Originally Posted by
etucker1959
I went fishing again with my good buddy Glenn on the morning run of the Monte Carlo 8/10/15. I've seen some recent reports on my two favorite local Half-day boats and they weren't very positive!!!! Don't get me wrong, "I've been disappointed on a few of my trips this year too!!!" Just last Tuesday I was on the Enterprise and was highly disappointed with my fellow anglers. Even though the fish count was 93 Yellowtail for the boat. Who was I really disappointed with??? I was disappointed with myself, I let my 2 friends pick the boat and I know they don't do their due diligence the way I do. So the result was probably very predictable, "don't send a boy to do a man's job!!!!" After steering my friend Glenn off of a local tuna trip 2 weeks ago, he was determined to pick another trip without doing his own due diligence. (which he didn't) The results were predictable, "AN EPIC FAILURE!!" 5 fish on the boat for 35 people. I'm bringing this up, because you can't just jump on any boat on any given day and expect a good result. You have to look at all the factors before jumping on a boat. Today all the DUCKS LINED UP FOR A KILLER DAY ON THE MONTE CARLO!!!!! (I really don't want to bore you with handicapping 101 for a sport boat) But I think I should, because I don't want someone to read my report and jump on the boat a week later and then write about the bad experience they had!!! Before you jump on any boat there are several factors that you should look at. Fish counts (will they keep going) a weekend is definitely a buzz kill, the weather and how many people should you expect to find fishing on the boat that day. All that information is available to you, if you know how to look it up!!!! Today, I knew it was going to be a light load of Passengers (28) and the weather was going to be nice and the fishing was very good over the weekend for some boats. Take the weekend boat pressure off these Yellowtail and their going to bite. Once I figured that all out, "I knew it was time to go fishing!!!"
After picking up some good bait, both anchovies for chum and sardines for hook bait we were off to the 105 spot. If you don't know where the 105 spot is, "it's just a few miles off of the San Pedro lighthouse." Since The Monte Carlo runs out of 22nd street landing in San Pedro we were there in a jiffy!!! The Native Sun left a half hour before us (they leave from the same landing) they were already anchored up and catching Yellowtail as we pulled right next to them. I caught a 16 pound Yellowtail on my very first cast, followed by a second one not 10 minutes later. Glenn has already lost 2 Yellowtail, he had quite a day. He hooked 8 Yellowtail today and only landed 3. He lost them every way you could think of, but mostly by pulling the hook. At this point I want to share one of my tips on how to catch these Yellowtail. I have a hook that I use that get's bit a lot and doesn't pull very often. (I haven't pulled a hook yet this year using this hook) It's a number 1 ringed flyliner hook by Owner!!! (I highly recommend using this hook for sardines) I then made a very bad fishing decision after bagging 2 quick Yellowtail. I wanted try to catch them on my 2 heavy poles I don't get to fish with very often. So I fished these 2 poles for the next hour and a half and didn't get anymore bites. (while in the mean time, people were hooking up Yellowtail all the time) So I switched back to my #30 lb pole with a fluro leader. By this time the bite slowed down and the captain went looking for a new spot near the 150 spot. I do want to mention that there was quite a few Barracuda biting jigs in our first spot. A regular on the boat threw the surface iron all day for 15 Barracuda and 4 Yellowtail. (he also lost 2 Yellowtail ) We didn't have a whole lot of time left to fish our 2nd and last spot.
Our next spot was pretty close to the 150 and the current was running down hill pretty good. It took the Yellowtails about 10 minutes to find us and they started hitting really good. I got a real nice one here, well over 20 pounds and I think it was the biggest Yellowtail on the boat. (no Jackpot today, the captain declared it was going to the crew) As we ran out of time, they really wanted to bite!!!! The captain pulls the anchor and we are still hooking fish. I hooked and landed my fourth Yellowtail, as we were drifting after the captain declared it was time to go home. That fish was a lot of fun, no one else was fishing up in the bow and the anchor was already up. In the end our 28 passengers caught well over 50 Yellowtail and countless Barracuda. Glenn and myself landed 7 Yellowtail between the 2 of us, had I not gone stupid with the heavy poles and Glenn fished like Glenn normally does, we easily could have had a dozen Yellowtail between the 2 of us. Still IT WAS A HELL OF A HALF-DAY TRIP!!!!!!
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