Five Days of Wine Glass Weather

The annual Braid Products 5-day trip on the Excel (http://excelsportfishing.com/) departed Fisherman’s Landing on Saturday, July 22, 2006 with 31 anxious anglers on board. I had the pleasure of being the Braid representative for this year’s trip.

The temperature approached 97 degrees as we departed the bait receivers around noon heading down the coast towards Benitos and Cedros Islands. Captain Shawn Steward was at the helm, assisted by Captain Justin Fleck. On deck were Mike, Joe, Oscar, Jordan, and Jake. Jason and Shane managed the Galley.


The Baja Coast

We had 24 hours of travel time to reach our destination, which time was spent in safety and tackle seminars, tackle set-up, and naps. I gave out Braid jigs and T-shirts to all the passengers and crew, courtesy of Braid Products. Sunday dawned overcast and tropical. Water temperatures ranged from 71.6 to 73 degrees, air temperature in the 80’s and very humid. Our ETA to Benitos was 2 p.m. Just outside the island, we found our first dead whale of the trip. Shawn spun the boat around the whale metering for fish. When we smelled the rotting carcass, we were not disappointed when the Captain said “There’s nothing here. We’ll keep moving on.”


The Dead Whale

We drifted on several spots at an area referred to as the “bush” picking at yellowtail. We were all having fun and the fish were cooperating especially when we threw the yoyo jigs. By 6 p.m. we had caught 160 yellowtail in the 20 to 35 pound range. Shawn said that if we raised our count to 200, we could jet out to Guadalupe Island this evening instead of staying here another day fishing yellowtail. After dinner, we dropped down to the bottom with dropper loop rigs and picked up some bigger yellows. By 9:45 p.m., we had 251 yellowtail in the hold so Shawn set a course for Guadalupe Island. With an ETA of noon, we were looking forward to sleeping in.


Benitos Yellowtail




“Numbers 1 through 5 put the trolling jigs out!” It was 6:00 a.m.! I was the only one up and on deck and I sure wasn’t awake yet. What happened to sleeping in? The water temperature was 72.4 degrees, clean and blue. Shawn was looking for kelps holding fish. Just outside Guadalupe Island, we found our second dead whale that was more decomposed than the first and, fortunately, did not hold any fish.

The Royal Polaris was already at the Island when we arrived. Captain Steward spent some time looking around the island for the best spot to anchor. The Qualifier 105 and the Red Rooster III were due in the next day so it was important to get settled in. I believe we ended up in an area referred to as “Westies.” Shawn got the anchor down around 1:30 p.m. I was first to hook up. I landed a 50 pound yellowfin using 40 pound Berkley Big Game on a Penn 12T reel. That fish went to the galley for dinners for the non-meat eaters and a Sushi spread for us all.



Guadalupe Island Yellowfin Tuna

We put 46 yellowfin tuna and 1 yellowtail on the boat before the fish called it a night. After dinner, Shawn took us off the island to catch squid. Squid making was as easy as it gets. Put your squid jig 12 inches under the surface of the water and watch them grab it – then reel it in. After filling the hand wells, we put squid in the kill box. When that was a third full, Shawn moved the boat again and set us up for nighttime yellowtail fishing. The yellowtail didn’t cooperate for the handful of anglers that stayed up all night fishing.






Kirk Mitchell Filming

Humbolt Squid


The next morning the decks were covered with storm petrels, those sickly looking little black birds that invade every corner and crevice of the boat regurgitating rust colored ooze everywhere. By daybreak, the crew had cleared most of them off the boat and had started a chunk line with the dead squid.

We never hooked a chunk fish, however, when we floated a whole live or dead squid out, we got bit. The current was light, so it took a while to get a bait out to where the fish were. The fishing was typical Guadalupe Island fishing – long soak using 40 pound mono with fluorocarbon and a circle hook. Later in the day, the yellowfin really got with it and bit poppers, Yummie Flyers, and sardines as well as the squid.

Mid day the white sharks decided to pay us a visit. We had four around us at one time and two of them had blue dots on their nose from the Excel’s bottom paint. These giants are so efficient at taking a hooked tuna that there was no discernable movement of their head as they swam by taking all of the body of a 60 pound tuna leaving just the head with a trail of bright red blood seeping into the blue sea. Our Captain tied a couple of the remaining heads on a cord and threw it over the stern to coax the sharks to “open wide” so we could snap some photos. Whitie obliged. Eventually the sharks backed off and left us alone.










Fishing was better than I had ever seen it at the Island. I caught 3 tuna on squid (2 of which were on a bobber balloon) and 4 on sardine this day. I believe much of the good fishing had to do with Captain Steward’s ability to select the right place to fish. The other 3 boats at the Island with us had half the catch we ended with. There were 95 yellowfin tuna and 10 yellowtail that went in the fresh well before calling it a day. All the tuna were between 45 and 83 pounds. The yellowtail were around 30 pounds.




We spent the last day fishing kelps and meter marks 70 miles from Point Loma. The rest of the fleet was here too fishing for albacore among about a dozen seiners. Fishing was tough. Early we hit one kelp for 27 yellowtail and a handful of dorado then spent the rest of the day chasing fleeting albacore schools. Chas Schoemaker picked up the only albacore on troll and I caught two albacore on bait fishing 25 pound Berkley mono topped with fluorocarbon. One of the albacore weighed 42.8 pounds. That was it for albacore.






We finished our trip with a fantastic Prime Rib feast prepared by Jason and Shane and served by our Captain, Shawn Steward. Seared Ahi was my dinner choice and it was some of the best I’ve had. After dinner, I awarded Grant Christianson the Crystal Tuna for releasing more fish than any other passenger. We had a total of 40 fish released during the trip. Congratulations goes to all the passengers that participated in releasing fish.

Kirk Mitchell and his son, Garrett, brought a movie camera along to document their fishing trip. As they filmed the trip, their project expanded into a full fledged movie covering all aspects of a long range fishing trip. Many hours were spent editing their material and a draft was shown at dinner on our last night. The draft was as professional a DVD as I've seen and I can't wait to obtain my copy. The Mitchell's offered to provide copies to all the passengers for a nominal cost to reimburse them for their materials and shipping.



Our wine glass weather continued the entire trip until we arrived back at Fisherman’s Landing at 6:00 a.m. Wednesday morning. After off loading our gear and sorting fish, Shawn weighed up fish for jackpot. Jackpot honors went to Grant Christianson with an 83 pound yellowfin tuna, Tim Kelly with a 64.8 pound tuna and Joe Ludlow with a 64 pound tuna.


Grant Christianson, Tim Kelly, & Joe Ludlow