Cow Tuna and More
Tres Vacas
Excel skipper Justin Fleck reported November 10: “We fished the lower banks for a couple days. We had good fishing for tuna 60 to almost 300-pounds. We had three cows and one that weighed 295-pounds. We then made a move to The Ridge today and we had good wahoo fishing again. We had 43 more wahoo for the day! We are moving up the line hugging the beach. We will try offshore tomorrow.”
Intrepid Winners
“We returned today from our Larry Brown 10-day trip,” reported Jesus Companioni for the Intrepid November 12, “and unloaded a fine catch. Thank you, Larry for once again putting together a great group to fish with, and a big thanks to all of the sponsors for this trip. “Here are the Jackpot winners:
Ken Bowen, 39.8-pound yellowtail
Mathew Walters, 37.6 yellowtail
Sophia Huynh, 37.2 yellowtail
Honorable mention goes to Matt Ford with a 67.8 wahoo.”
Needs Improvement
“Not a very good day for us today,” wrote Drew Henderson for the Polaris Supreme November 11. “I wish I could call it a travel day too but we did a lot of fishing, just not catching. Well, we did need to travel for four hours of the day to put us in position for tomorrow, so maybe I can call it a travel day. Anyways, the weather today was pretty crappy when I first woke up and not much better when we arrived to our first fishing destination of the day at 7:00 AM. That could be why the wahoo weren’t there and biting. But after three hours there, the weather was nice. The wind backed off and the ocean flattened out. Unfortunately 12 miles below there the current did a 180 and the wind picked up a little and things got jacked up. The swell and chop were coming from every which way and we couldn’t pick a smooth course. We got our roll on for most the rest of the day. Spot number two looked like we could’ve caught a bunch of nice yellers but the skipjack wouldn’t let us have any of it. They were hitting everything we threw in. That’s all right, though. We needed the chunk for tomorrow. We did get a few nice yellows though.”
At Big C
“We arrived to Clarion at 04:00 hours,” reported Royal Polaris November 12, “made some bait, and went offshore looking. We found lots of bird schools today, most of which didn’t bite, but we did end up with an ok day. We caught dorado, wahoo, and yellowfin. Most of the yellowfin were in the 45 to 60-pound range, but a few over the 100-pound mark. Most of the fish were caught on the flylined sardine, the rest came on the kite. Top anglers today: John Collins, Rich Voss, Don Burnside. All three had fish over the 100- pound mark, John Collins with the largest around 160-pounds.
“Weather today was quite lovely,” reported Royal Polaris November 13. “It was the first day that the wind finally gave us a break. We had some pretty fair fishing, landing 43 wahoo and 75 yellowfin tuna.
“Although many of the tuna were in the 25 to 40-pound range, there was a good number of 60-pound fish, up to the largest of the day, caught by Kim Hasselbalch at 192-pounds. There was a number of fish from 100 to 170-pounds. We are now headed north.”
Spot Fishing
Royal Star skipper Tim Ekstrom posted November 11: A leisurely calm passage up the line, poking and spot-fishing hard bottom and phantom kelp lines along the way, seeking time at the rail for the pure pleasure of fishing. No big trophies today, no tales of grandiose triumph: just fishing. It was a fine way to pass the day logging northerly miles in calm conditions courtesy of the picturesque Baja coast. Sundown found us snuggled up tight to an old favorite point of mine picking away at a bunch of nice bass and getting thumped by a few mystery denizens we can only assume were journeyman groupers. Whatever they were we never managed to land one. It was a beautiful setting to close out the day as the sun set in a crystal clear green flash. Then came the reality check that was as inevitable as the sun rising tomorrow morning. A sound thrashing was soon meted out following departure by an ocean confused and locally angry.
“Fortunately the pummeling was very short lived, a couple of hours holding on with both hands only, and served the dual purpose of providing superb contrast and reminding all that this stretch of ocean – any stretch of ocean – can turn on a dime. And the marked change in conditions was expected and prepared for; forecasting in today’s day and age is almost unbelievably accurate. So we scraped through virtually unscathed positioning ourselves to take one final crack at those elusive dorado offshore tomorrow. This time though, we have an afternoon bailout lined up in the event the effort falls flat. Beautiful weather is on the way, so whatever the outcome conditions won’t be to blame. Photo today features the Faherty brothers, John and Mike, pulling on the nice grade yellowfin tuna we all enjoyed clobbering a few days back.”
Spirit Winners
Spirit of Adventure posted this photo from the November 10 arrival of the boat to H&N Landing.
Vag Big Tuna
Vagabond posted this brief for November 9: “Congrats to Steve Mason on his supercow 303.6-pound yellowfin and to Bryan Romine on his awesome 283.8-pounder brought in this morning from our nine-day trip.”
