Long Range Fishing Update – 8/25/11

Bill Roecker
For FishingVideos.com & San Diego Sportfishing Council
Net Update August 25, 2011

The Indy Challenge

Independence Yellowtail Catch

Jeff DeBuys docked Independence at Pt. Loma Sportfishing August 25 after a five-day trip to Benitos/Cedros and open waters north. His 25 anglers made a good mixed catch of tuna and yellowtail on the SportfishingReport.com charter, with owner Chad Woods as chartermaster.
“We spent two days fishing offshore,” said Jeff to dock reporter Bill Roecker, “and two days at the islands, They were biting with all methods there, with limits of sea lions. We had excellent yellowfin and bluefin fishing offshore.
“That offshore scene isn’t going away,” he continued, “there’s no sign of a slowdown, and the setup looks good for fall fishing.”
There were prizes and awards for the five best yellowtail and the best tuna. They included some new Seeker rods and an Avet reel to go with the jackpots.
Don Padick of Alta Dena won first place for his 35.4-pound yellowtail, a fish he coaxed with a mackerel on a dropper loop with eight ounces of weight and a 7/0 Owner gorilla hook. He said he used 50-pound Big Game line, a Penn 30 reel and a Calstar 760 H rod to crank the fish up in short order.
Doug Stewart of Angel Fire, NM won second place for a 34.2-pounder, and Omesh Persaud of Simi Valley took third place for a 32.6-pound yellow. Bart Williams of Oceanside got a 32-pound ‘tail and Homan Khaki of Camarillo produced a 31-pound yellowtail for the lineup shot. They were joined Greg Moore of Goleta and his 22.4-pount yellowfin tuna.

Polaris Supreme Jackpot Winners

Big Joe’s Charter
Tom Rothery docked his Polaris Supreme at Fisherman’s Landing August 25 after a five-day trip, the Joe Beck/Bob Vance annual charter with 23 anglers aboard, including chartermaster Beck, a retired LA motorcycle patrolman.
Daniel Burns of Las Vegas won first place for his 30.4-pound yellowtail. He said he got it with two sardines on a dropper loop, ten ounces of weight and 100-pound Izorline, 130-pound Line One spectra, a Penn 30 reel by Cofe, and a Seeker 6463 XXH rod.
Tim Dughi of Reno, NV tied Burns with an identical yellowtail, taken on a single sardine, a 3/0 Mustad hook on 30-pound Izorline and a TLD 15 reel. He said he used a seven-foot St. Croix custom-wrapped rod.
Norm Wintjen of San Pedro won third place for a 28.4-pound yellowtail.
Slow But Good

Vagabond Jackpot Winners

Guadalupe Island hasn’t been in the news much recently, but the big island produce d some big tuna for Mike Lackey’s 24 fishermen on a five-day trip.
“The island was slow,” said Mike, “but fishing was really good on schoolie yellowfin and bluefin offshore on the days we were coming and going.”
David Young of Ventura won first place for a 95-pound yellowfin he bagged with a sardine on a 4/0 Owner Mutu hook and 40-pound Blackwater fluorocarbon. He used 40-pound Ande line on a Penn 4/0 reel and a Calstar 6465 H rod.
Jerry Kusumoto of Lakewood scored on a 93-pounder that won second place. Matt Kodama of Alta Dena won third place for a 91-pound Guadalupe Island yellowfin tuna.
Intrepid Fishes Kelps
“The kelp hunting went well,” said the report from August 24, “as we found many throughout the day. Bummer part was that they were not holding any good schools of Dorado or Wahoo for us. We went from kelp to kelp picking off a fish here and there to scratch out a day of it. The Flats were nice ones and will add some more variety to the trip and are always fun to catch. The weather couldn’t be any nicer down here with flat seas, sunny skies, good tunes provided by our Outcast Sound System and just a wonderful group of friends to be with. The atmosphere was great. We will change locations and give it one more day down here before we head up the line.”
Red Rooster III Report 8-24-11
“More of the same here at the Rocks, very challenging fishing. We had 18 tuna and 10 yellowtail. Half of the tuna are nice fish, up to 100 pounds, but very hard to catch. Between the light line and sharks it is hard to stay at it. It looks like we may leave here this afternoon and head in for some ridge action. That way everyone can get a bite. And yes, it is still windy.”
Limits For Chefs

