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Yoketails; Barries a plenty on a 30 hour MX turnaround.
Took a run down to Ensenada, MX this weekend on a 30 hour turnaround - left midnight on Friday going into Saturday, while everyone slept I did the driving. We reached the landing around 4:50 AM and hopped on the boat left at approximately 5:15 for our 9 man charter. We picked up a few scoops of lively choovies. The Captain wanted to make some macs – we spent about 15 mins making about 20 pieces. The crew had an in with one of the local cannery boats and they hooked it up with a couple of healthy scoops of sardines.
The weather was nice not too choppy but definitely some swells approximately 1-3 foot; 10 or so secs apart temps ranged from 73-76 for the day, Sunny and clear.
We set the trollers out and started our hunt. First hookup came approximately 10 mins later 26” barrie which the crew insisted that we keep. Then they came pretty fast and furious 3-4 hanging at a time for a good 5 mins we ended the flurry with 15 or so barries all about the same size 26-28 inches. With some of the smaller models that we insisted on tossing back.
First Yellow strike of the day came off the iron (anything blue seemed to be the ticket but blue and white was especially hot) it was off the troll (Yes, someone was trolling a fat iron) we had our first heart eater of the day (we christened 5 more as the day went on).
I got my first opportunity on also on the troll got the fish to color a MONSTER easily in the 30 lb class– laid it out for the deckhand to gaff it… 1, 2, 3, 4 digs at it… 4 misses WTF?! The fish goes bonkers as it skins it on the last attempt and goes deep. I bring it back to the boat again, laid it flat on his side again and begged the guy to gaff it he reaches down… and BANG clips the line, and popped the jig loose from the yellows mouth. All I could do is look at this guy with exhaustion and asked him “WHYYYYY?!”. This would be a continuing theme for this particular deckhand he would go on to lose another fish for me and at least 4 other fish for other folks throughout the day.
Moving on along the rest of the day it was a plunker bite often with 1-2 fish hanging nearly all on the jig, we had 1 bait fish the whole day. Fish were beautifully sized and fought like hell as they should.
We saw lots of surface schools just cruising and chasing bait.
Total to end the day was 26 fish yellows some 50 someodd barries a few bonita mixed in and 6 new heart eaters.
We got off the boat headed for the border (huge wait 4 hours to go the last 3 km back into the land of the free) got home approximately 430 am on Sunday.
Thanks for the read.
