Offshore with Rachel!
Monday, September 28, 2009
It had been a few days over a year since the last time I fished “offshore” with Rachel. The last offshore trip she was on was last year in early September down in Loreto. A few weeks after returning from that trip she blew out 2 of her disks and has only been back on the boat once for a bay trip in the Spring of ‘09. Unfortunately she missed this years Loreto trip due to her back still healing and I was starting to worry that I wouldn’t get a day in fishing offshore with her until 2010. Luckily her back was doing better after a year of Chiropractic, Acupuncture, Massage, Physical Therapy, Swimming, Walking, some great products from our FDA to help with the pain and of course some huge motivation on her part.
With the season starting to wind down I knew mother nature had to provide one thing more than anything else, a calm day. If it was rough when we got outside I knew that we would have to turn around and not risk any damage to her back. Catching fish was only going to be a wish off in the distance. More than anything I just wanted to get out on the water with my girl, have some calm seas, a beer to cheers her presence, some tunes and just maybe see her pull on a fish!
With the conditions looking good I knew I had to grab the oppurtunity and get out on the water. We got down to the ramp around 6:30am just as it was getting light out. The wind was calm and the bay looked nice and glassy. I knew it was the calmest morning I had so far this year (which isn’t saying much!). We got our bait and headed out into our lady ocean and was greeted with great conditions!
We stopped on numerous paddy’s of all sizes, including some really nice ones which still produced no results. Despite this, we cracked open a cold one and did a cheers for Rachel being back on the water. By about 1pm I knew it was time to start heading back to the barn so that Rachel wouldn’t be too tired and may get back on the water again. As we started to head in I knew there were fish in the area we were at but we had to find that one magic paddy! So I zigged zagged a bit as I headed in and just as I was about to finally straighten the boat out I saw some Terns diving off in the distance! Terns are a small white bird that always seem to know where the tuna are! As I sled up I could see that they were dipping down next to a kelp strand which meant there was some kind of bait getting pushed up from below. I shut the boat down, put our lines out and started “chunking” our dead bait. About 5 minutes into it my rod got picked up while I was chunking the bait. I quickly washed my hands and set the hook and knew that a Yellowfin was on the line. I passed the rod over to Rachel so she could batter her first fish in a long time! I also wanted to keep chunking to see if the school would keep coming up.
After a solid battle I got to gaff Rachel’s first Yellowfin in a long time! As you can see the gaff shot helped bleed out the fish for some good sushi grade meat!
Once we cleaned up the boat a bit I pulled back up to the paddy and we repeated the same steps again, including Rachel hooking up to another Yellowfin! This one definitely had more strength and put her arms to work! But once again she won and the fish lost…
This is the same Yellowfin but I really liked the shot. It was taken with a GoPro wide angle camera and I was literally one foot from the fish when I took it.
We drifted one last time but could not repeat the same results. I knew that we shouldn’t try to wait out the bite but instead call it a successful day and start the trek back in! It felt like mother nature gave us just what we asked for, a calm ocean and a few fish! I don’t know if Rachel’s back could have handled anymore fish so getting the two was just right.
We snapped a shot of us just before heading in to document the day that Rachel got back out on the water. A great day it was!
Until the next report, tight lines!
Captain Peter & #1 Fishing Partner Rachel