“Keep it coming, throw it steady!” said skipper Andy Cates over the Red Rooster III’s loudspeakers. “Let’s see if we can get something going before dark. It’s all over around here!”

We made that last drift of the evening, pushed by the trade wind breeze in the Buffer Zone off Clarion Island, rocking along in settling darkness, the island backlit by sunset, and it paid off handsomely. A bare moment after Cates cut the throttles and the boat swung her starboard side to the wind, an angler halfway up the deckhouse barked, grunted and bent over as his rod bowed hard, pulling him after it. A couple of fishermen down the rail, another rod suddenly pulled down and stayed that way. It was someone else’s turn to grunt and hang on.

“Get some!” a voice called cheerfully from the bait tank.

After full dark the last angler stumped in from the afterdeck and washed up for supper. The satisfaction of another half-dozen big tuna in the holds went just fine with the smell of prime rib coming from the galley out to the salon booths. Crackling prime rib, cooked to order, with fresh salad, hot bread and vegetables. California wines were offered, some by the growers, for those who wanted a glass with dinner. Each dinner was an adventure: Airplane Chicken one night, seared ahi or thick pork chops or Porterhouse Steak on another evening.

We couldn’t fish close to Clarion Island, but we could anchor in a cove along the lee side at night, which made for quiet and comfortable sleeping. After pulling on big yellowfin all day, good food and a comfy anchorage made for sweet sleeping.

We were lit up something fierce on anchor. The Naval camp turned off its lights early, so the island was a dark outline with the white sand of the beach for a horizon. Porpoise circled at the edge of the light on the clear dark water, and a manta ray flew in tightening patterns, making feeding passes through the brightness of the halide lamps hung over the rails at the gates. Flying fish, night jacks and needlefish came to the little clouds of life floating like clouds of gnats underwater in the light.

Each morning we motored out to sea before dawn, and we were fishing on the drift again as the sun cracked under the low clouds of the marine layer. We knew the fish were around because the birds were working close by, and tuna made a few big boils under birds and off the stern. The young boobies were quick to pound on any baits they could see, so some stealth or a couple ounces of weight were needed to get a bait out and working.

Paul Sweeney and I returned from that wonderful ten-day flyback trip late Sunday night, November 20. Our Accurate trip with chartermaster Jack Nilsen filled the boat with big tuna, a sweet cake frosted with a good morning of wahoo fishing, in weather that was just as tasty. The storm approaching San Diego as we left passed over us on the way down with no more discomfort than a day of rain, and turned to clear skies and subsiding seas that flattened more with each of the five days we spent fishing off the newly-green island of Clarion. As though to remind us of our luck, we flew into LAX in a rainstorm, and down to San Diego at the tail end of another rare dousing.

Many of the 23 anglers aboard got the best tuna of their fishing careers, including Paul and I. He picked off an estimated 170-pounder under the kite using the Accurate ATD 80 reel they call “The Tractor,” and I saw my first cow hit the deck. It wouldn’t have arrived there without the assistance of second skipper Derek Waldman, who bailed me out of a couple of near-spoolings. It was the fish from Heck at the least, and it made seven long runs on my 100-pound gear, three of which allowed me to view the end of more than 500 yards of new Kanzen spectra on my Accurate 12. Tom Ferrari also was my much-appreciated big fish saver the next day.

On our way south, many useful prizes were given to all anglers, and a drawing was held for some expensive items (seven-foot rods from Calstar and Seeker, 500-yard spools of Kanzen and packets of 30, 40 and 50-pound Seaguar, Red Rooster III prints from Peter J, an AFTCO harness and Socorro belt, copies of At The Rail, etc.) More goodies like Mustad hooks, Salas iron jigs and Zuckers trolling jigs and calendars and DVDs went into packets for everyone. Nilsen put up a new rod and reel for the jackpot winner.

There were plenty of big fish for all on the trip; yellowfin of up to the 271-pounder caught by “Big Al” Waldbridge of Ojai (using his newly-won AFTCO belt and harness). Al was once a high school basketball star there and now a successful farmer of avocados and other produce. It was his first cow.




The next apparent best tuna was taped at 244, for rookie Denny Hill of Santa Clarita, under the wing of the trip’s best angler, Brandon Hayward, saltwater editor at WON. Brandon’s ability to hook and handle big tuna on a seven-foot Calstar with 100-pound spectra and a couple feet of flourocarbon inspired me to try a similar rig, and right away I found it effective.

I’d given up on the concept about ten years ago, because the heavy shaking of big tuna on the initial runs felt like it would tear my arms out of their sockets. But the new longer “rail rods” with lighter tips make a big difference, and the spectra-to-flourocarbon combo gets bit like your best hopes. I’m sold, thanks, Brandon.

My rig made use of a new Super Seeker 1 X 3 rod wrapped for me by Pat Doyle, an Accurate 12 with three feet of Seaguar Premier 100-pound fluorocarbon leader at the end of the 100-pound Kanzen spectra I was trying out, and a super-strong Mustad Demon 4X circle hook in 6/0 size, hooked in a sardine.

The new outfit gave me a sense of staying in touch with the bait, something I’d been missing ever since I began to use sardines on 100-pound line. The long rod gave me an increased casting distance and the light tip allowed me to see what the fish was doing, when I could grab some slack. The small Accurate 12 reel also helped with the outfit’s sensitivity, and wasn’t oppressive to hold up while fishing at the rail.

I tried the ‘dine nose, back and belly-hooked and got bit all ways, though I favor the nose-hook as the usual method for soaking at a distance. I got one fish and saw a couple of other hooked “on the grind” that way. Another good tuna fell victim to a lethargic Spanish mackerel I baited in the shoulder during a sweaty midafternoon near the trip’s end.

Captain Cates put us on the tuna every day, and recommended fishing 100-pound line and leader on the sardines and 130-pound gear for bigger baits like mackerel. The big southern tuna bit each dawn, at mid-morn and again in the afternoon and at sunset. It made for drift fishing in great style, with drifts lasting from 20 minutes to a couple of hours before we’d run upwind again to start over. The worst thing about fishing sardines was contending with the juvenile boobies that pounced on baits they could see or reach.



Many anglers compensated for the birds by putting a two-ounce egg sinker two or three feet up from the hook. Dropping the bait in close to the boat was another option to avoid bird strikes. Sharks were not a hassle. We lost only a few fish to the grinners, and they didn’t seem interested in our small baits.

Kite fishing was good throughout the trip, save for one long afternoon when Miles Yamaguchi was at bat. Poor Miles was in kite jail hour after hour, as nary a tuna boiled on his suspended baits. The next morning was new, however, and he got a fish shortly after dawn. The skunk was off, and Miles kept his stick hot the rest of the day. A surgeon, Yamaguchi fished with his long-time buddy and fellow surgeon Robert Zane. The rest of us appreciated that the pair of doctors was fishing with us, and felt safer for it.

Often as not, the kite provided a tuna strike within minutes. Cutting fish for meals and purging a couple of big tuna demonstrated they were eating lots of pelagic red crab, along with small rockfish and a few elongated baits, along with our sardines. The water was a fine 78 to 79 degrees, clear blue-purple and just right for yellowfin.

We spent our last morning fishing for wahoo to squeeze in among the tuna plugging a hold of refrigerated sea water, after we finished off two brine holds of fish caught earlier. I started out with a hot hand, getting the first jig fish on a silver Sea Strike 33 and then another right away. I wasn’t so lucky on the third one, which spit the jig. But I was more than pleased to get that brace for the refrigerated sea water hold, and didn’t lose the jig, which Waldman had attached for me using 40-pound Izorline XXX with a double line Bimini knot. Three strikes, two wahoo on the deck and no jig loss; that’s about as good as it gets for me.

