American Angler 7 Day

I arrived at Point Loma Landing at 4:40 am November 5th.  Gary was the only one in line.  Usually there are many in line when I arrive.  By the time we boarded at 10 am, there were 24 of us.  

We were already baited up so we headed straight down to the ridge, a day and a half ride.  We spent the travel time getting to know each other.   

One of the passengers happened to be the chef at the Root Cafe on Google Campus in Mountainview - and my son Chris said it was the only cafe on campus that offers healthy food.  Pauline also turned out to be a great fisherman and a fun person to spend time with.

Pauline

Ray was our Captain for the trip with Rocko, Austin, Trevor and Justin on deck with Josh and Nick in the Galley.

We arrived on the ridge at the 13 spot around 1:30 pm on the 7th and began trolling.  Our fist hook up was a big rope.  Justin had to dive to cut it off the props.  Once we got back to fishing, the 15 to 25 pound yellowfin tuna went into a 90 minute wide open bite.  We put 189 tuna on board before we headed down the ridge towards the 23 spot.  I fished my Penn 12T spooled with Berkley Pro Spec 80 pound spectra topped with Berkley 40 pound monofilament and a 3 foot leader of Berkley Pro Spec 40 pound clear fluorocarbon.  This ended up being the rig for the entire trip.

When we awoke the next morning, the yellowfin were already biting.  I caught my first fish around 4 am.  Once it was daylight, we began trolling for wahoo.  By day's end, we had 34 wahoo and only 3 people were without a wahoo.  Ray took us to San Pablo to make bait for the next day.  The mackerel were very cooperative.

Friday morning (the 9th) was a slow start.  Just a couple yellowtail before daylight.  We began trolling again with just our three anglers without a wahoo on troll.  Just a few minutes before mission accomplished - at least one wahoo for everyone - half of which had never caught one before.  The wahoo continued to bite until we had another 33 to add to our catch.  Amazingly these ono were big logs, some up to 50 pounds.  I had 5 of these big gators myself.

Late morning Ray anchored up on the bank and I cast out on a long soak and hooked and landed a nice yellowfin that brought a big school with him.  Many skippies came along too.  Once we switched to mackerel it was game on.  Every cast off the Starboard corner with a mackerel turned into a yellowfin tuna.  These fish were a better grade - 20 to 40 pound fish.  We were all at or over limits when Ray handed the school off to the Polaris Supreme.

Saturday morning found us in calm seas close to land fishing for yellowtail.  We caught 84 nice yellowtail then headed north around 4:30 pm.

Sunday morning dawned with calm seas.  Our final day of fishing and we still had calm seas.  It wasn't very long and Ray found a kelp holding dorado.  We managed 17 dorado before Ray said we had to call it a trip.  Our catch for the trip was what you would expect on a 10 day trip.  67 Wahoo; 357 Yellowfin; 89 Yellowtail; 17 Dorado.

Great group of people to fish with.  One of the most enjoyable trips I have had.

When we arrived back at the dock, we unloaded our catch and weighed up jack pot.  All three places in the JP were wahoo.

I gave most of my fish to Shig then sent the rest to Fisherman's Processing to fillet.  When I picked up my fish, I also bought some of their seasonings.  They are terrific especially the Sesame Spice on tuna.

The next three days were spent canning tuna.  I ended up with 8 cases of pint jars of tuna from my catch.  These should last me and my family for a couple years.  Thanks to Ray and the crew of the American Angler for the great trip.