SAN DIEGO — Fall is often marked by a bountiful harvest on the farms across the land. For the seafaring long range fleet, the fall harvest has also been plentiful and varied. The bite has been consistently good for wahoo, yellowfin tuna, yellowtail, dorado and grouper. One boat also scored a 333-pound super cow and a pair of cow bluefin tuna. The fishing rarely gets much better. The bite has been so good on the Ridge and Rocks that Guadalupe Island has slipped to the back burner.
RP 10-Day
The Royal Polaris was on the annual Hi’s Tackle 10-Day trip. The boat arrived at the Ridge in search of yellowfin and wahoo. The boat with Capt. Roy Rose at the wheel sent this report, “We started out at the lower end of the ridge, and made our move north. We hit a few spots, taking a fish here and a few there. So today was a good day. We caught yellowtail, yellowfin, grouper and dorado. Today is what a 10-day trip is all about.”
The boat then made bee line for the Rocks where the losses were many. “Weather was cloudy, rain, but very little wind, so the seas were calm. We arrived to the rocks at sunrise. We trolled until we located the skinnyies. Most of the wahoo were in the 40- to 50-pound range. As the day went on, the fishing got a bit slower. We didn’t catch a ton, but the quality was there. The yellowfin were up to 70 pounds and the yellowtail were up to 50 pounds. We probably hooked 80 to 100 wahoo, some or which were lost to the sharks, but if you ever fished wahoo before then you know what I mean. We had one angler hook 12 and only landed 3, and that was the case for many anglers. But everyone onboard got at least one skinny.”
Rooster on the Ridge
The Red Rooster III was also down on the Ridge. Capt. Andy Cates sent this brief report, “Sure was nice to get a day on these nice wahoo to finish our time on the ridge. We had good fishing today.”
On the way up the line the boat swung inside for some coastal yellowtail, “Had a nice day in flat calm weather picking off yellowtail. A lot of yo-yo work but each bite equaled a quality fish.”
Big X down below
The big sportfisher Excel was also down on the fall grounds putting together another nice catch. The boat was on the Colonello 10-day trip, “Sorry for the lack of reports but we’ve been a little busy down here. Still excellent fishing on yellowfin tuna, yellowtail, and dorado and wahoo this trip. Still outstanding action with flat-calm weather. We’ll be looking for more wahoo tomorrow.”
AA 8-day returns
The American Angler returned with an excellent fall catch marked by quality and quantity. The boat posted this message upon return, “The guys backed in early with what can be described as a true “fall variety trip,” with a catch including school-size tuna, wahoo, dorado and yellowtail. Congratulations to jackpot winners: 1st place, John Blas with a 47-pound wahoo, 2nd place, Chris Barth with a 45.8-pound wahoo and 3rd place, Tony Nagatani with a 45-pound wahoo.
Star adjusts
The Royal Star was headed down the line when Capt. Tim Ekstrom received a report that the destination he was steering toward saw slow fishing. The veteran skipper changed course and produced a catch. The boat sent this report, “A slight adjustment on the fly this morning after receiving reports that our primary destination crapped the bed. Damn. But, and thank goodness for it, the secondary option, that has been producing the majority of the wahoo this season was made available by good weather and conditions. Hopscotching our way down from paddy to paddy, that thankfully weren’t too few and far in between, we scratched up slightly more than a couple of handfuls of nice wahoo and looked at thousands of dorado that we elected to bypass until later in the trip.”
The skipper explained, “Placing the quality of our end product over the immediate desire to clobber the readily available dorado is prudent at this stage. A little less time in the RSW tanks is far better for that particular fish. And, right now anyway, there have been enough dorado around to instill confidence in our ability to find them again.”
Intrepid and Larry Brown
The Intrepid returned to San Diego with a nice fall catch and some big bluefin to boot. The boat posted these jackpot winners on the annual Larry Brown 10-Day captained by Sam Moore. “We returned yesterday with a beautiful catch of yellowfin, bluefin, dorado and wahoo. We went down south for the beginning part of our trip and had good fishing on dorado, wahoo and yellowfin. We spent a few days there and decided to make a move up the line and try for local yellowfin and bluefin. When we arrived we were greeted with biting yellowfin and a couple really nice bluefin. We stayed up north and scratched away at better grade of bluefin up to 333 pounds. Jackpot winners go as follow, 3rd place, Richard Stone with a 93-pound bluefin, 2nd place, Greg Keller with a 108-pound bluefin and 1st place, Larry Brown with a 270-pound Bluefin. Honorable mention goes to Floyd Packer with a 261-pound bluefin and Patrick Parden with a 333-pound bluefin. Huge thanks to Larry Brown and all of his generous sponsors.”
We hope you enjoyed this article on our no-charge website wonews.com. Of course, this site contains only a small fraction of the stories that Western Outdoor Publications produces each week in its two northern and southern editions and its special supplements. You can subscribe to the print issue that is mailed weekly and includes the easy flip-page full-color digital issues, or you can purchase a digital only subscription. Click here to see the choice.
