Dude! Looks great!

The yellowtail you just caught I assume

The 2026 Football Pick'em League is back online and let me know if any of you degenerate gamblers want to join in for the measly cost of $30 for the entire season!

I know Jeremy and Kogacrap are going to be signed up.  It's super easy and fun to play.  Just let me know.

I have to be honest, that was the first time I remember seeing a Livingston in real life.  It really looked like a great platform.  I couldn't tell the length, but it seemed bigger than 16', or at least more boat than usual 16 footers.

My plan was to get out on the water Saturday to unwind from my usual hell week. The girls wanted do a family movie day which messed up my plans since I wanted to get to Kevin's Party later that day and now something had to give...  I decided to just fish Sunday instead.

We saw The Odessey in IMAXX and I really liked it!  It was a different rendition of what I remember reading, but the acting was really well done and I thought it was a good call to see it in the movie theatre!

We got back and I headed to Kevin's to meet up with some buddy's I haven't seen in a bit.  Long story short and we were doing shots off shot glasses that were epoxied to a snow ski... 

Thankfully home wasn't far away!  lol

Next morning and it was a struggle to motivate, but I did.

I was launching when Jeremy's future boat was being dropped in.



The water was crazy warm heading out the inlet.



I found the fleet of 100 boats all piled up in the same area.  I tried fishing it, but was over that quickly.  I also couldn't find the fresh squid I brought with me (I swore I packed it) so now I had to just wing it with lures.



I went inside to stay away from everyone else!



I didn't see much in the way of bait but there was plenty of dolphin around.



I was ready to call it since I didn't even get as much as a sniff all morning.  Then it sounded like a dolphin breach next to the boat but when I looked, I didn't see any others so I grabbed the new jig stick and cast out the good old Tady 45 (with a mackerel skin wrap).  5 cranks in and PLOOOOOOOSH!!!!!! I almost thought I snagged a dolphin and could tell this thing was a giant.

I lost track of time, but it was probably around 15-20 minutes under some tight drag.  I saw it and was like WTF?!?!

I got the gaff sunk and was exhausted.  My shoulder was shot and I was having a hard time holding it up but what a slug!  It looked like an oarfish!!!  It had a weird scoliosis going on with a deformed back end but was over 50" forklength from what I could gather from my boat tape that was too small.



I knew it was my PB, but guessing it was closer to 50# than 40#.  I took a few pics but my shoulder was having real troubles.  The head on this thing had a bigger head than me!

I left it packed in ice overnight since it was too late to clean and I really wanted to firm up the meat.  I also figured that I could get some really accurate measurements.

After a quick measurement, I had 51.2" fork length and the scale tells the tale.  I had super high hopes it would be 50#, but pretty close. 48.34#


https://imgur.com/azH7QN4

It was a female filled with eggs but a mostly empty belly.  Filleting it was difficult because of something wrong with the spine as seen here.





In any case, my PB and what a fish!  The meat was a little on the tough side and what a weird backbone! 

Anyway, One bite and One fish.  I'm glad I never found the squid or I wouldn't have caught this beauty!

Thanks for reading and until the next trip!

One explosion on the surface iron...

One crazy battle...

One fun weekend...

That was pretty funny with the "Stock Photos" of the loungers.  hahahaha

Great trip!  That's some damn fine yellowtail fishing you guys got into!  Congrats to Jared also.

BTW... just out of curiosity, why did you bring the trout rod? Did you use it, or just wanted to give it a salt bath?

Bravo once again!

Quote from: Tim524 on July 23, 2026, 09:22:11 PMInsurance doesn't cover the shot ?

Nope... Seems crazy.

Got out with the usual suspects hoping to get into some offshore action.  Water Chloro charts and sea temps are off the charts and something has to be hiding out there! Unfortunately, they didn't have their Mex Licenses, so we were stuck in US waters.

Left at o'dark thirty and started looking for paddies at first light.  Water was purple it was so clear.

First paddy we see is a JUMBO!  We didn't have bait, so we were stuck with artificials or chunk bait.  No one home... wait... 4-5 foot bull Mahi is rolling around the paddy!  It immediately takes off soon as they cast right on it and not to be seen again.

We found some more MONSTER paddies with birds sitting on them and all!  Tons of bait underneath, but no gamefish.  The fish finder had barely a pixel on it when not around the paddies.

We saw some huge Mola out there, but no sharks and no gamefish to speak of.  (Well another 4' bull dodo, but no live bait to pitch to it)

We found some weird weather buoys and quite a few boats, but nada.  Radio chatter was all the same news, except down by the 371 and 390 where the fish were apparently biting.

The water was so blue, it almost zeroed out the blue Gatorade!

We finally found diving terns in the gyros and ran over to hopefully get onto some yellowfin!  Unfortunately it was a huge school of bait sized bonito!  Damn, if we only had these guys when we came across those monster bull dorado!  We caught a bunch but I didn't bring the right rods for these little guys to have fun.

Oh well, we traveled 14 miles past the 182, down to the corner and every spot in-between for just bonito.  I guess we weren't skunked, but it just seems that the fish are close.  These paddies had all of the right characteristics for some stunner fish to be holding, but it was a bummer they weren't there yet.

Oh well, next time.  Floating Cabins coming soon along with some friends from NYC who still think they are living in the Archie Bunker days and scared of Cali... you know, they might get a little fruit and nutty as they would say.  lol

Anyways, thanks for reading and I'll post the pictures when I get home from work.

You're creating a monster! (With that hat and fishing) lol

Super cool and bummer you didn't let her catch the only fish.  You should have been using cheater sauce.

as for the knots... the double overhand knot I gather... 

Well damn.  Another G out of my pocket for a PRP shot and I have to get another MRI to make sure my tendon didn't completely tear.  Partial tear and I have multiple surgical options... Full tear and there's only 1.

Good thing is this second PRP shot really seems to work (at least with pain).  I was in pretty bad pain for the last month and within two days of receiving the shot feel a hell of a lot better.  I'm sold on the pain relief portion, at least for the injury I'm dealing with. 

Well, here's to hoping my shoulder holds out and the exotics come to SoCal to play!

The Square Boma was only 16', and it used to take Squatch and I anywhere we wanted to go including offshore.  A 15.5 Livingston would totally do the trick.

You got out at least, even if you only caught "Koga" sized bass... the pee-pee variety. lol, poor Koga...

I could see you in a 17' skiff... a Maverick 17 HPX‑V or possibly a Yellowfin 17 CE..



Thanks for reporting boss.  I miss seeing all of the posts again.  Social media has pretty much ruined me lately.

I'm pretty sure I picked about 350 tomatoes off 3 plants just in the last month or so.

This batch of salsa went straight into the pressure cooker (and thus a different recipe)

Quote from: Tim524 on July 14, 2026, 07:47:08 AMGlad you got the boat back in action and found a few fish

So what do you think the white stuff is  ??

The best thing I can find at the moment.

Quote from: jrodda on July 14, 2026, 05:42:28 PMNice trip! Interesting variety. Glad the bass rod got broken in right. Which one is that?

We've got a 6 pack co-worker trip coming up next Friday. I'm hoping the bite keeps up or pops off even more. Very exciting to see so many paddy yellows along with a couple dorado caught very locally. I could probably get in on this season with a tiller livingston...............I shouldn't think about that. Save money for a little bigger boat.........

I'll get you the numbers but it's the big bass rod with cork handle teramar.  I forgot the number offhand.

As for thinking bigger than the Livingston...  That's the way to do it!  LOL

Get them Pelagics!