I took a look at Hayward, fishing a 9-foot Ulua, who’d haywired a short piece of wire to his spectra, and tricked several skins to attack his Salas 7X “Python” or a “Gay Soldier” with a normal, slow retrieve on the slide. I saw a wahoo appear from the side and grab the jig in the center, like a dog chomping a bone.

A look at the jig after the fish was decked confirmed my observation. Brandon missed the take because he turned his head at the moment of the attack, but he got that one and several others with the same method. Now I’ll now refer to him affectionately as “Haywire.” His effective, unorthodox method will be something else for me to try on my next trip into the waters where the skinnies live.

Others got skinnies on bait, Raiders and other long, heavy jigs. We had numerous stops, some initiated by short strikes, which produced nothing on the trolled jigs, but proved wahoo were waiting for dropback offerings. The Marauders did their usual good job of producing skinnies for the trollers. Jack Nilsen got one on a Halco wobbler/plug that was mostly white.

Fishing in the Buffer Zone off Clarion Island on a ten-day excursion with the flyback option is a smart option. We were there because the tuna on the southern banks weren’t biting well when we left port. As skipper Cates said, “Drift fishing was classic. We had fish of 80 to 140 pounds every morning, and 120 to 180 pounds in the afternoon. I don’t see why more people don’t do this. Five days of catching big tuna puts a lot of fish on the boat, with just about all the fishing you can take, and you don’t have to make that long ride home.”



It wouldn’t be proper for me to end this story with a grateful thanks to this trip’s sponsors: Accurate, AFTCO, Calstar, Five Star, Izorline, Mustad, Salas, Seaguar, Seeker, Sportsman’s Seafood, Zuckers and others. Jack Nilsen gets kudos for putting the trip on and embellishing it with over $50,000 worth of loaner reels and rods. Jack was assisted by Leo Reihsen and Gary Gillingham, who helped any and all anglers who needed it.

It wouldn’t be proper for me to end this story with a grateful thanks to this trip’s sponsors: Accurate, AFTCO, Calstar, Five Star, Izorline, Mustad, Salas, Seaguar, Seeker, Sportsman’s Seafood, Zuckers and others. Jack Nilsen gets kudos for putting the trip on and embellishing it with over $50,000 worth of loaner reels and rods. Jack was assisted by Leo Reihsen and Gary Gillingham, who helped any and all anglers who needed it.

I’d also like to applaud Cates and his fine crew of Derek Waldman, Tom Ferrari, Fernando Calleros, Julio Ochoa and chefs Rick Shedd and Chapman Murphey. The food was excellent, right on, and with their help I was for once proud to return without gaining unwanted weight.

We gave the Sportsman’s award of my book At The Rail, a copy of the IGFA yearbook, a new Salas 7X and a Five Star discount certificate to Bob Peterson of San Diego, who brought his 18-year-old son Caleb on his first long range trip. Caleb wanted a 100-pounder. The tuna obliged him beyond his hopes, repeatedly, and made him a new long ranger, a young man who’ll be back, again and again, without doubt. Bob was also rewarded with his first cow.

Our trip ended when the Rooster pulled in to Cabo San Lucas on Sunday morning. As we slid over the smooth harbor waster toward the fuel dock and downtown, the local fleet of marlin cruisers and pangas headed out to sea, passing the famous rocks and arch of the point, into the bright fire of the rising sun. We got off the boat and found a cab to take us downtown for a morning snack.

As we headed for town we were caught in a crowd along the embarcadero. At least a thousand kids were having a parade to celebrate the revolution. The looked to be eight to eighteen, kids dressed up in traditional or contemporary fashions, having a great time strutting, dancing and building human pyramids. Each group had its own truck leading the way with an oversize loudspeaker. The groups, from all the area’s schools, marched up the main drag, with moms, grandmas and other relatives dogging the edges, firing away with their pocket cameras.



Julio Ochoa docked Red Rooster III at H&M Landing November 23 following our Accurate 10/13 day flyback trip with Jack Nilsen as chartermaster. The holds were full of large tuna and a smattering of wahoo. Ochoa weighed the fish contending for jackpot spots and for anglers who had a best fish.

Al Walbridge of Ojai won first place for his first cow. It shot the scales up to 271.4 pounds. Al said it bit a double sardine rig under the kite with one of the boat’s outfits, featuring an Accurate 80 reel.

Denny Hill of Castaic won second place for a 241.4-pounder, and Bob Peterson of Alpine won third place for his 238.4-pound yellowfin tuna. Denny also won a new seven-foot Accurate rod and reel for the best bait fish caught on an Accurate. There were three other cows: one at 210 pounds, caught by Bill Roecker of Oceanside, a 208-pounder for Laurens Rhinelander, and a 204-pound tuna taken by Tim Coomes.

“Accurate Jack” Nilsen of Corona won the coveted trolling jacket for the best fish caught by that method, a 41.8-pound wahoo. It bit one of the company’s new Halco lures.

Mike Toetter of San Diego found the trip’s biggest skinny, a 71-pound tusker.

So what did I really think about this trip on the Red Rooster III? Delicious.

By Bill Roecker

When Tim Ekstrom told me August 10 about the bluefin going on the bite some 140 miles south, he added, “We’re going out tonight on a day and a half. Why don’t you come along?”

“I’d love to,” I replied, “but you can sell out and make more money without me aboard.”

“We’ll be lucky to get out with 16 or 17,” he said. “We might not even get out.”

So I signed on with Tracy Toussaint, the Royal Star’s office manager.


“By two p.m. we were full up,” she told me at the dock. As I suspected, there were many anglers waiting for a chance to get some biting tuna in a season that’s seen very little of the sort.

Co-owner-skipper Randy Toussaint left early, before dark, because we had to make 140 miles to get to the break where Ekstrom had left ‘em biting two days earlier. The afterdeck hummed with the activity of anglers setting up multiple rigs of 30, 40 and 50 pound strength. Seas were almost calm, with a very small swell and a light ruffle on the water.

In the morning, way down the line, we were still sailing on pleasant seas in a light breeze. It was a couple of hours after gray light when we neared the tuna area. We stopped to check out a large kelp and were rewarded with a hot dorado bite that found some anglers still resting in their bunks. Everyone awake got at least one, though it looked like more were lost than decked, as the berserk “flats” rushed everywhere, leaping and tangling lines. The fish appeared to be the same eight-to 12-pounders I saw at 200 miles a week earlier.

Skipper Toussaint took us away shortly, without making a second pass at the paddy. The fish weren’t large, and we weren’t after the flats. We wanted tuna.

When I asked our group for signed permissions and gave everyone a calendar the night before, I told anglers aboard I had three prizes: one for the first decent baitfish (which excluded the dorado), one for the jackpot, and one more, intended for a drawing. We never had time for a drawing, so I gave that prize, a softcover version of my book At The Rail, to the angler who had the next best accomplishment, which was determined later.

Not long after we crossed the break we were looking for (about three-tenths of a degree), we got stopped on a blind jig strike by yellowfin tuna. A green and silver Zucker’s skirted jig brought the school to the boat for a free for all. The first baitfish earned one of the prizes, a hardcover version of At The Rail. That tuna was caught by Greg VandenOrdel of Irvine, a six-foot, nine-inch gentleman, a resource specialist at Willmore Elementary, working with kids who have problems with math and other subjects.


