**Candy Catchers Pro Staffer Mike "Kojak" Pruner
Mike "Flipper" Thompson

Whether its fishing for crabs, lobsters or monster Seabass, Flipper spends more time on the water than anyone I know! He believes in Candy Catchers and were super lucky to have him on our team! And ya know what.....He Can Wrap Rods the Most Insane Rods!
Mirage strikes again! 64 BUTTS 7-11-06
Report by flipper,

Hey all! I finally got time to write up a report for Tuesdays trip on the Mirage....

Little did I know I would be apart of a record breaking trip, but late Monday my buddy Chris (legal ling) told me I had to get aboard for that nights trip... so why not, I did! Lots of friends were already signed up (mark, Dave, Bruce, precious, and of course Chris), and at 9:30pm we departed the docks ready for a chance of a lifetime.
With 60 halibut being caught on the trip prior, hopes were high for everyone... not expecting to even get close to that number of fish, but simply get a chance at a nice flattie and catch a glimpse of the past, remembering tails of "the way things used to be" for some of the old timers
Needless to say several of us had problems sleeping... but bait was to be made and I had a few candy catcher jigs to hand out. Pickings of squid were slow, but the 4x4 jig made it easy for me to put a few good pieces in the tank.
I then caught a couple of hours sleep, and was woken up by Chris at sunrise... the bite had begun!
Got my boots and jacket on, rand up on deck to find a foggy morning and halibut on the chew (i think 4 fish had already been landed). I was pre-rigged so I started with a 25lb mono dropper rig 3/0 lite-wire circle hook. Took only about 10 minutes before I was on... yeah! ..after a tangle the gaff was sunk by tucker and i had a seabass to start the day... awesome! ..but this was only the beginning.
Quickly pinning on a dead squid, I dropped again. Took another few minutes, but BAM... I was on, and this time it was surely a flattie. The deckhands were really on it! Tucker, over my shoulder with the gaff slapped a nice fish on deck for me -nice gaff shot tuck!
Meanwhile... Chris was still working for his first fish, his lady had one seabass, Bruce had a couple, Mark had one I think, and Dave was lighting it up with at least 4 by 8am!
I quickly studied what Dave was doing and found he was using the bounce-back technique with a white buck-tail jig with a whole squid pinned to it.
I didn't have a buck-tail, but did have one of those new Blade-Runner jigs 2oz scrambled-egg.
First cast, the head was bit off my squid... Second cast... WHAMMMOooo!
I think I lost only one fish, and had 3 halibut and 2 seabass in my bag by 10am.
Some time passed before I hooked up again, but It did give me a good chance to observe the may-lay going on all around the boat. Never before had I seen anything like it... it seemed almost freakish! 25-45 pound halibut flopping all over the deck, with the sweat sound of a "Pinging" t-ball bat!

I sat back and thought to myself... Wow, but no time to think.. FISH ON!!!


Time passes fast on trips like this, so I tried to soak it up as much as possible... yes, blood too.. but mostly knowing I may never see anything like this again for the rest of my life.

by 12:45pm we all had multiple fish. I lucked out and had already got my limit of seabass (3) and needed one more halibut to limit out completely.
Louie the skipper made the announcement that we would be heading home in 15 minutes. A quick count was soon taken, and we found we needed only 4 more fish on the boat to break the previous days record of 60 halibut, all while enduring the longest dry-spell of the day (30 minutes).
Instead of giving it up for the day, the crew and anglers got together to rally another bite... and somehow it worked! Rods started to bend again with 10 minutes to go... two more landed and two more lost.
Bruce then gets bit... then almost as quick, my rod goes bendo!
Everyone around us made way... knowing these two fish had to get boated..
Bruce gets his fish to color, and quickly its brought aboard - #60 !!! ...The heat was on me now, but with rail room and a sure gaff-man... #61 was mine!
High-5's all around the stern... but it wasn't over just yet. Three more hookups had begun... all landed!
So with 64 halibut and 14 white seabass overflowing our sacks we headed home.

jackpot was won my Mark Kiel 45lb halibut

With everyone in a daze from the mind blowing experience of the day... a moment of distress came over the boat.
I jumped out of my bunk to find an overturned commercial fishing boat outside the galley window. Everyone hit the rail in curiosity, but that quickly turned into concern.
But, after contact with the US Coast Guard we found this boat had already been reported.
That didn't stop most of us from hitting the bow on the look out for its crew.
Several passengers are commercial fisherman, or family members of... scary moment for lots of us.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be the vessel that most of you have already heard about going down at Santa Cruz island. 2 men didn't make it, but luckily one was spared to tell there story. A very sad ending to an otherwise storybook day.

Sorry for the long report guys, but this one really deserved it.

total count for flipper
limits of HALIBUT (5) - 39, 36, 35, 31, 26 POUNDS! (3 on bait & 3 on iron/jigs)
limits of SEABASS (3) - 27, 22, 18 pounds (2 on bait & 1 on iron/jigs)





PICTURES TO COME SOON... waiting on the development of film.
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