With less than ideal dope last couple days on the local kelp scene (unfortunate), my neighbor and my sister and I pivoted and hit the islands early today. Tried to make macs in the bay last night to mostly no avail, but I did scoop up a couple gnarly prawns.
Slip neighbor hooked me up on some mini macs this morning (thanks Greg). Beautiful ride down with no swell, pulled up to Pukey and as soon as I throttled back a couple spots of yellows popped up right next to us. This would be the story for the next hour plus - a huge volume of nice yellows all over Pukey but they were on micro bait and almost impossible to hook. I have to admit I've never had yellows boiling on bait ignore multiple perfectly placed good-swimming jigs (bluefin - different story). Tried smaller jigs, colt snipers - nada. We finally got one on a hot slow-trolled mini mac. Nice 20lber too (on the scale).
Looked up during the fight and saw a 50lb tuna jump about ¼ mile outside. Simultaneously Chad was on the radio fighting a big marlin in the same area. Had all the signs of the making of a good day (whomp whomp whomp). Missed one more bite and things eventually died down anyway so we checked out middle grounds, looked at the 50 boats sitting there trolling across each other's lines, said "nope" and jetted down to the Rockpile. Similar story there but we found a nice open patch of ocean and were metering yellows deep so we got to work. Naturally the meter fish ignored my yo-yo but jumped on my sister's fly-lined sardine. Another decent one on ice in short order, but the boat traffic was too much to overcome. Saw a few fish here and there picked off (big volume of fish down there) but hard to fish when you have guys trolling 20' away from you.
Despite what looked like a small front coming through, we decided to stick with the original plan to try our luck at finding a good kelp, especially with the candy bait on board (barge sardines were trash, as they have been all summer). Headed out into the wind and worked out into the canyon and NW. Found a couple paddies in absolutely abhorrent kelp-spotting conditions but none were holding. We were almost past North Island when we got some radio dope on a paddy loaded with non-biting dodos. Figured what the hell, we got the goods. About halfway there I spotted a big spot of terns on my 3 o-clock and did an about-face and raced over to find a big spot of good sized dodos puddling and boiling up on bait. They sunk out quick but I spotted a nice big paddy with a couple jumpers nearby (22/28). We worked the hell out of this one but still couldn't get them to go. Very boat shy too, never really had any come up to the boat, but we threw the 3" candy macs out anyway for no love. Ended up chasing terns all the way up the outside of the 9 which is basically a 10 mile (at least) long river of anchovy. Gonna be a sick fall. Nearly ran over multiple mola's on the way home (careful out there). Slow pick out there today considering the volume of fish. Need some of this bait to thin out and it's game on.
Here's a picture of my sister since I knew all you perverts would ask.....
Slip neighbor hooked me up on some mini macs this morning (thanks Greg). Beautiful ride down with no swell, pulled up to Pukey and as soon as I throttled back a couple spots of yellows popped up right next to us. This would be the story for the next hour plus - a huge volume of nice yellows all over Pukey but they were on micro bait and almost impossible to hook. I have to admit I've never had yellows boiling on bait ignore multiple perfectly placed good-swimming jigs (bluefin - different story). Tried smaller jigs, colt snipers - nada. We finally got one on a hot slow-trolled mini mac. Nice 20lber too (on the scale).
Looked up during the fight and saw a 50lb tuna jump about ¼ mile outside. Simultaneously Chad was on the radio fighting a big marlin in the same area. Had all the signs of the making of a good day (whomp whomp whomp). Missed one more bite and things eventually died down anyway so we checked out middle grounds, looked at the 50 boats sitting there trolling across each other's lines, said "nope" and jetted down to the Rockpile. Similar story there but we found a nice open patch of ocean and were metering yellows deep so we got to work. Naturally the meter fish ignored my yo-yo but jumped on my sister's fly-lined sardine. Another decent one on ice in short order, but the boat traffic was too much to overcome. Saw a few fish here and there picked off (big volume of fish down there) but hard to fish when you have guys trolling 20' away from you.
Despite what looked like a small front coming through, we decided to stick with the original plan to try our luck at finding a good kelp, especially with the candy bait on board (barge sardines were trash, as they have been all summer). Headed out into the wind and worked out into the canyon and NW. Found a couple paddies in absolutely abhorrent kelp-spotting conditions but none were holding. We were almost past North Island when we got some radio dope on a paddy loaded with non-biting dodos. Figured what the hell, we got the goods. About halfway there I spotted a big spot of terns on my 3 o-clock and did an about-face and raced over to find a big spot of good sized dodos puddling and boiling up on bait. They sunk out quick but I spotted a nice big paddy with a couple jumpers nearby (22/28). We worked the hell out of this one but still couldn't get them to go. Very boat shy too, never really had any come up to the boat, but we threw the 3" candy macs out anyway for no love. Ended up chasing terns all the way up the outside of the 9 which is basically a 10 mile (at least) long river of anchovy. Gonna be a sick fall. Nearly ran over multiple mola's on the way home (careful out there). Slow pick out there today considering the volume of fish. Need some of this bait to thin out and it's game on.
Here's a picture of my sister since I knew all you perverts would ask.....
Solid Work.