Greg tends to make his fish look small, and he told me he played center at Chapman when he was in college. I wondered if he hadn’t done some pitching, too. As it turned out, Greg’s day of fishing accomplishment was far from over.

The yellowfin bite was hot. The fish rushed the boat, and hung around 15 or 20 minutes. The bite had the same aspects of a fire drill the dorado produced, and plenty of fish were lost to tangles and burn-offs. The spunky little yellowfin were mostly 12 to 20 pounds with a few larger.

The fish were put down in the refrigerated seawater hold, and when the bite ended we continued on. Our next trolling stop produced some jigfish and only two baitfish, both yellowfin.

Then things changed again, when every troller (with skirted jigs, no less!) got bit and the school came to the boat. They were bluefin! These tuna were even more aggressive than the yellowfin; something I hadn’t seen for 15 years or more. At first I thought they were just hanging around the boat, so I fished stealthily by making long casts with fluorocarbon and ringed hooks. The casts were met with immediate takes.

Then, as I brought a fresh bait to the rail, it flipped off and fell in two feet from the hull. Half a dozen tuna rushed out from under the stern, competing for the frantic sardine. The bluefin were staying up, right under the boat. You didn’t have to cast a nosehooked sardine. Just dropping a belly-hooked bait over the side brought an instant strike. We needed all the help we could get from second skipper Brian Sims, crewmen Gregg Tanji, Blake Wasano and Paul Caramao. The gaffing, tagging and untangling got so hot cooks Drew Rivera and Justin Jackson came out to lend a hand.

After a summer of no tuna, this was nirvana for fishermen on the Star. Some limited at the stop on bluefin of 12 to 25 pounds. The bite lasted the better part of an hour. We were nearly exhausted, and enjoyed a fine, man-sized lunch of corned beef and cabbage.

Later we had a couple more bluefin stops, with enough fish to finish out our limits of five. These stops also produced some larger bluefin of 30 to 40 pounds or more. Some of those came on sardines or fresh-frozen squid sunk with slip sinkers. Nacho Camarena of Oceanside got one with a slip sinker. Dan Esmay of Alpine bagged two of those nice big bluefin. For that he won a softcover copy of At The Rail.

But the real story came while we were working on those larger models, when VandenOrden brought up a powerful fish on 30-pound line and a long rod. The 58-pounder took a black and purple dart. It was an opah, the first one I’ve seen brought aboard the boat I was fishing on in my angling career. It fought hard and long. We didn’t know what it was until we saw it 60 feet down, and it resisted for another 15 minutes after we saw it.


An opah; what a prize! I took video of the end of the fight, and many still photos of the fish onboard. I expect it will make next year’s calendar. I gave Greg the jackpot prize of a bag full of my sponsor’s products: Salas jigs, Mustad hooks and baitmakers, Seaguar fluorocarbon, decals and various other fishing tackle items.

We spent the rest of our afternoon pioneering for the fleet in a leisurely way, motoring outside in warm water and then heading north toward home under the expert guidance of Captain Randy Toussaint, who called in with our fish count, reporting to his partner Tim Ekstrom we had caught an “Oprah.”

Most of us had our fish picked up at the dock by Fisherman’s Processing, and were offered same day fish, cut and wrapped. Some, like my fishing pal Steve Mawhinney of La Jolla, took bluefin home to cut, freeze and smoke. Steve was one of the unlucky anglers who missed the dorado bite, snoozing in his bunk.

“I thought they said we wouldn’t get there for another hour or two,” he said.

“You snooze, you lose,” I told him. But we really had no losers on this trip, during the first slam-bang tuna bite of the season, initiated by the Pacific Queen the day before I got my invite from Royal Star skipper Tim Ekstrom.

That night I was the one snoozing. So tired from all that fish-catching, I went to bed early, and missed the yellowtail dinner prepared by Drew and Justin. In the morning we arrived at Fisherman’s Landing after several hours of cruising on a grease-calm ocean. I heard there had been a bluefin bite at the Coronados on live squid. Maybe the bite will go off everywhere, now.

The Royal Star’s website reported, “A great all around day of angling in nice weather made for a memorable 1 1/2 day for all aboard. Nice scratching most of the day on various jig strikes and kelps with a wide-open hour-long bite on the bluefin tuna being the highlight. We ended up with limits on the bluefin, 35 yellowfin tuna, 21 dorado, five yellowtail and one opah. The bulk of the bluefin tuna were 12 to 20 pounds but we did have one stop that produced five from 37 to 45 pounds.”

Tim Ekstrom was right on when he told me the fish were biting and invited me aboard Royal Star. I’d like to thank him and Randy and the crew for their very professional assistance to all anglers aboard, and for the opportunity to be there at what is likely the real beginning of this year’s tuna season.

Six days on the Independence with skipper Jeff DeBuys and owner-skipper Mark Pisano provided some incredibly hot moments for the 28 anglers (including Billy Lim of Mahi Tackle) on the Baja Paddy Hoppers/Fishingvideos.com trip. There were also moments of concern early in the trip, as the skippers consulted all the weather resources they could muster, tracking Hurricane Dora to make sure of the safety and comfort of the boat and fishermen.

The storm went from a category 5 to a fizzle in thee or four days, however, and did nothing worse than to chase the boats already fishing at Alijos Rocks to inshore positions. The Indy kept her nose pointed at The Ridge, and the decision was made to fish there rather than take a chance on murky conditions at the outer destination. It paid off with near-limits of yellowtail and dorado, some bottom fish and 16 yellowfin tuna pulled off a herd of porpoise spread over a square mile or so.


Fishing commenced in the area of the 13 spot, near several other high points at the top end of The Ridge. The bite was only fair on yellowtail of 12 to 18 pounds in greenish water, the size of schoolie yellows often found there. An overnight run south to the Petrel Bank was next, because conditions there indicated a possible shot at the larger yellowfin that had been caught there a couple of weeks ago, before the water rolled over into a cold green no self-respecting tuna would frequent. Now it was clean again, near the 70-degree mark and might be holding fish, so the effort and the fuel needed to commit was made.

All anglers aboard got a plump bag of goodies put up by Bill Roecker’s sponsors and selected especially for this trip: the latest colors in light and heavy jigs from Salas and Catchy Tackle, plastic Double Diamond swimbaits and heads from AA’s Tony Paino, trolling lures from Zucker’s, 30, 40 and 50-pound packets of Seaguar fluorocarbon, the latest 3/0 and 4/0 Demon and Hoodlum ringed hooks from Mustad, the same sizes in bait hooks from Hayabusa, Mustad baitmakers, calendars from Fishingvideos.com and Seeker hats. These were given in exchange for permission signatures for Oceanic Productions.

Next there was a raffle in which everyone won a prize,starting with a new Accurate BX 400 reel, Seeker Black Steel 7460 and Calstar 700 M rods, a belt and gloves from AFTCO, mounted line drawings of the Indy by Peter J, hard and soft cover versions of Bill Roecker’s new long range book At The Rail, striped “Mamba” surface jigs from Salas, hats from Mustad and Seaguar and many other prizes. The crew and a few raffle winners received AFTCO shirts. Some anglers got long and short-sleeved shirts from Sportsmen’s Seafoods. All were invited to change top shots with blue Izorline in 30, 40 and 50-pound strength. It was a good trip for swag.


Those tackle items played a major role in the landing of yellowtail limits, and also were reflected in the jackpots. The goodies were given out the first night, so they could be used right off, and Izorline provided free topshots of blue Izorline for all aboard. The giveaways were followed by the first night’s dinner, a tender flatiron steak with trimmings.