Shogun Tagging Tuna

“Today was the first day of fishing on our annual chef’s special five day trip,” noted the report from Frank LoPreste’s Royal Polaris. “Our weather today consisted of clear skies, plenty of sunshine and a lot of wind. Everyone aboard enjoyed limit style bluefin tuna fishing along with a couple handfuls of yellowfin tuna and twenty dorado. Our bluefin were in the 14 to 35-pound category. It’s definitely safe to say that all of our passengers had a very fun day.
“As usual the food was amazing! The food is being prepared by both RP chef’s as well as Steve Black from the Sheraton Harbor Island and Jeff Roberto from Sushi On a Roll. Last night the oso buco was to die for and the snacks were out of this world. We our currently headed south and will report again tomorrow.”
Royal Star At Guadalupe
“After a flat calm night on the anchor,” said the report for August 24, “we set up for tuna in the same area we found them the day before. The fish showed up early and we started hooking a few. We were all lined up for another great day. Then as Mother Nature sometimes does, she threw a wrench into the works in the form of a couple of white sharks. After a couple of moves we managed to put a few more trophy yellowfin aboard and are currently working back up for a few hours of offshore fishing.”

Shogun Tagging Report 8-23-11 by Dr. Barbara Block
“As scientists, anglers and passionate fans of Pacific bluefin tuna we live for day like we have had here on Shogun in the past 24 hours. Our mission: to collect tunas for studies back at our home laboratory–the Tuna Research and Conservation Center (TRCC). We arrived in the area where fishing reports had been excellent and proceeded from dawn to dusk to have a wide-open bluefin bite. And this time, for the first time in years, we were more than prepared. The Stanford University team had programmed over 100 tags prior to coming out on the trip and anticipation was high.
This year we had some older TAG team members- from our lab- including Tag-a Giant and TRCC technicians Robbie Schallert & Alex Norton, Stanford technician for our Gulf Oil spill team Ben Machado. Also on board Stanford graduate students Dane Klinger and Dan Madigan, and undergraduates who had interned with the TRCC this summer including undergraduates Natalie, Ethan, Sarah, Andrew and James.
Captain and Professor Norm put us in a great spot to drift and before sun up Dan Madigan hooked up. This year to prepare with our younger team, we had held a tagging class, gone over the cradling of fish on the swim step. Sure enough chaos occurred during the first fast bite when the team barely had their feet wet. We put the fish that first appeared as yellowfin into the side wells and quickly filled to capacity. We then heard the first call from the crew of bluefin! The tagging team (Barb, Robbie, Dr. Joe Bonaventura) went into the action, tagging 7 yellowfin.
The bite slowed down and we moved on. Within an hour, Norm glanced and viewed a sonar hit that was extremely interesting; the fish were down on the thermocline in the ‘feed layer’ or deep scattering layer the area I call the peanut butter of the ocean, filled with small crustaceans and squid. From the moment we stopped on the sonar school, until 6 PM we had steady bluefin action that led to what I think may be the highest single electronic tagging stop for bluefin tuna: 96 archival tagged bluefin (all with one tagging station!).
In addition, we filled up the slammer with bluefin. Scientific samples were taken by Dan and Ben from a handful of bluefin to discern isotopic signatures (think you are what you eat) and to also determine from where the fish had come (signatures from the open sea are lower in numerical value than in the productive California Current). I was a bit surprised to see Captain Bruce, Randy and Tommy admiring an albacore as if they had not seen one in awhile. This was the first Albacore of the season, remarkable, given it happened the third week in August. I thought the albacore were quite skinny suggesting they had come from offshore.
History was made here today aboard the Shogun-by the end of the day, we had collected all the bluefin required for the TRCC this year, tagged 103 tunas and released another 50 more. All and all, we could have tagged 200 bluefin today! Too bad we did not have more conventional and electronic tags! The fish were very young, potentially new arriving fish on the west coast. From prior tagging we know that this year class will be retentive to the California current and provide super fishing on a 30lb 3rd year fish next season so let’s hope their survival will lead to more knowledge and great fishing.