It never ceases to amaze me just how small this world can be. There are many people we will never meet, and yet we all have only a slight degree of separation from them and the folks we see everyday. So you can only imagine how stupefied I was when I took out Darren, only to find out that he had been on my boat once before... before it was mine... that is.

Since his wife was in town for a convention, Darren was in town for the fishing. I picked him up from his hotel the first day, and literally drove across the street to the Dana Launch Ramp on Mission Bay. The tide wasn't necessarily against us, but the tide and wind fought each other most of the day. That didn't stop Darren from catching a few fish though. Unfortunately, he and I both left our cameras elsewhere. This proved really infelicitous when he caught a 30" Halibut. It was a beautiful fish that was not happy about being fooled by a three inch white grub. None-the-less, we both got cell phone shots of this amazing beast, and released it for another day. Although our snaggletooth buddies never showed, there were plenty of spotted sand bass to be had. Best bait proved to be the Laser Lure.

We started our next day in San Diego Bay, launching out of Shelter Island. We headed to my favorite jetty area, and Darren took right to the Laser lure, and immediately got hooked up on Calicos to three pounds, and a Barracuda. Then I finally convinced him to try the Tenacious spinnerbait. It took no time for a three pound (plus) Sand Bass to prove to Darren why we throw them big blades. After that, I had no trouble at all getting him to throw it more. He even caught a few more Calicos on the spinnerbait.

I really wanted him to see the whole San Diego Bay fishing picture, so we ran south for some Bonefish, and maybe even a Corvina finally. We made a few stops along the way, and on one of the stops, Darren convinced a beastly Sand Bass to hit the big Tenacious spinnerbait. Due to the chop, the X-Tools never settled on any one weight. It went from 4.34 to 4.80 pounds. So let's just call it a four and a half pounder. Shall we?

It took two stops; a few Croaker, and a Smooth Hound Sand Shark for Darren to get his first Bonefish, and boy was it a ride. It truly is a treat to see someone catch a big (for our area) Halibut, several good sized Bass, and a Sand Shark, get hooked up on a little 1-1/2 pound Bonefish. It's like nothing else. That one little fish immediately becomes the star of the trip.  It truly was a blast. Or as Darren put it on another fishing site, "Needless to say, I had a blast, the trip was great. I caught more fish and more types of fish in those two days then I had all year."