Chef Ed and assistant Michele put up three fine meals and two snacks daily: prime rib, rack of lamb, chicken and fresh yellowtail. Breakfasts included Eggs Benedict, Denver Omelette, fresh fruits, waffles, etc., and snacks featured chili, ribs, tacquitos and soups. One memorable lunch presented hungry fishermen with man-sized cheeseburgers decked with lettuce, onion, tomato, dressing and French fries. On the last night we ate well indeed: Prawns over steak over spinach over scalloped spuds with sauce. It was a nice mix of fancy and plain American-style food.

We spent the morning searching the area around the Petrel for three small yellowfin. They were shakers of five pounds, caught on the troll and released. We moved up to Thetis Bank under a low foggy bank of clouds left over from the now-dissipated Dora, and found a few fish there, in green, 75-degree water. We moved north again, finding some yellowtail on the way, along with thousand-bird flocks of petrels and quite a conglomeration of albatrosses marking kelp paddies.

At the 23 Spot things took a big change for the better. Yellowtail of 12 to 30 pounds were biting there all day long, after we were stopped rolling in to the spot by hungry yellows that went off on all the trolled Zuckers and cedar plugs. Biting wasn’t really the word for it, since they bit everything we thought to show them: sardines, iron jigs yo-yoed and on the surface, plastic swimbaits and dropper loop rigs. When I started throwing a mint-colored 7X, they fought over which fish would get the honor of chewing on it. I could see a half-dozen shoving one another to get to the iron.

We didn’t lose many fish, thanks to some savvy anglers and the fine help provided to them by deckhands Paul Medina, Jesus Companioni, Doug Brink and Oscar Marroquin. We did release dozens of small yellowtail, and Oscar hung by his heels on the rail to unhook a few without letting them dry out. Jesus and Paul got anglers out of the terrible tangles that occur when six or eight anglers suddenly find themselves pulled into the stern corner by fast-running fish.


We were nearly limited out when we left The 23, and chartermaster Sherman Lim entertained us and provided some outstanding video footage by repeatedly casting a hookless jig. A crowd watched, shouting at each explosion on the jig, which disappeared briefly into yellowtail gullets or was knocked up into the air by eager contenders. Tim Esposito counted up to nine or ten explosions per retrieve.

Later we found a kelp holding dorado. It was a big one, half the size of the boat maybe, and the dorado must have been crowded beneath it, because they came out like happy puppies as we slid up, their backs knifing out of the water, or greyhounding right up to the Indy. They weren’t large, six to 12 pounds or so, but they made up in intensity what they may have lacked in bulk. We had to leave ‘em biting.

Tuna? We did catch a few, 16 to be exact. They were traveling with their porpoise hosts some 200 miles south of Pt. Loma. They stopped us while we were trolling twice, and bit hard and fast, but very momentarily. I got one of them on a sardine, and asked Mario Ghio of Sportsmen’s Seafoods to filet it for me fresh, which he did, the next day, after we arrived back at Point Loma Sportfishing.

At the dock, the fish were weighed and jackpots awarded. Tim Esposito, former North Carolina Stat quarterback and now a chiropractor with a sports specialty from Rancho Palos Verdes, won first place for his 31.2-pound yellowtail. He got his winner with a sardine on a 3/0 Gamakatsu hook on 40-pound Izorline XXX and 60-pound Power Pro spectra on an Avet JX reel and a Super Seeker 800 rod.


Michael Giardino of Palos Verdes won second place for his 28.6-pounder, and Mike Olson of Rancho Palos Verdes got third place for a 27.2-pound 23 Spot yellowtail.
It was a fine trip, and we thank Mark Pisano, Paul Strasser, skipper Jeff DeBuys and the Independence organization for the fun and memorable fishing.

The first blank day on my calendar in a long while prompted me to go dayfishing on Friday, September 10. Two old fishing buddies who hadn’t been out in ten years and my neighbor Mark Maruccia wanted to go too, so we enlisted aboard the Holiday with new owner-skipper Tim Voaklander, another fellow I hadn’t fished with for ten years, the last time I was on the Dolphin.

We woke up on the Hidden Bank, where tuna fishing has ranged from pretty darn good to pretty darn slow over the past week. The previous day had been a bit of a rouser, said Voaklander, with showers and 20 knots of wind at times. That didn’t help the fishing.

On the grounds well before dawn, we fished through the gray without drawing a bite, so skipper Tim fired up the engines and we went troll-looking. We trolled southeast until we were well away from the fleet, and then patrolled the east edge of the area over Hidden Bank.

“It’s so well hidden there isn’t any bank there,” someone quipped.

We stopped and plunked on a couple of marks, and came up with a couple of small bluefin. The first one was caught by Mike Lopez of Corona. He got his shortfin with a sardine on a 2/0 J hook and 30-pound line, after a 15-minute soak. The fish bit way upswell by then, of course. It took him from the stern to the bow and then was welcomed aboard with a long-handled gaff.

We could see at least 100 boats of various types fishing. Most were drifting. One skipper told me later there were 156 targets on his radar. There had to be twice that many out there Saturday, because that was the day of the Make A Wish tournament. All those boats, from skiffs to long rangers like Spirit of Adventure and Red Rooster III were drifting on an area about five miles long and mile wide. It was a mite crowded.


But it was a nice day, with the marine layer burning off and the sun shining on subsiding seas. Every so often we’d hook a fish or see a rod bent over on another boat. My old hang gliding pal Steve Mawhinney of La Jolla dumped his first fish, much to his disappointment, but he hooked another before long and it tweaked him nicely for 20 minutes or so when he babied it on 20-pound line and an old Shimano reel with chirping drags.

Steve’s limber rod and his desire to not lose this one kept him working harder and longer than he had to, probably, but in the end the yellowfin came aboard and we got some nice pictures of a happy guy who’d been at 17,000 feet in his sailplane over Warner Peak the day before.

My other buddy Jeff Sagara has stayed in shape by fishing trout and steelhead on flies up in Oregon. He got two small bluefin and a yellowfin. The yellowfin was bigger, and it came on 15-pound line and a Seeker nine-foot inshore rod I’d lent him with a 220 Newell reel. That fish exhausted Sagara, and he had to sit down through the day’s best bite.


It was an odd bite indeed, but it was an odd day. We never had a strike on the troll. Fish would bite for no apparent reason, on 15 or 30-pound, with or without sinkers, with or without fluorocarbon leaders, on small size two hooks or on 4/0 hooks. Sometimes they’d show a bit, 50 or100 yards off the boat, less often close enough to cast to. But even if you could cast to a boil they wouldn’t bite.

What made the bite odd was that we discovered the tuna on a shark. They were behaving like yellowtail, hassling the beast near the surface. Skipper Voaklander spotted the dustup from the bridge, and told us what was going on as we approached. I saw the shark and cast with my 15-pound outfit (it was noon, and by now I was desperate for a bite) right on it. Nothing happened until I followed the bait back to the stern as we slid to a halt, and then my bait went deep under the props.

Boom! My tip went down and I wound down on my Accurate 197, only to have the tension come off within two seconds. I reeled up a mangled sardine, its skin stripped on both sides and gash marks on both ends, the head crushed just like the only other bite I’d had all day.

“These are bigger fish!” yelled skipper Tim. “Now’s the time we’ve been waiting for! Get your 25-pound, get your 30-pound gear; don’t use the 15-pound on these fish! Get a bait in the water off the stern, they’re biting everything!”

I was convinced. I took the time to put up the light rod and went to the next one, a 665 Super Seeker with a 197 two-speed and fresh 20-pound Izorline XXX mono on it with 25-pound Seaguar fluorocarbon and 2/0 Mustad Demon ringed hook. I nose-hooked a fresh ‘din and tossed it off the back of the wagon.

