Phoenix Rods 10-Day

Tim Turis, Jim Carlisle, Steve Smith, Jeff Chuang, Tim Boyer and I departed September 27th on the Excel for 10 days of fishing.  Crew included Captain Justin Fleck, second Captain Mike Ramirez, Jake and Rod in the galley with Travis, Joel, Mike Loust and Chowder on deck.

We loaded our gear and headed to the bait receiver for some healthy looking sardines.  Captain Fleck said we are heading south and would know in the morning if we would hit Cedros first or head directly for the rocks.  Tim Turis said he was going to catch a wahoo so he put his trolling gear out and sure enough - he caught a 52 pound wahoo which he sent to the galley.  Jake made a delicious wahoo dinner for us all to enjoy.  Thank you Tim and Jake.

September 28th was a travel day heading towards Cedros.  

September 29th found us at Cedros fishing for yellowtail.  Unfortunately, the yellows that had been there last trip had disappeared.  So we worked our way down towards the ridge hitting the high spots along the way.  Eventually we found a spot that spit out a few big yellowtail. 

September 30th and October 1st were spent along the ridge fishing for yellowtail, tuna, wahoo and grouper.  Tim Boyer picked up his first wahoo and he caught a couple grouper.  Yellowtail were caught on the dropper loop and some on the yoyo jig.  Tuna, however, were pretty much a no-show.  What we did find were mostly 10 to 15 pound yellowfin with a few 20 to 30 lb. fish. 

October 2nd and 3rd we were catching wahoo at Alijos Rocks.  We put together a pretty good catch too. The wahoo loved the live bait and many bit the iron as well.  I ended up fishing 30 pound mono with a 27 pound single strand wire leader to catch most my wahoo.

October 4th was spent back on the ridge looking for yellowtail, tuna and grouper.  We snagged a few more wahoo, yellowtail and I caught a 44.4 pound Gulf Grouper.  I was fishing 30 mono with a short fluoro leader flylining a sardine when it bit.  I thought it was a shark because I felt shaking and jerking motions on my line.  Travis offered to pop off my shark but I said I needed the exercise.  When the fish came to color, Travis said its brown and went to get a gaff to cut it off.  That's when the fish popped to the surface and I saw it was a grouper.

October 5th we tried for yellowtail at Natividad and other high spots but came up short.  Only a handfull were caught.  Sheepshead were biting well though.

October 6th we were offshore looking for kelps.  One wahoo was caught on troll.  We fished until 4:30 pm then Justin called it a trip.  As far as 10 day trips go, this was an extremely slow trip with very low fish counts.  It was a fun trip though because of the friends on the trip.

I was lucky enough to catch 7 wahoo, 6 yellowfin tuna, 7 yellowtail and 1 grouper.  Our final count was 130 wahoo, 93 yellowtail, 48 yellowfin tuna, 3 grouper and 1 dorado for 33 people - an average of 8 fish per person. We arrived back at dock before daybreak October 7th.