E.A.R.G.
09-03-2011, 01:47 AM
We met up around 7pm at La Mirada and made the two hour drive down to shelter island. Jeff and I were joined this time by my friend from San Fransisco…. An utter and complete noobie.The game plan was to buy fin bait at EB and make squid at the nados and proceed down to lower hidden where we had some info of tuna being caught. Well the launch was good, and we got to the nados just fine, but the squid did not want to cooperate for us tonight. We tried for a few hoursna being caught. Well the launch was good, and we got to the nados just fine, but the squid did not want to cooperate for us tonight. We tried for a few hours and only managed about thirty or so pieces. On the bright side, the conditions at the nados were definitely looking better! 69 degrees and clean water! Last week the water temps were floating around 61 and the water was dirty green.
At around 2 AM we decided to make the move over to the tuna grounds. We went around 8 knots to conserve gas. Talk about a brutal drive! Good thing the porpoises joined me and kept me company.
We arrived on the grounds right around daybreak. Nice water conditions. Pushing 68 degrees. Clean blue water. No winds. 1-2 foot swells. Gorgeous day. We started the troll and went south making sure to look out for paddys on the way.
We stopped at a couple paddies that looked promising but nobody was home. We then hightailed it to a spot that we had suspicions of holding fish, about 6 miles down south. We arrived to see about 6 tuna pens and the Eclipse already on a good bite.
We trolled around that area for a while, both lures and fin bait, but when we saw the mass of cattle boats approaching from every direction, we thought it’d be a good idea to settle in on a spot and start plunking.
Things started off slow for us. Eventually every cattle boat and their mom’s were in the spot. Private boaters were soon to follow. Somebody on Ch72 blurted out the coordinates, and somebody responded, “why did you have to go and tell everyone?!” And sure enough, within a half hour we had some 25 private boaters on the spot as well.
Jeff decided to bust out the grill for breakfast omelettes, and on cue, his drag started RIPPING!
ZZZZZ! First hook up!!! Jeff battles the 20lb blue fin to the boat. Expert gaff by yours truly, and fish number 1 hits the deck! Hoots and high fives all around!
Shortly after Jeff hooks up AGAIN! This tuna got the best of us and bent out his thin wire hook. Looks like we gotta go with the thicker hooks! We all change out the hooks on our rods and get our lines back in the water.
No sooner than when Jeff starts back at cooking, his drag starts screaming AGAIN! He runs out, takes a nice spill on the way, but still manages to recuperate and set the hook. FISH ON!!! ZZZZZZZ!!!!!!! When he assures the hook is solidly set, he passes the rod to our newbie friend Clayton. We’re coaching him as he fights the fish.
“SHORT PUMPS SHORT PUMPS!”
“IT BURNSS”
“SUCK IT UPP!!!”
And as he’s fighting his fish, another rod goes off. ZZZZZ HOOK UP! And I’m on my first fish of the day! I pull my fish away from Clayton’s and we’re both fighting. I make very short work of my fish on 14lb fluoro topshot on my boss accurate magnum and THUMP! Fish #2 hits the deck. Unfortunately, Clay’s fish broke the line as it showed color on the boat. Heartbreak, his first big fish loss. Welcome to the club Clay, everyone goes through it.
A short while later, Jeff’s rod goes off AGAIN!! ZZZZ!! And Jeff hooks up! He passes the pole over to Clayton again. And again Clayton farms it! Heartbreakerr! At this point Clay is 0 for 2. And he’s borderline traumatized.
But wait. Its not over.
Clayton JUMPS UP
“I THINK IM BIT!”
We look and sure enough his spool is screaming!!
“what do I do?” His face expression was deer in headlights! Classic!
“well set the hook then!”
He musta thought it was baseball cause he set the hook like he was aiming for a home run. Broke the line on the hookset!!!
Now he’s really traumatized. And when Jeff’s line goes off, AGAIN!!!, he refuses to take the hand off.
“I don’t want to lose another one!”
“JUST TAKE IT!”
