I can’t help but “brag” that I got the 1st place jackpot on this trip, for a bluefin tuna that weighed 177.25 lbs on the Five Star scale at the dock, gilled and gutted. Picture below. My new personal best tuna.
This beast gave me the hardest fight I’ve ever had with a fish, over an hour with a Penn Visx 20 spooled with 100lb Jerry Brown braid on a Penn West Coast Carnage III extra extra heavy rod.
It was caught deep dropping on the second night of the trip on the exact same 500gram Mustad Rip Roller glow in the dark lure rigged with assist hooks and 200lb bite leader at Fisherman’s Landing that I used on my last trip in July on the Indy, where I also caught the jackpot winning fish with this same lure. It’s my luckiest lure ever!
This four day trip was very different from any other trip I’ve ever taken. The variety was awesome.
First we went south and paddy hopped where small yellowtails and dorado we eager to be caught….by almost everyone else but me. I did get a small yellowtail early on on light 20lb spinning gear using a Rapala stick bait at the surface, that was fun, as it was my first fish I caught on the trip I wanted to keep and eat it, so when the deckhand expressed reluctance to gaff the relatively small fish, I put the Ugly Stik GX 2 bass rod to the test by bouncing it in the boat, it worked.
But then I got thoroughly humiliated the rest of the daytime by first having countless dorado follow my various lures up to the boat without biting them, and then after switching to live bait, just losing fish after fish. Perhaps Poseidon was angry at me for keeping that small yellowtail.
Even when I upgraded to 30lb the dorado kept either biting through the line, despite me ugrading to bigger and bigger hooks, or acrobatically flipping around and spitting the hooks. I started with number 2 hooks, then size 1, then 1/0, then finally size 2/0. Finally, as the Captain was warning we’d have to stop fishing for dorado soon because we were approaching limits, I got a dorado on 30lb with a size 2/0 hook up to the surface, but it kept dodging the gaff and finally snapped off.
Another passenger then took pity on me, and handed me his rod with a dorado on the line, and I was able to land it just before the captain ordered everyone to stop fishing and fired up the engines.
Then the boat headed towards San Clemente island, and there on the second night of the trip we had a fairly epic night bite, and I got to my lengthy battle with the tuna that would win me the jackpot.
The next day in the same area, the daytime bluefin fishing was the best I’ve ever seen, and a deckand said it was the best he’d ever seen in his career. At times there were huge schools of foamers in almost every direction. Since I already had a big bluefin in the boat, I decided to play around a bit. First I tried casting a small 42 gram colt sniper towards the foamers, but couldn’t get a bite that way, the fish also stayed just out of casting range so I could never get the lure quite into the foamers, just kind of close.
The boat also flew the kite, first time I was on a boat that actually flew the kite, passengers who didn’t already have a tuna in the hold were handed off tuna hooked on the kite to fight.
Then I thought I‘d try for an Opah and also see if a Tady 4/0 would work for tuna or maybe something else more exotic, by tying on a blue and chrome Tady 45 onto my 80lb outfit and letting the lure out about a thousand feet at a time, and reeling back and repeating. The weather was calm so while the lure wasn’t going straight down, it wasn’t scoping out too much most of the time either.
After several deep slow drops I finally felt a tug at the end on the line, and line started peeling off rapidly despite the drag being set at strike about 17 pounds, and it was game on! At first I thought maybe I finally had an Opah or something else exotic since it was so deep, and for the first few minutes there were no tuna head shakes…but then it started those head shakes, and once I realized it was probably a big tuna I actually felt a bit disappointed, but just a bit.
Then, as if the fish sensed I wasn’t sufficiently enthused about another big tuna it seems like it got offended and began diving while thrashing violently, and my 80lb braid snapped right at the guide at the tip of the rod. The deckhand felt the guide and said it felt fine to him, must have just been a weak spot in the braid. I also felt the guide carefully, and felt no rough spots or scratches or anything.
So I got a long top shot put onto the reel to make up for the lost line and dropped down an all chrome Tady 4/0. After another couple hours of super long and deep drops, Bam! This one was obviously a big tuna right from the start, and it was really big and powerful, may have been a true cow. But I’ll never know for sure because again the braid snapped right at the exact same guide at the tip of the rod!
