Melton 7-Day

I arrived at Fisherman's Landing by 5:30 am Wednesday August 28th to go out on Melton Tackle's 7-Day trip. I was anxious to get back on the Excel and back out long-range fishing. It had been almost two years since I had pulled on a tuna or yellowtail due to a knee replacement but I was back now.

I was 19th in line to board and what a surprise, there was still space on the tackle rack for my tackle box. Crew loaded all our gear and even carried mine downstairs to Stateroom 9, my home for the next week. Captain Mike Rameriz departed dock at 10:30 am and pointed the Excel towards the bait receiver. Branden, Mike, Bundy, Bill, Tim and Tim's son Charlie helped load bait, which took 3 hours to load 900 scoops of giant sardines. In addition to the crew on deck this trip, Jason Fleck was Master Chef in the galley assisted by Renee.

After the safety meeting, Mike informed us that the bluefin were down and not biting so we were heading to Alijos Rocks for wahoo with an ETA of 10:30 am Friday - over 40 hours of travel. Weather was predicted to be calm and warm for our trip. Mike, representing Melton's, raffled off a couple rods and reels and gave everyone a t-shirt and tackle. We spent the travel time setting up our tackle, listening to the tackle seminar and playing games on our iPads. WiFi on the Excel is free for passengers. Jason stuffed us with Eggs Benedict for breakfast, carnitas enchiladas for lunch, sushi snack and bluefin tuna for dinner. Fabulous food the entire trip.

Once we reached Alijos Rocks, we started trolling around. Water temperature was 77 degrees with sunny skies. It took a while to get a strike and when we did, we picked up a couple bait fish too. The fish were scattered and it took until 6 pm to catch 25 wahoo and none were mine. I did hook and release several yellowtail and one wahoo. When my wahoo got to color just out of gaff range, a huge bronze whaler shark grabbed my wahoo mid-body and chomped it and it was gone. There were no tuna at the rocks and the captain says the tuna have been gone for several years now. What a shame. I caught lots of quality yellowfin tuna at the rocks in years past.

Mike said we were heading to the 23 spot on the ridge to fish yellowtail. We arrived the next morning around 10 am, but the yellowtail were a no show. We were driving around still looking for yellows when we got close to a panga with two Mexican fishermen pulling in their fish. Mike shut the boat down and told us wahoo were everywhere. I hooked a nice wahoo on 30 pound mono with a 60 pound wire leader. My wahoo raced straight behind the panga then turned right wrapping my line around the boat. One of the fishermen lifted my line over the top of their boat so it wouldn't break off. I was able to fight the fish then I brought it to gaff. Tough way to catch a wahoo. We picked up 19 wahoo before heading up the line still looking for yellowtail. By day's end we picked up 87 yellowtail not quite the catch we expected.

Sunday morning found us further up the ridge still looking for yellowtail. When we found them, they bit full speed. I caught them on jig, dropper loop, 30 and 40 pound mono flylining a sardine - it didn't matter. I sent 4 yellows to the galley, put 4 in the RSW and gave away another 10 to other anglers. We put 225 yellowtail on the boat. Mike said we were all fixed up on wahoo and yellowtail so we were heading offshore to find tuna.

We started trolling at daybreak Monday morning. Water temp was 70.5 but we had a 15 knot wind with overcast skies. This was rougher than was predicted and our only rough water day. Most of us put on our wet weather gear as we were rolling around a lot and water from the bait tanks threatened to drench us all.

We trolled up a few too many 6 lb. yellowfin tuna, so Mike picked up the speed and trolled north looking for bigger fish. Late morning we picked up a few 25 lb. yellowfin tuna to add to the little guys caught earlier. Around 4 pm Mike found a school of bigger bluefin and told us not to use anything less than 60 lb. These fish boiled up and we hooked about 20 and I had one on the end of my line. I was fishing my Penn 12 VSX (custom red with my name engraved one it), backed with 80 pound spectra, 60 pound Berkley Big Game mono and a short 60 pound Berkley fluorocarbon leader tied to a Mustad 7/0 circle hook.

Bundy was my constant companion during my 50 minute battle. He encouraged me and kept me from pushing up my drags.These bluefin are tough fish and really pull hard. Our Chartermaster, Mike, was first to land one of these 130 pound beauties. I landed mine next - a 134 pound beauty that came in tail wrapped. My largest bluefin to date. The battles continued with the other big bluefin, some battles were won by the angler but more were won by the fish. Just after dark, after a 3 hour battle, the 6th and last hooked fish hit the deck. Although the big tuna hung with the boat a while, no more were hooked.

Tuesday morning the fish were gone so we trolled north looking for a biting school of tuna. Mike said we could fish until 1 pm before calling it a trip. We picked up an occasional fish but nothing special until noon when a biting school of mixed yellowfin and bluefin tuna rushed our boat. After an hour and 10 minutes, Mike called it a trip as we were out of bait and out of time. As I looked around, I saw bloody decks and stacks of tuna - 240 mixed bluefin and yellowfin - 14 of which were mine. Mike turned the school over to the Red Rooster that pulled over 300 fish from the same school. Great way to end the trip.

We arrived back at dock around 6:30 Wednesday morning. I picked up my CD of photos from Jason (who took all the photos you see here).  Jason takes hundreds of photos of everyone on the trip and for a mere $20, you can have all the photos to take home.  Such a great value.

After sorting fish, I gave my small bluefin and 3 nice yellowtail to Tim Boyer and sent my big bluefin, wahoo and yellowfin to Fisherman's Processing. What a great job they did with my fish. We picked up some beautiful filets, all cleaned, packaged and ready to take home. Thanks Fish Pro.

It sure was wonderful to be back on the water, long range fishing and great to be back on the big boat!