We throw it in his arms and hes off to a 1vs 1 battle with mr Tuna. Its great watching people fight big fish for the first time. I should have video taped it. It was classic. One of those “you had to have been there” moments. After a while, short pumps, were gone. Then pumps were gone period. He had the pole against the rail just desperately trying to gain some line.
Finally bring it to color after a good ten minute battle.
THUMP!!! Football tuna lol but Tuna none the less and Clayton is officially a tuna slayer!!!
So now Jeff’s line has been hit some 5 times. I began to get suspicious. If you guys know saltigas, you know their lever drag is absolutely awesome. You can set the clicker with so little drag that every swell will pull out 3 yards or so. And so when Jeff had his rod in the holder, it was continuously getting further from the boat. My accurate lowest free spool clicker setting was no where near that loose and my bait was just sitting close to the boat. So this time I let the bait go way the hell away from the boat. And sure enough. ZZZZZZZZZ!! HOOK UP!
A few short runs and Tuna #4 for the boat, and #2 for me hits the deck!
After this, the bite fizzles out a bit so we make a short move.
We toss our lines in and INSTANT Bendo for Jeff. Short work and Fish number 5, Jeffs #2, hits the deck. We’re hooting and hollering cause we though maybe the bite had completely fizzled off, but we had a second pick of tuna here! And within seconds of Jeff’s fish, my line starts ripping from my hand. HOOK UP!!! And I deck number 3 for me on the boat!
Sweet! Now we’ve got 6 tuna on the boat. And it isn’t even noon yet!
Well the bite fizzles off here so we make a third move. I toss my line out and its INSTANT pick up! Unfortunately the fish won this one and there goes my first farm of the day. Jeff gets hit seconds after I do, and wanting to be cool like me, proceeded to farm this fish as well! Haha! I quickly retie and toss back out and ANOTHER HOOK UP! And crap comes in threes as this fish bit me off too! Second farm of the day! The fish must have been just schooling up here cause Clayton got bit immediately after.
Same dear in headlights look.
“I’m BIT!!!”
“wait a few seconds and set it GENTLY! Just a slight pull is fine!”
He looks terrified as he throws the reel in gear. ZZZZZZ!!!! HOOK UP!!!!
We thought the last one he was on took a while, this one took even longer! I stood by with the gaff, but got bored. Sometime during his fight, I actually hooked up, fought my fish, brought tuna number #7 on deck, took my hook out, retied, and tossed back out… all before he got this fish in.
We finally bring it to color and THWUMP! Tuna number 8!
Now he’s really hooting and hollering cause he caught one all on his own! Tied the knot, casted, everything! (Well I tied the topshot LOL but I won’t rob it from you =) ).
The decks completely covered in blood and we’ve got a total mess from the chex mix that the tuna dived for. In this mess my rod goes off AGAIN! Once again short work and my 5th and limit fish hits the deck! SWEET! My first ever Mexican limit of Tuna!
After that the bite fizzled off. And it really fizzled off. Two more moves and nothing. So we decide to start heading in while keeping our eyes out for paddies.
Clayton crashed in the bunk while Jeff drove and I spotted (or tried to spot)
We stopped on a medium sized paddy with no one home.
We see a larger paddy off in the distance and I grab my daiwa, which still had the thin wire hook on there, and toss out a nice dine.
Messing around with Clayton, I woke him up, “Hey, come look at this yellowtail.”
“No way… really?”
Just right then, Jeff yells out, “OH SH** YELLOWTAIL!” He had tossed off his bait and immediately a yellow swam out and gulped it down.
Hahahah I just looked at Clayton. “I WAS joking. But alright!”
We rush to get our lines out, and sure enough, my dine starts flipping out and in a second, I lose 20 yards of line. Toss my reel in gear and ZZZZZZ!! Fish on!
My heart sank as I realized that this was a BIG yellow and I had a thin wire hook on there.
“Just baby it in.”
Fish went straight in the kelp and we had to drive in it to get it out. As I was trying to get my fish out of the kelp, a 25 lb yellow totally flipped out as we drove into the kelp. Cool sight to see!
We finally got my yellow out of the kelp, and as I was slowly making ground, the line went limp.
