It’s fall, and when the crew goes fishing they show what’s really on tap
MERIT MCCREA
SAN DIEGO – Captain and owner of the half-day boat Daily Double out of Point Loma Sportfishing decided this past week it was time for a crew trip to reward his crew for another great season. Working on a sportboat is a career of passion. It’s all about fishing, nobody works on the water or stays doing it just for the job and the money.
So – catches and fish counts are the result of more than the captain’s ability to put anglers on fish, more than the crew’s skill at spotting kelps from the rooftops. What happens is talent attracts talent. Good captains attract good crews. In turn those operations attract the most skillful anglers as well. It all builds on itself and the result is consistently superior catches.
But what role does having anglers that really know how to fish, folks that have been on the water a lot recently play? The answer is – a huge one. On any given trip you’ve been out on, imagine if every angler aboard caught a catch similar to the one the hottest stick aboard did?
Well, that’s a crew trip. While many wish they could have been on deck on the crew trip too, those catches are about more than just being there, and it’s likely that you were there when the bite was just as good, but lines were snarled and snapping all around you.
On a typical trip lots of guys get bit and miss. Many are wasting time working through their itinerary of tackle and tricks that worked last year, last decade, maybe even their line is last decade too still. Maybe skills are rusty, all the bait in the hand well is mashed and crushed by the guy there before you who struggled to fish one out of there.
It’s just that only that hot stick had the full set of skills, recent knowledge and gear for making the most of the bite that particular day.
Alternatively, imagine a deck where there were never any crossed lines rubbing, no one is having to be pushed to follow their fish. There are never any loose slack lines coming from down the rail or from under the boat.
Imagine if every angler on deck was able to hold their rod with one hand and stick a gaff into their own fish with the other. On crew trips typically everyone’s fishing. No one is “working” the deck. Maybe the guy next to you will one-hand stick your fish if he’s not bit. And if he does he’s going to leave your fish on the deck for you to deal with, maybe just hand you the gaff with the fish still on it.
Perhaps only private boaters really understand how much crew help comes to you aboard a partyboat – from supplies and prep (fuel, food, water, ice) to tackle on deck and assistance around obstacles and out of messes when fighting fish, boating them, icing them and even clean-up. So what happened for the guys on that half-day-boat crew trip? Huber posted “We had very good yellowtail fishing…and then as it got dark the white seabass came through.”
So, they had 50 nice-grade yellows during daylight and topped that with 37 white seabass after nightfall – fishing local waters out of San Diego! That’s what happens when your Captains and crews get a shot at some uninterrupted rail time themselves. The more you go, the more you know, and the captains and crews go just about daily.
