for the prey, set out a bait station, deliver that wonderful fishy scent, stalk that prey, make the shot, and unlike hunting often requires a fair amount of wrestling the critter aboard the boat. In short, Ocean hunting is about just too much fun for one man to have.
I am happy to report to Young Garrett, that I helped to put some MOJO smack on Garrett’s bow!
The ocean trip started out of Dana Point California. Dana Point is a small harbor in Orange County California. Due west about 30 miles is Santa Catalina Island. A quick stop off at the local fish market netted me the prior day’s fish trimmings which I use in a slop bucket off the swim step of the boat to create a chum slick. Then it’s off we go.
The continental shelf lies from shore to about 2-3 miles off the coast. You can watch the depth finder go from 110 feet to over 600 feet in the space of just a few hundred yards. I don’t even know how deep it gets there since my depth finder only goes to 660 feet. The mornings are typically mill pond flat ocean surface and the afternoons can get snotty with the wind picking up. Today was no exception.
The fishing zone for spotting sharks is from 10 miles out from the mainland to well past Catalina. How far do you want to go? How much gas you got in that tank? Now these big rascals can be seen sunning themselves sometimes with a fin sticking out of the water at the surface of 600 feet of water. Completely nothing around you for literally miles except water. Makes for a challenging stalk. Bob around the waves in a 20 foot boat 15 miles off shore, out of sight of land and you realize just how small 20 feet is.
As I am driving out toward Catalina on this fine sunny day I see a pod, herd, stampede, pack (call the group what you want) of thousands of Dolphins. Man they were just everywhere jumping swimming and having a good ole- time. They like to run 5 feet off the bow and surf in the boat’s wake Nooooo we don’t shoots at the Dolphins…….
Topic: A Good Day Hunting on the Water... (Read 2778 times)