HEARTBREAK.
My arm was sore, my back was hurting, and there was no yellow on the deck! We drove back up to the paddy and tossed out. Opportunity knocks twice as my line starts to peel again! Set the Hook and FISH ON! Now I’m on my bigger hook and I fight this thing. Characteristic of yellowtail, it swims straight back into the kelp and we have to drive over it again to get it out. After a 10 minute battle and aching arms and back, yellow hits the deck!!! First yellow of the season and First yellow for Skippie!
Im burnt and exhausted, but we make another pass on the paddy. HOOK UP AGAIN!!! Luckily not me though, cause that last YT kicked my ***. Jeff goes to work on his brute yellowtail. Luckily his stays away from the kelp. Clayton and I just hang out and chill for a while knowing it’ll be a while. About ten minutes or so later we see color. A little bigger yellowtail, and THWUMP! Expert gaff by yours truly and Yellowtail # 2 hits the deck!!!
We made another pass on the paddy but nobody else wanted to play.
Funny thing we heard on the radio. Some skipper told Grady white to back off cause he was on a paddy. The grady white skipper proceeded to bash him on the radio…
“How about I run over that paddy! I’m a half mile away! How the FU** am I going to mess up your paddy?!?”
Some other random skipper chimes in…
“Can’t we all just get along?”
LOL
At this point, my fatigue hits me like a wall. I had been awake for some 35 hours. I jump in the cabin to take a nap. When the boat slows down, I initially thought we were stopping on a paddy, but we were back at Shelter Island. It was mind boggling! It took a while for me to figure out what was happening LOL
ALL in ALL a FANTASTIC trip. Don’t know if I’ll be sea bass fishing again!
Total count of the trip
Clayton- 2 bluefin tuna
Eric- 5 bluefin tuna, 1 yellowtail
Jeff- 2 bluefin tuna, 1 yellowtail.
YEEHAWWW! The season is here! The fish are in 1 day range! Yellowfin are coming up too! Dorado and YT are on paddies! Albacore are going off at Morro Bay! ¾ day boats are getting bluefin Tuna! Coronados and Clemente are producing quality Yellowtail!
THE SEASON HAS ARRIVED! GO AND GET EM!!!!
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0548.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0549.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0542.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0536.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0537.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0545.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0539.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0546.jpg
the chex mex disaster
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0550.jpg
o the banana
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0552.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0553.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0554.jpg
double trouble
At around 2 AM we decided to make the move over to the tuna grounds. We went around 8 knots to conserve gas. Talk about a brutal drive! Good thing the porpoises joined me and kept me company.
We arrived on the grounds right around daybreak. Nice water conditions. Pushing 68 degrees. Clean blue water. No winds. 1-2 foot swells. Gorgeous day. We started the troll and went south making sure to look out for paddys on the way.
We stopped at a couple paddies that looked promising but nobody was home. We then hightailed it to a spot that we had suspicions of holding fish, about 6 miles down south. We arrived to see about 6 tuna pens and the Eclipse already on a good bite.
We trolled around that area for a while, both lures and fin bait, but when we saw the mass of cattle boats approaching from every direction, we thought it’d be a good idea to settle in on a spot and start plunking.
Things started off slow for us. Eventually every cattle boat and their mom’s were in the spot. Private boaters were soon to follow. Somebody on Ch72 blurted out the coordinates, and somebody responded, “why did you have to go and tell everyone?!” And sure enough, within a half hour we had some 25 private boaters on the spot as well.
Jeff decided to bust out the grill for breakfast omelettes, and on cue, his drag started RIPPING!
ZZZZZ! First hook up!!! Jeff battles the 20lb blue fin to the boat. Expert gaff by yours truly, and fish number 1 hits the deck! Hoots and high fives all around!
Shortly after Jeff hooks up AGAIN! This tuna got the best of us and bent out his thin wire hook. Looks like we gotta go with the thicker hooks! We all change out the hooks on our rods and get our lines back in the water.
