San Diego Fishing Adventures

First Yellowtail of 2010!!

Friday, March 05, 2010

The Yellowtail have arrived in full force for 2010!!!

With an incoming storm on the horizon for the weekend, Terry and I decided to play hooky for a half day to try and get on the Yellowtail bite before it get’s shutdown from weather. To be back to work before noon, we knew it had to be an early morning run to get some fishing time in. With that said, my alarm fired off at 2:45am and I was on the road by 3am. I arrived about 20 minutes early so I got the boat in the water and tied to the dock waiting for Terry’s arrival. We were also waiting for our good friend Ben to show up with his boat for a “buddy” boat trip out. Everyone got their right on time and by 4:15am we were pushing our way through the dark pointed towards North Coronado Island. With an almost full moon hanging in the western horizon, it gave us a glowing pathway straight to North Island. By the time we got a few miles out we were actually able to see the silhouette of North Island from the Moon’s light. It was a rare and beautiful sight!

The grey light just barely showing on the horizon we arrived at North Island and started metering around to see if we could find some fish. We dropped at a few spots that showed bait down below, but for the most part it was pretty bare looking down there. The idea was to try and find a school of Yellowtail at or near the bottom in 160’-180’ feet of water and drop “Iron” down to the bottom. An Iron is a weighted lure that is painted in various colors with a single treble hook at the end of it. The idea it so sink it to the bottom then real up as fast as you can for about 50’, then drop it back down.

By 7:45am we had nothing to show and did not see anyone pull a Yellowtail over the side. Just as we were trying to figure out our next move, I looked over and saw a splash on the surface and started to ask Terry if he had seen that right when the surface started to explode with Yellowtail crashing the surface just 20’ from the boat!! You could see their backs busting out of the water as they were crashing and slicing through the water! This did not look like a winter bite, but very much like a Spring bite! I threw the boat in gear to get us to slide up on the school so Terry could cast into it. I turned the engine off as we slid up and Terry got a good cast in right into the middle of the chaos. As soon as he threw the reel in gear and started to crank he was on! This fish slammed his lure and took off on a run and never slowed down! He took the lure at the surface and almost instantly dove down to 180’ of water with no hesitation despite Terry’s drag being set for 40lb mono line!! This was a real fish at the end of his line! He battled it for about 5 minutes until the fish finally broke him off on the bottom. It was a sad moment, but a moment that we had to quickly drop to try again since they still could be around. Not a minute later, I was cranking my lure off the bottom when suddenly my reel would not turn anymore and my line loaded up! Sure enough, another Yellowtail was on! At the same time our buddy Ben called us to let us know they were getting into them as well. It was like someone had just flipped the “bite” switch on no matter where you were around the island.

After a good battle with my Yellowtail we gaffed it and pulled right back up to where we had first started and began the drill again. By the second drop Terry had locked back into another Yellowtail, this time it stuck and made it to the boat! It was now 8:15am and we had 2 Yellowtail in the boat on March 5th!! This was looking very promising for the rest of the morning and for Spring!

The bite seemed to slow back down just as quick as it fired off. We called Ben and he said some are still hooked up around them so we decided to start heading our way over. As were headed their direction I was keeping my eye on the fishfinder to see if anything interesting showed up, and it did! The bottom lit up with marks and great structure. I threw the boat in reverse and we dropped our Irons down. By the second reel up, we both hooked up into some more quality Yellowtail!! It was great to have a double on some hard pulling fish in March! After a good long battle with our fish, we were able to get the gaff in to put 2 more Yellowtail in the boat!

We fished a bit more in the same area with one more “loss” and then decided to poke around the corner a bit before calling it a day. With the islands being so green we also decided to take some fish shots with the island in the back ground. You don’t get to see how green it really was due to the angle, but they were very green!

---

---

---

---

At 10am we pulled the plug and started heading in with nice seas allowing us to run at 33mph. Just as we crossed over from the Mexico border (Yes, my gps shows the border line out in the ocean!) to the U.S. border we noticed a Coast Guard Cutter slowly going the opposite direction of us. Just as we started to pass them I noticed they flipped the Cutter around and a huge plume of diesel smoke blew out the back as they threw the boat into high speed. I had not idea the Cutter could go that fast, that quickly. Sure enough he was barreling down on us with a tiny blue light flashing at the top of this “ship”! I was amazed and had no idea we could get stopped by a coast guard cutter ship, but we did.

I stopped the boat and shut off the engine as they told us over the load speaker they wanted to check our boat. We floated around waiting for them to get their gear on and launch there Zodiak out of the back of this ship to come check us out. The only thing we were worried about was making it back to the dock in time so we wouldn’t be late for work. They finally pulled up and boarded our boat very politely and started to do a safety check and ask us if we touched land in Mexico. We answered all their questions, showed them all the safety gear and threw a few jokes around to help have a little fun. They thanked us and shook our hands before getting back on their little boat and heading off.

I threw the boat in gear and quickly bumped our speed up to 35mph to try and make up for the lost 20 minutes. We arrived at the dock at 11:15 am with just enough time for Terry the load his gear in and get to work.

Overall it was a long morning with some great fishing!! It was March 5th and we had fresh Yellowtail in the fish hold! What I am the most excited about is the amount of fish spread out around the island and the water temperature and quality. It was a large amount of fish spread out and the water was hitting 61.7 in the warmest spots! Overall it was looking more like Spring out there, not Winter. Hopefully this is a sign of what’s coming over the next month or two! This El Nino could hold together and give us a great Yellowtail bite this year!

Until the next report, tight lines!
Captain Peter

---

Comments