I was so pissed I took my nice newish reel of that rod, and threw the older rod overboard. A couple of the passengers complained/made fun of me because I was “littering” and so after I calmed down I helped fish the floating rod out of the water, and gifted it to the deckhand who seemed to think the rod was fine.
I then took a long nap. When I woke up in the nighttime there was some baitfish-ing going on which I joined in on, first time I’ve helped catch live bait on California sportboat, it was pretty fun. Two different species of mackerel and squid were hitting the sabiki rigs, I’m pretty sure it’s the first time in my life I caught squid. I also tried deep dropping a colt sniper a couple times in between mackerel and squid catches to see if something bigger would bite, but no luck.
Around 3:30ish am the Captain announced he would move the boat to Tanner bank, where he hoped there would be some great yellow fishing, which I was really excited about because I’d never got to fish there before.
We arrived around sunrise and I decided to troll the same Rapala lure I’d caught the yellowtail on earlier in the trip. I lazily just clipped the Rapala onto the snap swivel clip at the end my braid, didn’t bother using a leader since I figured yellowtail have no teeth. Well, then something with teeth may have swallowed the lure because it disappeared and the end of the braid looked like it had been cut cleanly through.
I tried a squid patterned Tady lure at the first stop or two at Tanner but got nothing while guys using bait were having a great time getting some big yellows. Then I switched to a Colt Sniper the next stop or two and the same thing. Then I switched to a Tady 9/0 in scrambled egg to yo-yo, same thing.
So hastily cut off the lure, tied on a hook, casted a fresh lively bait out…and the line started screaming off the reel with what was either a big yellowtail…or maybe a sea lion, either way, with the adrenaline going I made the mistake of tightening down the drag even though there was still plenty of line left on the reel…and pop it went. I reeled in the line and the end of it was curly, indicating in my haste I had not tied a perfect knot.
I then decided to try for rockfish and maybe a lingcod since it wasn’t that deep. I had fun catching and releasing some sculpin, a small brown mystery rock fish, and an actual rock because somehow the hook managed to get right inside a hole in the rock, picture attached.
The captain then decided to take us back to San Clemente for some more tuna action before heading back to the dock. If I remember correctly, no tuna action was found. Overall a very interesting trip with a lot of variety, I am eager to get back out again as soon as I can.
This beast gave me the hardest fight I’ve ever had with a fish, over an hour with a Penn Visx 20 spooled with 100lb Jerry Brown braid on a Penn West Coast Carnage III extra extra heavy rod.
It was caught deep dropping on the second night of the trip on the exact same 500gram Mustad Rip Roller glow in the dark lure rigged with assist hooks and 200lb bite leader at Fisherman’s Landing that I used on my last trip in July on the Indy, where I also caught the jackpot winning fish with this same lure. It’s my luckiest lure ever!
This four day trip was very different from any other trip I’ve ever taken. The variety was awesome.
First we went south and paddy hopped where small yellowtails and dorado we eager to be caught….by almost everyone else but me. I did get a small yellowtail early on on light 20lb spinning gear using a Rapala stick bait at the surface, that was fun, as it was my first fish I caught on the trip I wanted to keep and eat it, so when the deckhand expressed reluctance to gaff the relatively small fish, I put the Ugly Stik GX 2 bass rod to the test by bouncing it in the boat, it worked.
But then I got thoroughly humiliated the rest of the daytime by first having countless dorado follow my various lures up to the boat without biting them, and then after switching to live bait, just losing fish after fish. Perhaps Poseidon was angry at me for keeping that small yellowtail.
Even when I upgraded to 30lb the dorado kept either biting through the line, despite me ugrading to bigger and bigger hooks, or acrobatically flipping around and spitting the hooks. I started with number 2 hooks, then size 1, then 1/0, then finally size 2/0. Finally, as the Captain was warning we’d have to stop fishing for dorado soon because we were approaching limits, I got a dorado on 30lb with a size 2/0 hook up to the surface, but it kept dodging the gaff and finally snapped off.
Another passenger then took pity on me, and handed me his rod with a dorado on the line, and I was able to land it just before the captain ordered everyone to stop fishing and fired up the engines.
Then the boat headed towards San Clemente island, and there on the second night of the trip we had a fairly epic night bite, and I got to my lengthy battle with the tuna that would win me the jackpot.