The sardine raced straight off like its tail was on fire. It made about 25 yards and I felt the solid thump of a tuna take. A couple of turns on the handle and the line came tight, and I was the happy guy. All around me others were hooking up, with the yelling and running and line popping and tangling that goes along with tuna on the chew.



One long run and my tuna went down like a tuna is supposed to. It got hard to turn the handle, so I went to low gear. Now I was an even happier guy, because I could move the fish upward by winding whenever he couldn’t pull line off. The next ten minutes went by quickly, but not without suspense whenever I got close to another up-and-down angler.

Once the tuna made a dash across the width of the stern, and I felt the line touch something, probably the props. But we made it to the other corner, the starboard junction, and shortly after I had the fish up to deep color.

Voaklander was coming down the rail, so I asked him for a gaff.

“Are you ready?” he asked, and then looked down and saw the fish. He moved quickly for a gaff, came back and nailed the tuna after a close miss.

“Nice sand bass!” he said to me, in honor of the many days I’d spent with him on the half-day boat 20 years and more in the past.

“Number 16,” I told him. I thanked him for his work and went to re-tie my hook as he slipped the tuna into a sack, just like the old days.


I got back to the rail as fast as I could, but it was over. A few tuna showed well off the stern, but they were back to their lockjaw mode. Still we got 20 or 22 yellowfin off the shark, and I’m sure we dumped at least that many during the brief frenzy.

So it was back to trolling a bit and fishing a bit. We got a couple more fish before we had to leave around three PM. We were about five hours from Pt. Loma Sportfishing, and Voaklander needed to get back on time to refuel. Our hero Mike Lopez got the last fish, another little bluefin. That was about the time a mola of maybe 150 pounds was accidentally snagged next to the boat, and we all got to see it jump several times before it broke off.

All our fish went out of the sacks and into refrigerated salt water only moments after it was caught. The tuna slid down a ramp into the fish hold so they weren’t bruised.

I can report that I slept very well coming and going aboard the Holiday. While I napped the crew cleaned up the boat and got things ready for our return. The balance scales showed that Kevin Johnson of Cota de Caza was our jackpot winner, for one of those nicer yellowfin, something over 35 pounds, I’d say. All the fish that came off the shark were good ones.

Kevin said he baited his sardine on a 1/0 Mustad 94150 hook. He used a half-ounce slip sinker on 25-ppound Ande line, with a Penn 545 reel and a Calstar 197 rod. He said his fish gave him a hard time for 15 minutes.

“It’s my first time fishing for five years,” he remarked. There were quite a few of us out for the first time in a long time, it appeared. It was a good time, and as they say, we all had our chances.

Thanks to Tim Voaklander and his crew: Aaron Cromwell, Julie Peet, Tavis Allen and second skipper Jack Tighe, for feeding us and keeping us safe, educated, fed and entertained.

Offshore anglers know there are days when the fish are up and biting, and days when they’re down, unobtainable, incognito, vanished. A trip aboard the Excel with cameraman Leif Backe of Santa Fe gave us both types of fishing, twice, in the same week. We had a couple of tough days, and we experienced a couple of the best days of fishing I can recall in over four decades on salt water.

We passed the Coronados Islands June 20 after loading bait for our seven-day trip aboard the Excel, and we saw Royal Star heading for the harbor. Skipper Tim Ekstrom gave our captain Mike Ramirez a radio call as the two long range boats went by one another.

“I just came off The Rockpile,” said Tim, “the first time I ever dropped anchor in the Coronados. We got 120 yellows; it was just unbelievable!”

There was quite a fleet parked on The Rockpile, we noticed a few miles down. But we had bigger fish to fry, and skipper Ramirez kept the big Excel’s bow pointed south. The reports we got over the next two days were discouraging, both on the albacore grounds at 250 miles and at The Rocks, where we headed. Cameraman Leif Backe and I handed out goodie bags to all passengers, with Salas jigs, Mustad hooks, baitmakers and hats, FishingVideos.com calendars and DVDs and various other items donated by our generous sponsors.

We also had a drawing for a new Accurate BX 500 reel, won by Mike Reader of Torrance, who’d brought his daughter Sarah fishing. Ralph Bunquist of Tallahassee, another fortunate angler, won a new AFTCO Alijos fighting belt, and everyone also won a prize bag including more good fishing stuff like $50 fish cleaning certificates from Five Star and Sportmen’s Seafoods, some more Salas, Catchy and Tady jigs, Seaguar fluorocarbon samples, 10 percent off on fish cleaning, etc.

It didn’t help that the weather was up, but motoring downhill on the big boat, the northwest wind and swell didn’t bother us much. There were three ladies among our 23 anglers. We ate like kings and no one felt sick. Chef Jim Guyot prepared meals that kept us looking forward to the next call to the salon. We enjoyed meals of breaded pork chops and green beans with bleu cheese butter the first night and chicken breast with zuchinni and Chocolate Overload cake for desert on the second evening. Eggs Benedict was served the morning we got to The Rocks.

Only one boat was still fishing there when we arrived, and it left soon. We scratched hard for a few tuna and yellowtail. At least one very large yellow came up, along with a couple of 40-pound tuna. I got a small tuna, one of the dozen or so we managed for several hours of hard fishing. Later, Ramirez made what was proved to be a very smart decision; he left and headed east. Fishing was down everywhere, according to radio reports, so Mike reasoned it was worth trying The Ridge, where no one had fished for months.

The Indy was right behind us, and had been since we left San Diego. The two skippers conversed, and Jeff DeBuys went to Thetis Bank while Ramirez took us toward the 23 Spot. We drove all night, after a wonderful yellowtail dinner. Guyot cooked the fish grilled with a Wasabi mayo sauce, and put rice and sugar snap peas on the side.

We were just backing down on our first anchoring when the yellowtail showed behind the boat, chasing sardines. The ‘tails came up and slashed at the surface, nice big ones. It wasn’t but a few seconds later that the first one was hooked, and then another, and another. Within moments the afterdeck became a very busy place, with everyone hooked up and the deckhands straining to gaff fish, untangle clients, keep bait in the wells and try to keep hooks in the water.

The yellowtail at the 23 Spot were fat and sleek, probably because of the carpet of small pelagic red crab floating past. The animals very only the size of a thumbnail but they were so thick they literally covered the surface. The 15-knot breeze didn’t deter them from floating. Flylined sardines that swam hard proved to be just the ticket for the yellows. Maybe they were tired of all those little crunchies.

I fished yellows with 25 and 30-pound Izorline XXX on 25 and 30-pound Seaguar fluorocarbon and 3/0 Mustad ringed 94140BLN hooks, with an Accurate two-speed 197 and a two-speed 870 N reel. The rods were Super Seekers, a 660 XF and a 6460. I caught two on each rig and then handed off a couple more. I also used a 6465 Super Seeker with 30-pound and an 870 two-speed reel.

Then I tried moving up to a 40-pound rig with XXX and Seaguar in that flavor, on 4/0 Mustad hooks, and the fish weren’t deterred in the least. I used a new Accurate BX-2 500 reel on a Super Seeker 6470 rod. The yellowtail bit on the heavier gear just fine, and I noticed some anglers like Carl Dorton fishing with 50-pound tackle and doing well.

It was one-stop shopping for yellowtail of 15 to over 40 pounds. After an hour or two of pulling on husky yellows, many anglers began to catch them on yoyo jigs and surface iron. I got one on a 7X “wounded soldier” on the first cast, and I’m not a particularly good fisherman with the surface iron. It was a kick to see the fish come up and smack the jig. Then I tried a blue and white 6X heavy jig and found the same sort of instant success. I released several yellows up to 25 pounds and handed off a couple.

