San Clemente Island 7/13-7/16

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Dove San Clemente Island Friday through Monday with my Dad, brother Bryan, and buddies Michael and Alex. Vis varied everywhere from 15ft to 50ft and was really inconsistent. Some dives we'd jump in to see 40ft vis only to have green 20ft visibility water roll in an hour later. Clarity was also variable by depth, tending to be hazy right on the surface, clear from 5-30ft, then green green below that. Temps ranged from 61 to 71. It tended to be 64ish in Pyramid/China and 68ish on the east side.

Yellowtail were in, but hard to connect with. Had many more sightings than landings. Total of 5 yellows landed from 25 to 36 pounds. Nearly all of the yellows we saw were estimated over 20 pounds. The 3 fish we landed on one dive went 34, 34, 36. Dove hard for halibut at our best spots for nada. Checked the south and east side beds for seabass. No ghosts seen in the south, a pair of small schoolies sighted on the east side, but none shot. I understand from Joe Farlo's report that there were seabass around and I'm pretty sure we hit the same beds he did, but we just weren't in the right place at the right time I guess. We didn't put too much time toward hunting calicos, but I did see some real lunkers. Unfortunately those sightings all seemed to come when I was holding off for seabass and/or had the sliptip on. My buddy landed a chubby 6.5 pound calico on the last afternoon of the trip, though.

It was a trip with some pretty incredible moments. First of which was on the way out to the island Friday morning. We headed to the 43 on our way to the island to see if the paddy yellows might be starting up (all paddies seen were dry dry, not even all that much bait on them). Upon arriving at the 43, however, we saw a large pod of blue whales (5-8 individuals) seeming to just mill around. Watching them for a while, we realized that they were feeding. We marveled as they would turn sideways, open their mouth wide and engulf however many hundreds of gallons of seawater and prey. Prior to the trip, I decided that if we came upon whales and the moment seemed right, I wanted to try to dive with them. Well, this seemed like the perfect opportunity, so we suited up and hopped in the whaler to get close to them. Bryan put Alex, Michael and myself in perfect position to dive in and catch about a 10 second glimpse of these massive animals swimming away from us. Its a moment I won't soon forget.

Perhaps the most amazing moment of the trip, though, came on the first dive at the island later that afternoon. We were in the water at a yellowtail spot on the east side of the island. Sitting outside this boiler rock, waiting for the yellows to show up, a school of what I first supposed were very large bonito came breezing through... Except they seemed too fat to be bonito... it wasn't until my brother yelled "BLUEFIN TUNA!!!!" that I realized what we were seeing. All four of the spearos in the water had independent sightings of the school (or multiple schools?) of bluefin over about an hour period. Unfortunately no one was able to close the gap to less than about 25 feet or so. Still an incredible sight to have within a hundred yards of shore.

We had an absolutely great time out there. Ton of fun hanging out with family and buddies and spending the majority of our waking hours in the water. The surface conditions could hardly have been better, with glass calm greeting us most mornings on the lee side. All in all, we came home feeling like we didn't quite land as many fish as we should have for how many seemed to be out there, but considering the pile of fresh yellowtail we put in the fridge, I'm definitely not complaining.

Here are some pics.