On Sunday 08/20/2006 Peter Draper and friends were ready for some yellowtail action. Bait was in thin supply. The bait boat searched all of Santa Monica Bay looking. They were in the LA Harbor the previous two nights. We did get a couple scoops of the small pinhead bait for chum. It took us a while to snag a great grade of mackerel for the yellows. The fish have been a little picky about the mackerel. They seem to want smaller ones, but we got them for this trip.

It was about time to leave for the island if we were going to go across. There was enough bait to give it a good shot, but it would have been nice to have another 50 or more mackerel. As it was we were going to arrive at about ten, so we had to get going. When we arrived I expected to have about fifty boats on the spot. As we got there I could not believe what I saw. There were three sport boats and several private boats there, but the place I wanted to anchor was wide open. We slid in and started chumming. Soon Gary Elmer was on. Gary got the first yellowtail on the boat about ten minutes after the anchor hit bottom. We had a pretty steady bite for the next couple of hours. Gary was the hot stick with five yellowtail. His son Garrett did ok too. He caught his first yellowtail and won the jackpot with the same fish. When it was noted that it was his first yellowtail, Mike Kelley was quick to mention that Garrett was supposed to eat the heart. Garrett did not think that was a great idea.

As the action went on, guess who also caught his first yellowtail. Mike Kelley was now on the hot seat with the beating heart from his first yellowtail on the cutting board. Mike sucked it up and put the heart in his mouth. He tried to swallow it a couple times and had to get something to drink. Finally down it went and Mike had done his deed. He then asked Max Sudds if he would eat the heart if he caught a yellow. Max said he would and we had to get Max bit. Soon it was Max’s turn. Max made good on his promise. Later Max hooked another good fish. He did a very good job in battling a good one to the boat. He just missed taking the jackpot from Garrett, but Garrett’s fish held on to win. The fish slowed down for a while just before we were out of bait. The last fifteen minutes or so they seemed to start biting again. We ran out of bait as the fish seemed to get going again, but the guys were pretty happy with the day. We finished up with 18 yellows and some big bonito.