Thursday, January 17, 2008

Offshore Yellowtail

I cast the small mack to the edge of the kelp paddy and freespooled the reel as the mack took off, suddenly there was a thump on the line and the line started peeling off the reel at a very fast pace. I waited for the count of five and put the reel in gear, the rod bent nearly double and line started screaming off the reel as whatever was on the other end of the line wanted no part with what was on my end.

After a hard fought fifteen minutes, the fish started to come more easily to the boat and soon he was visible about twenty feet down in the clear blue water, I short pumped him hard and soon he was in my net, a beautiful twenty five pound Yellowtail. After a few seconds to admire his beauty we slipped him back into the water and watched him quickly disappear into the depths. We had already kept two for the dinner table and released ten more to fight again another day, and with arms aching and smiles on our faces we headed the boat for shore.



This is a common scenario off the coast of Southern California and Baja during the summer and fall months when migrating yellowtail flood into our offshore waters. This is also the time of the tuna invasion and the two species are fished in the same areas with common tactics. When I ran tuna trips out of San Diego we often caught Yellowfin tuna, Bluefin tuna, Albacore, Bonita, and Yellowtail on the same stop on a single kelp paddy, not all the time but it happened often.

Now I know your next question is, how do you find fish in that vast expanse of ocean? If you leave out of San Diego, do what the majority of sport boats do, run eighty miles in the dark
at compass headings of between 180 and 210 degrees ( follow the lights of the sport boats, they mostly go in the same general direction ) then just before dawn slow down to six and a half knots and drop your trolling lures in the water. Don't troll in a straight line, instead troll in a stretched "S" pattern, when you see several boats stopped in one general area troll towards them but always keep two to three hundred feet away from them.

If you don't catch any fish after trolling nearby for a while and you see they are hooked up stop about three hundred feet upwind of them and cut the engines and drift with live bait. Let the size and eagerness of the fish dictate rod and line size, if the fish are eating any and all baits with abandon, switch to forty to fifty pound test and a heavy rod, if they are finicky drop down to a light outfit with twenty five pound test, a fluorocarbon leader of about four feet will get you many more bites when the fishing is tough.

Be on the lookout for floating kelp paddy's as the tuna and tails tend to hang around these "offshore structures," when a paddy is spotted try to make a couple of trolling passes near it, throwing several live baits close to it as you pass, if there are no hits try trolling in a large circle around it throwing a bait at the rate of four or five a minute, if no hits and no splashes are seen
as game fish grab a chum bait from the surface, continue on in the same general direction as the swell. As far as trolling lures go, use three to four inch lures early in the season when bait fish are small, and five or six inch lures later in the year when the bait is bigger.

As far as lure colors, most fishermen have a rainbow of colors with them, "Tuna are colorblind!"
they see only shades of grey, so have white feathers when it is sunny and black when it is overcast. I have caught many tuna trolling in the dark with a black feather. Yellowtail are not colorblind, if fishing for them, I usually troll a CD 18 mackerel colored Rapala deep diver. If both yellows and tuna are in an area I will troll green and white feathers, four to five inches long about one boat length behind the boat. If fishing is slow I will troll the CD 18 back 100 to 150 feet behind the boat off an outrigger and troll three feathers from the Stern, don't make the mistake most anglers make and stop the boat as soon as you get a hookup, keep trolling and you
will probably hook a couple more.

As soon as you land a yellow or tuna be sure to bleed them before putting them on ice, this will greatly enhance the flavor, and they will keep longer in the freezer. After you get a hookup on a trolling lure keep the boat moving and start chumming one bait every 8 to 10 seconds, do not stop! You can get a fish on every feather if you keep moving, as you reel in the fish keep the chum going to entice the school to come to the boat. Wind the trolling fish in quickly. Then have your people cast live bait into the boiling fish at the stern. Throw enough chum to keep the fish near but not so much that you fill them up and they leave. This is where experience comes in, if the fish are crashing chum bait as soon as it hits the water, slow it down some and if the fish seem reluctant to come to the boat, throw more chum to get them into a feeding frenzy.

When five minutes go by with no new fish, its time to leave and start trolling again. Do not just troll away from the area, troll the area thoroughly for at least twenty minutes. Troll in circles, then troll x's across the circles. My first circles are fifty to sixty across, then add twenty five yds. to the size of the circle on each pass, when your circle is appx. one hundred and fifty yds. across make the next two passes your x across the circles. All the time I am throwing baits at the rate of four to five a minute, have everyone watching for tuna crashing baits inside the circle.

If they are eating chum baits but not your lures, they may be spooked by the boat, then move the boat upwind of the fish, cut the motors and drift down on them. If they still refuse to eat, start your trolling again, always keeping a lookout for kelp paddys or birds feeding on the surface.


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