No sooner than when Jeff starts back at cooking, his drag starts screaming AGAIN! He runs out, takes a nice spill on the way, but still manages to recuperate and set the hook. FISH ON!!! ZZZZZZZ!!!!!!! When he assures the hook is solidly set, he passes the rod to our newbie friend Clayton. We’re coaching him as he fights the fish.
“SHORT PUMPS SHORT PUMPS!”
“IT BURNSS”
“SUCK IT UPP!!!”
And as he’s fighting his fish, another rod goes off. ZZZZZ HOOK UP! And I’m on my first fish of the day! I pull my fish away from Clayton’s and we’re both fighting. I make very short work of my fish on 14lb fluoro topshot on my boss accurate magnum and THUMP! Fish #2 hits the deck. Unfortunately, Clay’s fish broke the line as it showed color on the boat. Heartbreak, his first big fish loss. Welcome to the club Clay, everyone goes through it.
A short while later, Jeff’s rod goes off AGAIN!! ZZZZ!! And Jeff hooks up! He passes the pole over to Clayton again. And again Clayton farms it! Heartbreakerr! At this point Clay is 0 for 2. And he’s borderline traumatized.
But wait. Its not over.
Clayton JUMPS UP
“I THINK IM BIT!”
We look and sure enough his spool is screaming!!
“what do I do?” His face expression was deer in headlights! Classic!
“well set the hook then!”
He musta thought it was baseball cause he set the hook like he was aiming for a home run. Broke the line on the hookset!!!
Now he’s really traumatized. And when Jeff’s line goes off, AGAIN!!!, he refuses to take the hand off.
“I don’t want to lose another one!”
“JUST TAKE IT!”
We throw it in his arms and hes off to a 1vs 1 battle with mr Tuna. Its great watching people fight big fish for the first time. I should have video taped it. It was classic. One of those “you had to have been there” moments. After a while, short pumps, were gone. Then pumps were gone period. He had the pole against the rail just desperately trying to gain some line.
Finally bring it to color after a good ten minute battle.
THUMP!!! Football tuna lol but Tuna none the less and Clayton is officially a tuna slayer!!!
So now Jeff’s line has been hit some 5 times. I began to get suspicious. If you guys know saltigas, you know their lever drag is absolutely awesome. You can set the clicker with so little drag that every swell will pull out 3 yards or so. And so when Jeff had his rod in the holder, it was continuously getting further from the boat. My accurate lowest free spool clicker setting was no where near that loose and my bait was just sitting close to the boat. So this time I let the bait go way the hell away from the boat. And sure enough. ZZZZZZZZZ!! HOOK UP!
A few short runs and Tuna #4 for the boat, and #2 for me hits the deck!
After this, the bite fizzles out a bit so we make a short move.
We toss our lines in and INSTANT Bendo for Jeff. Short work and Fish number 5, Jeffs #2, hits the deck. We’re hooting and hollering cause we though maybe the bite had completely fizzled off, but we had a second pick of tuna here! And within seconds of Jeff’s fish, my line starts ripping from my hand. HOOK UP!!! And I deck number 3 for me on the boat!
Sweet! Now we’ve got 6 tuna on the boat. And it isn’t even noon yet!
Well the bite fizzles off here so we make a third move. I toss my line out and its INSTANT pick up! Unfortunately the fish won this one and there goes my first farm of the day. Jeff gets hit seconds after I do, and wanting to be cool like me, proceeded to farm this fish as well! Haha! I quickly retie and toss back out and ANOTHER HOOK UP! And crap comes in threes as this fish bit me off too! Second farm of the day! The fish must have been just schooling up here cause Clayton got bit immediately after.
Same dear in headlights look.
“I’m BIT!!!”
“wait a few seconds and set it GENTLY! Just a slight pull is fine!”
He looks terrified as he throws the reel in gear. ZZZZZZ!!!! HOOK UP!!!!
We thought the last one he was on took a while, this one took even longer! I stood by with the gaff, but got bored. Sometime during his fight, I actually hooked up, fought my fish, brought tuna number #7 on deck, took my hook out, retied, and tossed back out… all before he got this fish in.
We finally bring it to color and THWUMP! Tuna number 8!
