Hammerhead Hunting California Style

Left Monterey at 4pm after class and drove 6hrs south to Longbeach. Only got 2hrs of sleep (night before only had an hour and a half due to college life) before we headed off. On the water by 5, pick up bait and were off. Our ride was a custom built 40' aluminum with twin Volvos aka the perfect boat in my mind.

Head out to Catalina and start trolling.

Me and Ray were on paddy watch in the tuna tower.

Found a couple small paddies, but it was really slow, with only a tuna and couple YT.

Decide to head long and troll all the way out past Clamente. Even after a long hall we couldn't find the fish.

Towards late evening we decide to call it a day and start heading back. After an hour, the idea of mooring at Catalina came up. We didn't have to be back to school until Monday and no one wanted to drive back in the chop that night. So we made port in Catalina had a delicious dinner at the Lobster Trap and headed back to the boat. For my first time to Catalina I found it to be a very cool (and overpriced) place, with only two kinds of people, rich tourists and rich fishermen (met a couple marlin fishermen this trip who gave us some tips). Ray and I decided to try for some rays in the bay, and since we were fishing such tight quarters to the other mooring lines we were fishing Tiagra 30w's with 80lb mono locked down. No rays wanted to play, but we both caught a horn shark and I caught a legal sized lobster, to bad it was early.

Only slept for about two hours that night (on a table mind you) before heading back to the fishing grounds.

Being that our captain had a little to much to drink, Ray took the wheel while I rode shotgun on the way out.

We headed to 207 and very quickly started spotting paddies. The first one we pull up to had a few football tuna under it and one lonely dodo.

Very quickly the sharks showed up. One big 8-9' hammerhead and a smaller 5-6' hammer. Since there weren't any fish of size around we cut off a tuna head, rigged a steel leader on the Avet Raptor and chucked it out. Ray hooked up the big one and fought it for about 5min before it dove under the boat and cut him off. After a couple more unsuccessful drifts by the paddy another nice hammer comes up boat side and is obviously hungry. I quickly rerig the Avet and toss a belly strip of dodo out. Hook up and the fight is on. It stayed close by for a couple minutes, than took off for the bottom. Nearly 400yds strait down it went, then slowly cut back towards the surface. After a 35-40min battle we get it boat side and see it is a 7.5' ~150lb Smooth Hammerhead that was hooked on the dorsal. Captain said he wanted to get it on the deck (I had hoped for a release, but he is the captain). After a hell of a battle boat side we are finally able to pull the hammer in. It was exciting and sad at the same time to see my first big pelagic shark on the deck.

After a short discussion it is decided the shark is better off being let go, so we put a hose in its mouth and once it is showing good signs of life we put it back in the water. It still needed some more help to get going so I through on a mask and jump in. Everyone thought I was crazy swimming this hammerhead through the water, but it was one of the craziest experiences ever. After about 5min it slowly swims away and disappears into the depths.

The rest of the trip yielded a few more tuna and YT.

Also saw a 5-6' mako on the way in (I wanted to catch it but it was getting late as it was). Ended the trip with 11 YFT, 8 YT, 1 Dodo, 1 Smooth Hammerhead and 2 Horn Sharks.

Made port around 7 and headed back to Rays house. We weren't able to leave until 9:45 with a 6hr ride home and Ray had class at 8am. Made it home at 4:30am with 21lbs of tuna and dorado meat.

One hell of a trip, added three species to my life list putting me into the 90s, my biggest shark, and again proved to Ray that the Curado 300EJ can get sh** done.

Post Report-Tuna is equal to currency, also is a great way to make friends in college and impress the girls by cooking up some fresh caught fish that YOU caught.