That yellowtail bite was pure mayhem. It was one of the two or three best bites of its kind I’ve ever seen. Mark and Carl Dorton and Brad Merritt, Excel regulars who also charter the boat, purely agreed with me on that later. Mark hooked a marlin, the season’s first, as far as I know, and got a good series of jumps out of the beaker before it executed its freedom-finding whack with its bill. What fun!


We had a nice lunch with chicken tortilla soup. Skipper Ramirez said we should start to work our way north, so we moved up to the 13 Spot. Things were pretty quiet there, but we caught a couple of fish in a wind that was picking up. Soon we went in to dinner, and made our way up toward the Rosa Bank. The dinner was delicious, stuffed pork loin. The stuffing was spinach, basil, green onion, feta and Parmesan cheese, fresh garlic and salt and pepper. The sides were grilled carrots with butter and brown sugar, and boiled potatoes with butter, parsley and chives.

The next day was the roughest yet, with up to 20 knots of miserable northwest breeze. In the morning we found a kelp and plucked one yellowfin and 20 yellowtail from it. We looked hard for tuna all day with no success, though we were in sight of the Indy when she found of school of bluefin and picked up 20 or so. But that was it for a tough day.

We arrived at the albacore grounds, crossing the break into 65-degree clean water, next morning about 8:30. We’d heard reports from the Royal Polaris and the American Angler that the fishing had resumed there, and we were anxious to give it a try, 250 miles from port.

The reports were right on, and the weather backed down. At 8:49 we found a school that came to the boat and bit, minutes after we crossed that break into clean warm water. The school stuck with us for a long time, long enough to drift south three miles. The longfin were 15 to 35-pounders, they were sleek and silver, and they were willing. As Prowler skipper Buzz Brizendine used to say, “They were biting nails!”

I started out fishing the 25-pound rig, thinking I’d get more bites. I got bites, all right, on at least every other bait. It was like the yellowtail bite all over again. I was badly in need of my two-speed Accurates. Without them I’d have spent hours pinned to the rail. But with a two-speed reel you can really put the crank on those cranky tuna that take you straight down. Nose-hooking and belly-hooking sardines worked very well.

There were occasional bluefin and yellowfin tuna of like size mixed in with the albacore. Soon the intensity of the bite had me going up to the 30-pound tackle again. Then I went to 40-pound gear, and I got an albacore on it, but the fish definitely seemed to prefer the lighter gear, and a 3/0 over a 4/0 hook. I had new BX-2 reels with me in the 500 and 600 series, loaded with 50 and 60-pound line, but I knew they’d have to wait for bigger tuna.

At last we drifted right out of the 65-degree pocket where the tuna were located, and we had to go looking again. The sun burned off the clouds that afternoon and the breeze dropped to 10 or 12 knots. We spent the rest of our day trolling, with stops every ten or 15 minutes. Most of the stops produced two to half a dozen fish, so we had to keep moving. Yes, we had some short bites, and there were times when we went 20 minutes without a bite, but it was an interesting day for those who were quick to get a bait into the water after a jig strike.

A few were too quick, dropping back on the slide, and after trollers got cut off a couple of times the skipper asked anglers to wait until he gave the word to cast baits. When a troller gets cut off, it doesn’t help the boat’s chances to bring the school close. Fishing tuna demands group cooperation.

One other advice item: when the boat stops, don’t dither and dwaddle at the bait well. Select a good bait, sure, but don’t chase it around the well, making other anglers wait. Get a good healthy bait and step away from the tank while you hook it. Keep your rod cradled under your arm so no one is endangered by the rod tip, and keep the bait-getting process moving. One selfish angler can delay several others from getting a fair chance at the fish, especially early in the season when tuna aren’t staying with the boat more than a moment or two. That’s common courtesy.

Back to the chase: Our albacore fishing day lasted until sunset. As the afternoon came to a close on one of the year’s longest days, we got more stops for a few fish. I checked the trollers to see what the fish were biting on those many stops. Mostly the hot jigs were Mexican Flag and Zuchinni Zucker’s, a Catchy Spinnerhead in Mean Joe green, and other jetheads and Tuna Clones in bright colors.

Right at sunset we had our second-best bite of the day, for at least a dozen albacore. I got one of the last when it bit way up swell. I was pleased to fight it midship and from the bow without fear of tangles. That last longfin made me so happy I didn’t care if the dang fish bled all over me while Leif took my picture. I was satisfied, and very tired.

Next day was our last to fish, and only for a short while, as we were scheduled to dock at 5:30 AM during a bicycle triathlon. We tried an area to the north where Randy Toussaint had caught some better-sized bluefin a few days ago, in 61-degree green water. We looked for over an hour before Ramirez and his crew found a foamer.

We pulled up on the boiling tuna, and we could see jumpers of at least two sizes up to 60 pounds or so, pursuing some sort of small bait. Deckhand Derek Waldman was on the ball enough to get a few shots with his Nikon, and one showed a bluefin out of the water. No bluefin bit the trolled jigs as we slid in on the school, which submerged immediately. We did hook two fish, though, and both were decked. I took photos of Mark Dorton and Mike Rangel with their bluefin.

We were done for the trip a short while later, and skipper Mike Ramirez pointed the bow of the Excel toward San Diego and home. He served us our last meal at sea that evening, the traditional dinner of prime rib, nicely cooked by Guyot and presented to us with all the fixin’s. An appreciative group gave the skipper a good hand right after dinner, in recognition of his efforts and fish-finding abilities.


One of the giveaway 4/0 ringed Mustad hooks produced first place for Jessica Diaz of San Bernadino. She tied it straight to her 60-pound rental outfit on a dropper loop with a sardine and caught a 46.4-pound yellowtail with it. The rest of the gear included a TLD 30 reel, Big Game line and a Seeker 6470 H rod. She said the big jack gave her a half-hour tussle.

Bill Rinkes of 29 Palms won second place for a 44.2-pound yellowfin, and reel-winner Mike Reader of Torrance won third place for a 42-pound Alijos yellowfin tuna.

Thanks to Ingrid Poole and her assistants Betty and Kathy for our invitation to take this exceptional trip, and to the crew of the Excel for making it work out the way it did: Mike Ramirez, Derek Waldman, Brandon Wilke, Jeff Bunde, Scott Shurko and Jake Phillips. For the great eats, thanks to Jim Guyot and Rene Sanchez.

By Bill Roecker

Bright October sunshine lit the decks during bait loading at the Everingham Brothers trains of crates. As we cut the waves heading out of San Diego Bay aboard Intrepid, the sky quickly clouded over with a heavy gray layer. It looked like rain coming.

“There’s a tropical storm down below, and right now it’s over Alijos Rocks,” skipper Kevin Osborne told us when he assembled his 18 anglers aboard in the galley. “We’re going to keep an eye on it and see if it doesn’t move away toward shore. It’s not a hurricane, but it’s got wind, rain and thunder and lightning. We’ll head south slowly and see if we can find some kelps to fish.”

We had some time to spare on a seven-day trip. The ocean was marked only by a light chop on a three-foot swell, with the normal, 12-knot breeze from the northwest. We stayed in the galley for a couple of hours, raffling off items from FishingVideos.com sponsors and from sponsors of Tuna Chasers and Ken Bush Custom Rods. The prizes included a new Accurate 870 reel, a Seeker 870 rod, a print from Peter J’s Newport art gallery, and an AFTCO Alijos belt and fishing gloves. Appropriately enough, the new reel was won by the trip’s only rookie, broker Hank Sorenson of Tampa. Already the guys were calling him “Florida.”