The next day in the same area, the daytime bluefin fishing was the best I’ve ever seen, and a deckand said it was the best he’d ever seen in his career. At times there were huge schools of foamers in almost every direction. Since I already had a big bluefin in the boat, I decided to play around a bit. First I tried casting a small 42 gram colt sniper towards the foamers, but couldn’t get a bite that way, the fish also stayed just out of casting range so I could never get the lure quite into the foamers, just kind of close.
The boat also flew the kite, first time I was on a boat that actually flew the kite, passengers who didn’t already have a tuna in the hold were handed off tuna hooked on the kite to fight.
Then I thought I‘d try for an Opah and also see if a Tady 4/0 would work for tuna or maybe something else more exotic, by tying on a blue and chrome Tady 45 onto my 80lb outfit and letting the lure out about a thousand feet at a time, and reeling back and repeating. The weather was calm so while the lure wasn’t going straight down, it wasn’t scoping out too much most of the time either.
After several deep slow drops I finally felt a tug at the end on the line, and line started peeling off rapidly despite the drag being set at strike about 17 pounds, and it was game on! At first I thought maybe I finally had an Opah or something else exotic since it was so deep, and for the first few minutes there were no tuna head shakes…but then it started those head shakes, and once I realized it was probably a big tuna I actually felt a bit disappointed, but just a bit.
Then, as if the fish sensed I wasn’t sufficiently enthused about another big tuna it seems like it got offended and began diving while thrashing violently, and my 80lb braid snapped right at the guide at the tip of the rod. The deckhand felt the guide and said it felt fine to him, must have just been a weak spot in the braid. I also felt the guide carefully, and felt no rough spots or scratches or anything.
So I got a long top shot put onto the reel to make up for the lost line and dropped down an all chrome Tady 4/0. After another couple hours of super long and deep drops, Bam! This one was obviously a big tuna right from the start, and it was really big and powerful, may have been a true cow. But I’ll never know for sure because again the braid snapped right at the exact same guide at the tip of the rod!
I was so pissed I took my nice newish reel of that rod, and threw the older rod overboard. A couple of the passengers complained/made fun of me because I was “littering” and so after I calmed down I helped fish the floating rod out of the water, and gifted it to the deckhand who seemed to think the rod was fine.
I then took a long nap. When I woke up in the nighttime there was some baitfish-ing going on which I joined in on, first time I’ve helped catch live bait on California sportboat, it was pretty fun. Two different species of mackerel and squid were hitting the sabiki rigs, I’m pretty sure it’s the first time in my life I caught squid. I also tried deep dropping a colt sniper a couple times in between mackerel and squid catches to see if something bigger would bite, but no luck.
Around 3:30ish am the Captain announced he would move the boat to Tanner bank, where he hoped there would be some great yellow fishing, which I was really excited about because I’d never got to fish there before.
We arrived around sunrise and I decided to troll the same Rapala lure I’d caught the yellowtail on earlier in the trip. I lazily just clipped the Rapala onto the snap swivel clip at the end my braid, didn’t bother using a leader since I figured yellowtail have no teeth. Well, then something with teeth may have swallowed the lure because it disappeared and the end of the braid looked like it had been cut cleanly through.
I tried a squid patterned Tady lure at the first stop or two at Tanner but got nothing while guys using bait were having a great time getting some big yellows. Then I switched to a Colt Sniper the next stop or two and the same thing. Then I switched to a Tady 9/0 in scrambled egg to yo-yo, same thing.
So hastily cut off the lure, tied on a hook, casted a fresh lively bait out…and the line started screaming off the reel with what was either a big yellowtail…or maybe a sea lion, either way, with the adrenaline going I made the mistake of tightening down the drag even though there was still plenty of line left on the reel…and pop it went. I reeled in the line and the end of it was curly, indicating in my haste I had not tied a perfect knot.
I then decided to try for rockfish and maybe a lingcod since it wasn’t that deep. I had fun catching and releasing some sculpin, a small brown mystery rock fish, and an actual rock because somehow the hook managed to get right inside a hole in the rock, picture attached.
The captain then decided to take us back to San Clemente for some more tuna action before heading back to the dock. If I remember correctly, no tuna action was found. Overall a very interesting trip with a lot of variety, I am eager to get back out again as soon as I can.
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