Jumped on the San Diego today in hopes of connecting with some Yellerfins. Several boats had decent success yesterday, so I was hoping we’d keep the counts trending upwards. Well that was wishful thinking. But not for a lack of effort, or fish for that matter.
Made the trek to the grounds in fairly flat calm conditions. Right away see the Liberty cutting their engines and starting chum, with fish boiling up heavy in their chum line. Good signs.
We search for our own fish and shortly stop on a good school. Same deal, had them boiling on our chum. But very tough to get them to eat a bait with a hook in it. Had to REALLY work for them. We worked this school for quite awhile, with only scraps to show for it. Man these fish were finicky. Boiling everywhere around the boat, putting on a pretty damn epic show, but very little go. I’m pretty sure these fish were trained by the Bluefin.
Had to drop down to 20lb IGFA rated fluoro and size 4 hook just to get licked. I went 3/5 on this stop, getting chewed off twice. These were nice grade fish. One of them dumped half the spool on my Saltiga 15 on the initial run before chewing me off. Also had several fish knock my baits off the hook.
Once our plunker bite fizzled we took off to search for biters. By then the wind was really blowing and making it tough to set up on the fish. Stopped on several spots of fish and couldn’t get them to stick with us. Did this until it was time to call it. We ended with 22 Yellowfin for our efforts, but had enough fish around us to fill the boat.
What worked : a rocket bait. It had to be hauling ass right out the gate or you wouldn’t get sniffed.
Made the trek to the grounds in fairly flat calm conditions. Right away see the Liberty cutting their engines and starting chum, with fish boiling up heavy in their chum line. Good signs.
We search for our own fish and shortly stop on a good school. Same deal, had them boiling on our chum. But very tough to get them to eat a bait with a hook in it. Had to REALLY work for them. We worked this school for quite awhile, with only scraps to show for it. Man these fish were finicky. Boiling everywhere around the boat, putting on a pretty damn epic show, but very little go. I’m pretty sure these fish were trained by the Bluefin.
Had to drop down to 20lb IGFA rated fluoro and size 4 hook just to get licked. I went 3/5 on this stop, getting chewed off twice. These were nice grade fish. One of them dumped half the spool on my Saltiga 15 on the initial run before chewing me off. Also had several fish knock my baits off the hook.
Once our plunker bite fizzled we took off to search for biters. By then the wind was really blowing and making it tough to set up on the fish. Stopped on several spots of fish and couldn’t get them to stick with us. Did this until it was time to call it. We ended with 22 Yellowfin for our efforts, but had enough fish around us to fill the boat.
What worked : a rocket bait. It had to be hauling ass right out the gate or you wouldn’t get sniffed.
Those are some great sized YFT though, nice work. These days size 4 hooks are my go to..
Nice fish and pics. Thanks for the pics and report.