Giveaways included three packets each of appropriately-sized Mustad and Hayabusa hooks for all anglers, blue Izorline reel fill-ups in 30, 40 and 50 pound mono, Salas, Zucker’s and Russelures jigs for everyone, hats from Mustad (the crew got hats from Salas), Seaguar fluorocarbon leaders and certificates for free processing from Mario Ghio at Sportsmen’s Seafoods and Sarah Seraspe at Five Star Fish Processing. There were also new 2010 Sportfishing Calendars, Double AA’s Swim Baits and Mustad bait makers for all, and some ARC dehookers and Accurate shirts among the prizes and gifts from FishingVideos.com.


Chartermasters Miles Callison and Ken Bush gave away several custom GRUSA rods wrapped for the occasion by Bush, packets of Owner hooks and a ton of jigs, including light and heavy iron, plastic squid baits and skirted jigs. There were Chuck Byron prints, shirts and hats from Bloodydecks.com and many other goodies. Each angler ended up with a bagful of swag.

Bill Roecker gave three anglers the use of new Accurate BX2 600 reels, and three more got new Candy Mack lifelike segmented jigs to try. Anglers said it was a good start to the trip.

Intrepid motored along southward in the quiet mode she has become known and admired for. Her stabilizers work just as well when she’s under way, and we slept soundly in the near-silence, enjoying the ride.

Next morning it was sunny and pleasant out on the ocean.

“Where are the clouds?” I asked skipper Osborne. “Is the storm gone already?”

“No,” he said, “it’s still near the Rocks and Mag Bay, but it’s predicted to move inland by tomorrow. We’ll go down the outside slowly, so we don’t get into it.”

We fished on four large kelp paddies some 200 miles from San Diego. The large golden mats of weed weren’t holding much, just small yellowfin and dorado that we released, but there were a couple of big dorado near 30 pounds.

As we kept heading downhill, we heard the next day that storm Olaf was moving away from Alijos Rocks and had been downgraded to a tropical depression. We couldn’t see any clouds from it, but Osborne continued to take his time, approaching from the outside. That evening the skipper updated us again, and gave us some fishing tips. One of those had to do with bait tank procedures.

“We put the bait in the hand wells for you,” he said. “Pick out a nice one that doesn’t have a bloody nose or a lot of missing scales, one that swims quickly. Take your bait firmly but gently so you don’t injure it, and move away from the tanks to pin it on, especially when there’s a line at the tank.”

Late that morning, we found the right paddy.

“Get ready,” the skipper told us as we approached it to drift past. “This one’s got fish on it!”

The kelp was the size of a boxcar. Hoots and shouts went up from the anglers as they began hooking dorado of ten to 25 pounds, and the blue and yellow fish erupted around the stern and sides of the boat. Eager to bite anything they saw, the dorado jumped and tangled lines. Two drifts filled our limits, and the galley had fresh fish for dinner.

Delicious dorado dinners were prepared that night by master chef Javier Quintanar of Seville, Spain, who attended the University of Cordon Bleu in Paris, and has been a star in the San Diego fleet for many years. Javier made an incredible meal of mahi cooked with fresh pineapple-ginger sauce.

“What does Alijos mean?” I asked Javier.

“It means far away,” he answered.

Through The Back Door

Earlier, just before four p.m., we pulled up to The Rocks. No other boats were there, so we trolled for wahoo. We got a couple of nice ones about 30 to 40 pounds, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of them. When we started catching small tuna on the drift, skipper Osborne anchored up so the wind and current took our sardines toward the black volcanic pinnacles rising from the sea to weather like something on another planet. It was the day after the full moon.

After a few minutes of quiet the tuna found us. They were big ones, from 40 to 100 pounds. They bit almost as well as paddy dorado, but you had to get a bait out and away from the boat to draw a strike. I hooked three on my first four casts. Fifty-pound line and fluorocarbon leaders, with 2/0 to 4/0 size hooks were the ticket to a husky yellowfin bite.

After we caught a half-dozen nice big tuna we were overwhelmed by hammerheads and brown sharks. They ate a couple of fish, and then began eating most of the hooked yellowfin, maybe 70 or 80 percent of the fish. It was discouraging to the point of making me crabby. You’d spend 20 minutes getting a tuna almost to color, and then you’d feel some muffled thumping and your line would go limp. Reeling in, you’d see a frayed end, with abrasion for several feet up your line, probably where the shark had rolled up in it.

I spent a half-hour on a tuna that I got to the boat. A deckhand was ready to gaff it, when the fish, a 100-pounder, broke off. My four other big tuna, in the 60 to 80-pound class, were eaten by sharks. I was almost ready to quit fishing when sunset put an end to our misery. Our group had only managed about 20 fish gaffed aboard out of more than 100 hookups. I was zero for five.

Each day of our trip Javier made morning and afternoon snacks that were almost a good as his world-class dinners. It might have been that day when he offered up scallops wrapped in bacon. Another day we had Javier’s own version of hot wings. Breakfast often offered eggs done to order, with light baking powder biscuits and potatos or waffles and special sausage. Lunch might be Chile Rellenos, a specialty soup, or cheeseburgers Grande. Only the hard work of pulling on tuna could offset the effects of eating so much delicious food.

Next morning the sharks were gone; poof, disappeared. We saw only one that day, a small hammerhead swimming around like he was lonely, at the surface off the stern. If he ate anything it was discarded sardines.

We didn’t miss his friends, and enjoyed a very good day of catching husky yellowfin tuna. I fished with several outfits, including Super Seeker rod models 6460 H and 6470 H, and an Accurate B6650C. I used three of the new Accurate Boss Extreme reels: a BX2 500 and BX2 600 and BX2 600 narrow versions. The 500, a known quantity to me, was smooth and 870-sized, with an oval rubber grip. The two 600 BX2s came with a new blue power handle that aids much in grinding on heavy fish like these, the best quality I’d seen at The Rocks in ten years or so. These are powerful, smooth casting and easy grinding reels.


Most of us were fishing with factory-provided blue Izorline of 40 or 50 pounds. I tried the XXX Izorline of 50-pound test, and found it to be a bit limper, easier to cast, at least for me. Most of us used topshots of mono on at least 300 yards of Spectra. I saw no spoolings, though there were a couple of close calls.

Some anglers used 4/0 J or circle hooks from Mustad, Hayabusa and Owner, donated by those sponsors. I had a hard time getting bit with 4/0 or 5/0 hooks, the type I’d normally use, and went with 3/0 Mustad ringed Hoodlum or standard types. As fishing got tougher, I went down to 2/0 size and thought I got bit faster that way. Other anglers did well with circle hooks.

I didn’t pull a hook, and none even bent, on tuna up to 90 pounds. I fished my J hooks the same way I fish circle hooks, by letting the fish set the hook on itself after I threw the reel into gear and started to wind. All my gaffed tuna came up with the hook in the corner of the mouth, same as a circle hook.

When hook size matters, fluorocarbon is right. Seaguar 50-pound and 55-pound Premier fluorocarbon did the job for me. Some anglers fished with just two or three feet of fluorocarbon tied directly to Spectra, but I like a little bit of give, and used topshots of 50 to 100 yards of mono, something easier on the fast-aging shoulders.

It was a good day for me. I lost no tuna, and ended it with four fish from 60 to 90 pounds. The tuna bit well when the current ran toward The Rocks in the morning and evening, but during midday it wobbled off to the side and into the wind, and few fish were hooked then.

