Took a little trip out on The Blue Horizon out of the Oceanside Sea Center on wed, 9/7. I thought I'd write up a summary for anyone thinking about giving this little landing a chance.
Background: fished in Oceanside many times last year on the Chubasco, 3/4s and halfs, good inshore fishing. Easy mellow trips. Went out on the Constitution 9/1, a fine boat imo that I fished many times and never had issues with. Personally caught 29 dorado, most in a day for me by far. My father thought that sounded like fun so him and another older friend had me set up a trip for us. They wanted a smaller boat with less people, no 50 person dorado mayhem crowds. We did a very nice trip on the Outrider in SD recently and had a top notch time with those guys. Small fast boats with light crowds are perfect for my Dad, who isn't a fan of battle fishing. So I booked us a trio of tickets on the Blue Horizon. Limit 22 passengers, looked fast. Some questionable fish counts mixed into this insane dorado bite but I thought hey that's no problem, not everyone nails it every day perfectly...
The Trip: We got there at 5, boarded by 5:25. Boat looked fine, little cramped but not terrible. They had blocked off the bunk rooms wich made me a little bummed, since I do like to drop into a bunk and sleep a couple hours for the ride home on most all day trips. Whatever, they don't want to clean another room, thats fine. I can stand around and talk too.
The vibe from the crew was a little down since they had missed the hot bite for a few days in a row, but we had high hopes of glory anyways. We grabbed a bit of bait, decent looking bait, and headed on out to sea. I was a little surprised at how extremely noticably slow the boat was moving...but again thats fine. I fish slow old boats sometimes and I know its all about getting there, doing things right, and making the fishing happen. We don't need to be first, just need to find our sportboat friends and join the party...
We chugged on out and north, not seeing any kelps. Around 10 we got up to the grounds, found our first kelp, tossed a couple baits way outside, no biters. Thats fine, they don't always bite. But the private boat next to use was full wipe open hookups...oh well on to find our own.
Which we DID!!!
We came up on one of those epic looking double kelps with dodos jumping everywhere, around 12:30. Better late than never! Haha glory was to be ours! When the deckhand, whose name I "forget" came on down to get the bait, he cheerily told us its all dead, except for a couple big macs twitching at the bottom.
The guy had pulled out a grate of some kind a while earlier and whatever it did it caused the tank to stop intaking fresh water, so in the hot noon sun they did not last long.
One lucky guy got one dorado on a chunked dean, pretty neat. I had one come up and headbutt my chunk but no bite. A off duty deckhand going for a free ride got one other dorado on a half dead mac. Another hard won catch. And then it was pain time...
Came up on yet another magic kelp with a sportboat bent all over their rails who wanted to share with us. We stopped, threw colt snipers etc but no takers. And thats how it went on our way back home. Saw a lot of fish in the water, saw a lot of people bent. No apology from the crew for killing the bait. Not even an acknowledgement that it was an issue...just fishing I guess. But this was a bit harder fishing than I felt was necessary.
Mario did a fine job cooking and seemed to be the only guy who cared that all our bait died.
So thats a little trip report for you guys. Some things for yourselves to consider as you book your next outing. I personally wont be booking any more from the Oceanside Sea Center. I do not feel like they provide a safe, productive, or fun experience. In the last year I have done trips on the Intrepid, Polaris Supreme, Constitution, Producer, Outrider, Pride, Fury, Clemente, and likely more I am just forgetting. I would fish with any of them again without hesitation. The Blue Horizon I will pass on
Background: fished in Oceanside many times last year on the Chubasco, 3/4s and halfs, good inshore fishing. Easy mellow trips. Went out on the Constitution 9/1, a fine boat imo that I fished many times and never had issues with. Personally caught 29 dorado, most in a day for me by far. My father thought that sounded like fun so him and another older friend had me set up a trip for us. They wanted a smaller boat with less people, no 50 person dorado mayhem crowds. We did a very nice trip on the Outrider in SD recently and had a top notch time with those guys. Small fast boats with light crowds are perfect for my Dad, who isn't a fan of battle fishing. So I booked us a trio of tickets on the Blue Horizon. Limit 22 passengers, looked fast. Some questionable fish counts mixed into this insane dorado bite but I thought hey that's no problem, not everyone nails it every day perfectly...
The Trip: We got there at 5, boarded by 5:25. Boat looked fine, little cramped but not terrible. They had blocked off the bunk rooms wich made me a little bummed, since I do like to drop into a bunk and sleep a couple hours for the ride home on most all day trips. Whatever, they don't want to clean another room, thats fine. I can stand around and talk too.
The vibe from the crew was a little down since they had missed the hot bite for a few days in a row, but we had high hopes of glory anyways. We grabbed a bit of bait, decent looking bait, and headed on out to sea. I was a little surprised at how extremely noticably slow the boat was moving...but again thats fine. I fish slow old boats sometimes and I know its all about getting there, doing things right, and making the fishing happen. We don't need to be first, just need to find our sportboat friends and join the party...
We chugged on out and north, not seeing any kelps. Around 10 we got up to the grounds, found our first kelp, tossed a couple baits way outside, no biters. Thats fine, they don't always bite. But the private boat next to use was full wipe open hookups...oh well on to find our own.
Which we DID!!!
We came up on one of those epic looking double kelps with dodos jumping everywhere, around 12:30. Better late than never! Haha glory was to be ours! When the deckhand, whose name I "forget" came on down to get the bait, he cheerily told us its all dead, except for a couple big macs twitching at the bottom.
The guy had pulled out a grate of some kind a while earlier and whatever it did it caused the tank to stop intaking fresh water, so in the hot noon sun they did not last long.
One lucky guy got one dorado on a chunked dean, pretty neat. I had one come up and headbutt my chunk but no bite. A off duty deckhand going for a free ride got one other dorado on a half dead mac. Another hard won catch. And then it was pain time...
Came up on yet another magic kelp with a sportboat bent all over their rails who wanted to share with us. We stopped, threw colt snipers etc but no takers. And thats how it went on our way back home. Saw a lot of fish in the water, saw a lot of people bent. No apology from the crew for killing the bait. Not even an acknowledgement that it was an issue...just fishing I guess. But this was a bit harder fishing than I felt was necessary.
Mario did a fine job cooking and seemed to be the only guy who cared that all our bait died.
So thats a little trip report for you guys. Some things for yourselves to consider as you book your next outing. I personally wont be booking any more from the Oceanside Sea Center. I do not feel like they provide a safe, productive, or fun experience. In the last year I have done trips on the Intrepid, Polaris Supreme, Constitution, Producer, Outrider, Pride, Fury, Clemente, and likely more I am just forgetting. I would fish with any of them again without hesitation. The Blue Horizon I will pass on
