BY GUNDY GUNDERSON
SAN DIEGO- The good early sign on the cow grounds has developed into an excellent bite with the sportfisher Royal Polaris landing two super cows and three cows in a flurry of solid fishing on the third day on the grounds. After a few days of good wahoo fishing and a handful of yellowfin tuna, the boat ran into the big boys they were looking for. To go with the trophies, good numbers of 100-pound class fish filled out the catch. Several other boats are scheduled to fish the grounds in the near future. The prospects look good.
RP starts fast
After an excellent previous trip to the cow grounds that saw good fishing for teenage yellowfin and outstanding fishing for big wahoo, the Royal Polaris was back down on the grounds. The bigger models that were absent on the previous trip, decided to pay a visit. The wily Capt. Roy Rose was at the wheel. The boat sent this first report, “Well, we made a quick stop to top our bait supply. We caught some larger mackerel for bait, for the kite. After bait, we fished for some quality yellowtail. We caught enough for dinner, most of the fish were in that 25- to 35- pound range. We are now back on the move, and should arrive to our next destination in the morning of the 8th. Today Roy will give a seminar on yellowfin tuna fishing.”
The tuna fishing began slow but a slug, 50-pound wahoo raised spirits. The boat sent this report, “We arrived in the early morning hours, just in time to catch flying fish. We caught what we needed. We dropped our anchor and stated fishing for tuna. Well we didn’t land anything of size. Once the sun came, it was time to troll for wahoo. The yellowfin didn’t make a showing, but the wahoo made up for that. We almost ended up with daily limits. Most of the wahoo were in the 30- to 45- pound range. Eric Thinido was the lucky angler today with a 50- pound Wahoo, which won him a brand new Calstar rod.”
The following day, the yellowfin tuna fishing was slow again. The boat only caught one fish but it was a good one, a 308-pound supercow, “Today was a very slow day for us. We only caught a handful of wahoo and one yellowfin tuna. Lucky angler today was Rick Allen. Rick was on the kite, when this giant inhaled his flying fish. After a 45-minute battle, the fight was over, and it the fish tipped the scale at 308-pounds. That would be our only bite on the kite. As I’m writing this report, we are getting our live flyers for tomorrow. Weather continues to be excellent, with sunny skies, and a light breeze.”
The big fish was a precursor of what was to come, “What a day we had. The big boys showed up, and the tax man let us fish. Big fish honors goes out to Rick Allen, with a giant yellowfin tuna, that topped the scale at 398 pounds. Just a beautiful fish. Rick was using a puffer fish, that one of the yellowfin had just flushed out. This is Rick’s second 300 pounder for the trip.”
The report continued, “We also had 3 other fish over 200 pounds. Tom Newman, with a 254, Stan Know, with a 234, and Pete Wright, with a 234-pound yellowfin tuna. We also had another 10 to 15 fish in the 120- to 175-pound range. Wahoo fishing also picked up a little today. We made another tank of flying fish, and we are down for the night.”