One angler got a big tuna on 40-pound line, a single-speed reel and a long rod.


“I’ll never do that again,” Brian Lewis of Surprise, AZ vowed at dinner that night, as we dined on Javier’s fresh ahi (yellowfin tuna) with Teriyaki sauce. “I’m getting a two-speed next time.”

Our third day at The Rocks started well, with the current running downwind toward the rocks again, as it did the first day. The tuna began biting at dawn with a little flurry of hookups, and then the action slowed into a pick. Once or twice an hour a school crossed the stern, and rods bent behind the path of the tuna as they took our sardine baits from left to right with near-military precision, causing a ripple of shouts and hoots to move with the action. The water was so free of sharks it was almost as if they had never been there.

There were a few jig fishermen aboard, and when the schools were moving like that, casting a jig could bring a tuna or a rare wahoo. There didn’t seem to be many skins around, but their presence was known whenever a missed bite proved to be a snipped-off line. A couple of the razorjaws were caught on wire leaders, and at least one wahoo came on monofilament.

I got two more yellowfin that morning. When I weighed my tuna later, the smallest was 60 pounds and the biggest was 89.6 pounds. Late that morning the current slowed and turned into the wind. As the boat swung back and forth in the stiffening breeze, the flylined baits came back toward the sides, so anglers were fishing around the corner of the stern. The closer the baits were to Intrepid, the fewer bites were had, and skipper Osborne had no problem making a decision to leave a few hours early.


“We got what we came for,” he told us. “There’s over a hundred big tuna in the fresh fish holds. Let’s go catch some yellowtail.”

Two other long range boats had arrived, and a look at their afterdecks showed the same lack of action. We headed northeast, quartering the whitecaps, bumping uphill and happy for the boat’s stabilizers minimizing the roll.

That night we ate like kings, or at least like hungry men in a five-star restaurant, on Javier’s pork loin with blackberry brandy sauce. Our meals were an adventure in themselves, and they came to our tables fully decked out, almost too pretty to eat, not! We had a different salad and desert every night, and some anglers had brought wines aboard to share with all who wanted them.

Cedros Yellowfin On Ponies

Next morning after breakfast Intrepid motored up the strait between Isla Natividad and Punta Eugenia, where we escaped the swell but not the 20-knot wind. When we were within a mile or two of the big island of Cedros, the 3900-foot central mountain and its descending ridges blocked the wind. We fished for a bit in the calm near the Islander. She was on a kayak trip with several ‘yaks disbursed nearby in the calm, protected lee.


Young hungry pelicans made flylining tough. They stole sardines, and some had to be unhooked. I caught a chunky calico bass, a four-pounder, but we saw no sign of yellowtail. The boat headed back out into the windy, usually protected waters south of the big island. After a half-hour of looking around we found a small bird school working between the salt plant and the point at Augustine, southwest of the Four-fathom Spot. The fish, 10 to 18-pounders, didn’t want bait, but they were in a mood to chew iron. Heavy yoyo jigs got the majority of these, but they also bit on light surface iron after the bite got going.

These yellowtail bit on all the standard jigs and colors. Blue and white Salas 6X Jr. jigs and Tadys in scrambled egg brown and yellow produced quickly. I caught two and saw a half-dozen others caught on a new Salas color of dark green with a pink tip. It was close to a jig frenzy. Anglers got hooked up on darts and metallic knife jigs with Spectra-tied hooks dangling from the front end. About 20 minutes later the school left the boat.

In a half-hour we located another school of biters. A couple of bigger ‘tails came up; one might have gone over 25 pounds. This kind of jig fishing causes a lot of hollering among hooked up anglers but when I heard it get very loud indeed I looked over to see a yellowfin tuna on the deck. Tuna in this green, off-colored shallow water, close to Cedros Island? It was almost unheard of. We took pictures of the fish.

“Some porpoise went by,” an angler said. “He must have been with them.”

A few minutes later the pod passed by the other way. More tuna were hooked on jigs, and several were landed maybe a half-dozen nice, fat 30-pound class tuna.

Chartermaster/rod builder Ken Bush of El Cajon bagged an ahi on the jig, with 40-pound blue Izorline, an Avet JX reel and a self-wrapped GRUSA 70 HP rod.

“He saw the porpoise” related Ken, “and Deckhand Dave threw my blue and white 6X Jr. on my long stick and passed it to me. The fish inhaled the jig deep in his throat and
came in easy.”

Standing in the starboard corner of the stern, Steve Tucker of Alpine chucked a blue and white Tady 45 surface jig toward the tuna school swimming past, and got a nice 35-pounder on his donated 40-pound Izorline. He used his old favorite Truline rod, a BOR 36 model.

The most remarkable yellowfin jig bite came to Kurt Suzuki of Coburg, OR, when he threw a brand new blue Candy Mack, a segmented jig from Aqueous Outdoors (the company says you can see it swim at AqueousOutdoors.com) on 25-pound Big Game line and his new eight-foot Super Seeker rod. He hooked a bigger one.

“I saw the porpoise come past the stern,” said Kurt, “and I threw to the boils the fish were making and let it sink five seconds. I got about three cranks on it and he bit and took off. When I set on the fish, he took half my 300 yards of Spectra behind 100 yards of mono line.

“I pushed the lever to the detent of my Avet MXJ two-speed reel, and after 30 to 45 seconds he broke the topshot near the jig. It looked like the school had 30 to 50-pounders in it.”

Our last dinner was even more special that the rest. By tradition, long range anglers are served on the final night at sea by the skipper. Javier had set out his famous “seafood mountain” that afternoon, featuring shrimp, crab, oysters, smoked fish and more goodies. That was a hard act to beat, but Javier might have done it for our last dinner of filet mignon topped with Maine lobster claws. Desert was a three-layer mocha extravaganza supreme with caramel sauce. We staggered below to sleep it off.

We arrived back at Pt. Loma Sportfishing before dawn, and unloaded our gear before carting the fish up to the scales on the cement pad in front of the landing. Three processors were there to meet us: Mario Ghio of Sportsmen’s Seafoods, Sarah Seraspe of Five Star Fish Processing, and Sean Sebring of Fishermen’s Canning. Some anglers elected to take their fish home and clean them, but most of us used the services to cut and wrap, or smoke our fish, or trade them for canned albacore.

There was one fish that was the obvious winner, but plenty of contention for the next two spots. Co-chartermaster Miles Callison of San Diego won first place for a 109.2-pound yellowfin.

“He ran out at first,” said Miles, “and then stayed up by the bow for about 45 minutes. He wouldn’t come out from under the bow; he was so teed off. We finally gaffed him back by the stern.”

“Lucky” Harvey Rosen of Benicia won second place for an 89.6-pound tuna, and Kurt Suzuki of Coburg, OR won third place for an 88.8-pounder.

I’ve been on trips when more fish were caught and when the weather was nicer, or when more wahoo were taken, but this one, aboard a nice new 116-foot luxury sportfisher showed me the best quality tuna I’ve seen at The Rocks in a decade, and the variety of yellowtail and dorado fishing made the trip a dandy. And how about those yellowfin at Cedros Island? I’ve never seen that before. I don’t expect to see it again.

FishingVideos.com offers grateful thanks to owner Ken Price for our invitation to fish aboard Intrepid, and to canny, up-and-coming skipper Kevin Osborne, second skipper Rick Kelly, crewmen Dave Taylor, Cameron Casper and David “Wahoodad” Choate, Master Chef Javier Quintanar and his assistant JJ Moon.