BY TREVOR BEERE
SAN DIEGO— It was a pretty tough day of fishing witha decent swell out there that was mixed with some wind, and that had the islands turned up a little bit and we really only got one decent shot at yellowtail all day. It actually came within the last hour of our fishing time, and while it was a decent window of probably 10 minutes with fish around the boat actively feeding, it was the one and only shot.
Just before the yellows started boiling, the boat sped up and made a sharp turn towards South Island and started chumming, and fish responded and started boiling all around the boat. At first, I really struggled to get a bait to swim away from the boat which was surprising because we had fairly-large sardines that I was able to cast a very good distance, but a mixture of current and sea lions kept pushing my bait straight back at the boat, so I stayed busy rotating baits for most of that bite window. After changing probably 15 baits, I finally got the right one and it went straight toward shore and down to the bottom, fast. As my bait was running, I looked to my buddy said, “man, I had a hard time getting a good bait. I finally got a good one and this one should get bit,” right as it got bit!
The fish didn’t start peeling line like a typical bite. It just stopped, so I put my reel in gear, wound down and then the fish pulled some drag. Right after a very short, fast run, the fish charged the boat and one of the deckhands asked if I had a bass, and I quickly replied “no, I don’t think so. If this is a bass, it’s huge!”
After the fish got straight up and down under the boat and started peeling line in the opposite direction, the deckhands realized I wasn’t fibbing. As the yellowtail passed by the boat, at least a half a dozen sea lions came out from underneath the boat and started chasing it. At some point, they actually were pushing the yellowtail out of the water and just made the fish act, very sporadic and unpredictable. After going back and forth a couple times and taking a very decent run, the fish was about 100 feet away on the surface, and I started to gain a lot of line back quickly because it had turned around and started swimming back at the boat.
One of the deckhands, Ethan, helped me through the crowd up the rail. We realized the fish was moving too fast, and I had to basically throw Ethan my rod as he was running up the rail towards the bow to try to keep my line from getting damaged on the sonar or the hull. As this is going on, Captain Ryan acted quickly with the gaff and caught the fish by surprise as it was basically charging by the bow on the surface with at least 7 or 8 sealions on it! Had it not been for his quick action on the gaff as well as the quick action by the deckhands, I don’t think this fish would’ve made it in the boat.
As soon as they brought the fish over the rail, I knew it was a new personal best for myself, and I asked the captain how big he thought it was. He replied “that’s a 30, nice job!” I didn’t end up getting a weight on it right away as there were several other fish hooked up at the time and I wanted to get another bait out and try for another one.
We weighed it at the end of the day after cutting out the gills, letting it bleed out and sit in the fish hold for a while, an the scale was tipping just shy of 30 pounds. So considering it probably lost a few ounces of blood and gill weight, they said it was at least 30 which is almost an 8-pound upgrade on my previous personal best yellowtail!
What an awesome way to start the season off! As always, I can’t thank the captain and crew of the San Diego for all that they do out there. Those guys go above and beyond to make memories like this possible!
