Blackfish 11/6

[jrodda]

Had another work trip with Blackfish. The day before, we were told to bring a 50# dropper loop rod, 30#, and 20#. The dropper loop threw me off. Seabass at one of the islands?

Got on the boat at 0430 and after Robert finally figured out his parking, we were off the dock at 0500. Down the coast.

We ended up off the San Diego coast. From Newport. We kept our eyes open for tuna on the way down but didn't find any. So we settled into this dropper loop spot, in 200-250'. 16oz torpedoes and sardines.

The first drift was good. It took a minute to start hooking up, and I got picked quick. Then Edwin and Omar got white seabass. Oh! I hooked up but it was a legal barracuda. Then Robert got pinned to the rail and pulled out a 22# YT.



Then the deckhand pulled out a 15#er. More barracuda.

The rest of the drifts weren't quite like that. More barracuda and the occasional YT breaking us off. I kept getting picked, then finally had a big hookup which started tangling everybody. Turned out to be a huge bonito, maybe double the weight of my last PB set a few months ago.



A few minutes later I hooked up to something even bigger. I dropped into the low gear of the Talica 16 and put my leg up on the rail to leverage the rod on my knee and it was still slowly pulling drag, then popped me off. Big uncatchable yellow I guess!

We pulled a few more bass and barracuda but it petered out by 10:30, so we started back with a line offshore, trolling for tuna.

Around 1330, we're all napping when the boat slows down. I roll out of a bunk groggy as can be, come out to the stern, and there are 50# class yellowfin tuna boiling behind the boat. I do not want to hook these things on the 20# or 30# but the 50 still has the dropper loop. Tried an anchovy first because the deckhand was in the way of the sardine well. Anchovy did nothing. Finally got a hold of a sardine. Jared hooks up and his line goes screaming to the bow. Captain hooks up and his fish goes on a run to the horizon. Just as my sardine is swimming out correctly, the fish fade out. Edwin takes the rod from the captain to fight for a few minutes, gaining no line, then I end up taking over. I'm gaining inches, then after Jared lands his fish, a 15-20# skipjack, the captain wants to chase the tuna I'm fighting now. So I get up onto the bow pulpit and we start gaining. 10 minutes later it comes up fatigued and the deckhand sinks the gaff in it. Solid fish, ahi all around! We looked around for the dolphin that the tuna were on, but after finding the pod, the tuna never reacted again. That capped the day and Easton started the filleting for the way back home.





I have never heard of YT, WSB, and the 3Bs as a collective bite in 200-250' before. I normally think of the cut-off for pretty much all of them at 150' on a normal day, and 200'+ being rockfish land. So I am still rewiring my brain to accept that new information and look for them in that range going forward. It was also amazing to finally see some respectable yellowfin, and right off the coast. That gave me a ton of juice going forward into the next few weekends for my own trips. So it was a very interesting day despite my own personal fish count being low.

Everybody dumped ALL of the barracuda and bonito meat on me, so I did a ton of vacuum packing last night. It's been a long time since I've had barracuda, but I've never hated it like many people seem to. So I will try a few basic things and course-correct if need be, but worst case I have 20 nice fillets to turn into 20 beer batter nights.

[Tim524]

Well, I guess there are no fences out there  so the fish can always be wherever they want, which seems to be one step ahead of the fisherman at all times, always keeping the guessing game alive and well. Looks like you guys had a good trip and you now have some culinary skills to perfect with all that meat. Here we are in November and the weather is still pretty nice, very cool !