Now he’s really hooting and hollering cause he caught one all on his own! Tied the knot, casted, everything! (Well I tied the topshot LOL but I won’t rob it from you =) ).
The decks completely covered in blood and we’ve got a total mess from the chex mix that the tuna dived for. In this mess my rod goes off AGAIN! Once again short work and my 5th and limit fish hits the deck! SWEET! My first ever Mexican limit of Tuna!
After that the bite fizzled off. And it really fizzled off. Two more moves and nothing. So we decide to start heading in while keeping our eyes out for paddies.
Clayton crashed in the bunk while Jeff drove and I spotted (or tried to spot)
We stopped on a medium sized paddy with no one home.
We see a larger paddy off in the distance and I grab my daiwa, which still had the thin wire hook on there, and toss out a nice dine.
Messing around with Clayton, I woke him up, “Hey, come look at this yellowtail.”
“No way… really?”
Just right then, Jeff yells out, “OH SH** YELLOWTAIL!” He had tossed off his bait and immediately a yellow swam out and gulped it down.
Hahahah I just looked at Clayton. “I WAS joking. But alright!”
We rush to get our lines out, and sure enough, my dine starts flipping out and in a second, I lose 20 yards of line. Toss my reel in gear and ZZZZZZ!! Fish on!
My heart sank as I realized that this was a BIG yellow and I had a thin wire hook on there.
“Just baby it in.”
Fish went straight in the kelp and we had to drive in it to get it out. As I was trying to get my fish out of the kelp, a 25 lb yellow totally flipped out as we drove into the kelp. Cool sight to see!
We finally got my yellow out of the kelp, and as I was slowly making ground, the line went limp.
HEARTBREAK.
My arm was sore, my back was hurting, and there was no yellow on the deck! We drove back up to the paddy and tossed out. Opportunity knocks twice as my line starts to peel again! Set the Hook and FISH ON! Now I’m on my bigger hook and I fight this thing. Characteristic of yellowtail, it swims straight back into the kelp and we have to drive over it again to get it out. After a 10 minute battle and aching arms and back, yellow hits the deck!!! First yellow of the season and First yellow for Skippie!
Im burnt and exhausted, but we make another pass on the paddy. HOOK UP AGAIN!!! Luckily not me though, cause that last YT kicked my ***. Jeff goes to work on his brute yellowtail. Luckily his stays away from the kelp. Clayton and I just hang out and chill for a while knowing it’ll be a while. About ten minutes or so later we see color. A little bigger yellowtail, and THWUMP! Expert gaff by yours truly and Yellowtail # 2 hits the deck!!!
We made another pass on the paddy but nobody else wanted to play.
Funny thing we heard on the radio. Some skipper told Grady white to back off cause he was on a paddy. The grady white skipper proceeded to bash him on the radio…
“How about I run over that paddy! I’m a half mile away! How the FU** am I going to mess up your paddy?!?”
Some other random skipper chimes in…
“Can’t we all just get along?”
LOL
At this point, my fatigue hits me like a wall. I had been awake for some 35 hours. I jump in the cabin to take a nap. When the boat slows down, I initially thought we were stopping on a paddy, but we were back at Shelter Island. It was mind boggling! It took a while for me to figure out what was happening LOL
ALL in ALL a FANTASTIC trip. Don’t know if I’ll be sea bass fishing again!
Total count of the trip
Clayton- 2 bluefin tuna
Eric- 5 bluefin tuna, 1 yellowtail
Jeff- 2 bluefin tuna, 1 yellowtail.
YEEHAWWW! The season is here! The fish are in 1 day range! Yellowfin are coming up too! Dorado and YT are on paddies! Albacore are going off at Morro Bay! ¾ day boats are getting bluefin Tuna! Coronados and Clemente are producing quality Yellowtail!
THE SEASON HAS ARRIVED! GO AND GET EM!!!!
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0548.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0549.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0542.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0536.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0537.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0545.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0539.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0546.jpg
the chex mex disaster
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0550.jpg
o the banana
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0552.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0553.jpg
http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/ericchungw/IMG_0554.jpg
double trouble