Offshore with Ray
Friday, October 02, 2009
Surreal is the only way I can describe this day on the water! I invited my buddy Ray Glendenning out for some offshore fishing before the season came to a close. It works good with Ray since he has off every Friday and I don’t really like fishing with the weekend crowd. The morning started out even flatter than the previous Monday with Rachel! It was a lake out there with oil slick glass and no swell to speak of. We headed out and once again started finding great paddy’s with no fish willing to bite on them. The ocean was so flat that I decided to not put the troll lines in but instead just drive all over looking for paddy’s since it was so flat. I knew this was that one day a year you get where you wonder what lake you’re on!
We finally found one paddy that produced one Yellowfin Tuna for us which took the skunk off the boat and meat on our plates! It was the typical size Yellowfin for this season which was around 10lbs. We headed off and kept driving all over hitting one paddy after another for nothing. It wasn’t just the flat seas that made this day so surreal, but it was also about the amazing clouds that began pushing in from the South. Every hour they got more ominous looking and amazing.
Despite these clouds and the feeling of maybe some rain, the Wind still stayed calm and the ocean flat! I decided to head out West until we hit a cooler temp break and even found a paddy right on the break which still had no fish. Then I headed to the North, back inside, South again and everywhere else in between. What I noticed most was that the warmer water was on the inside where we got our one fish so far. With that information I decided to swing inside and south and then begin working our way back up the line to the north. We got about one mile West of a bank called the 371 and I spotted a hotel sized paddy off in the distance! Unfortunately another boat had just spotted it too and was starting to make it’s way over.
This thing was huge when we pulled up! Not only was it huge, but the clouds once again put on a show for us, except this time it was with some rain off in the distance!
We baited up and I started to chunck our dead bait to try and get a school to move in. While I was chuncking my bait got hit but by the time I got to my rod to set the hook it had swiped the bait off the hook. Just then Ray got picked up too and fortunately his stuck when he set the hook. Right away his line was ripping off the reel! I didn’t think too much of it since Yellowfin have that tendency until Ray made the comment that this fish was a bigger fish. After about 15 minutes I knew he was right based on how much his rod was bent and how the fish was not even close to giving up! He slowly and patiently tried gaining line, which at times would work, and at other times the fish would just take back out what Ray had gained! This was a good battle!
After about 20 minutes the Yellowfin was below the boat about 20’ or so but would not come in anymore. Anytime Ray tried to pull him in the line would just roll off the reel. We knew that the Yellowfin had turned sideways to start what we call the death cirlce. This is when the tuna turns sideways to add more drag and then slowly swim in circles below the boat not allowing you to gain any line. After 30 minutes Ray was finally able to start gaining line, or maybe the fish finally started to allow Ray to gain some line. I could see that it was a really nice fish starting to make it’s way to the boat. Once it was in gaff range I was able to stick him and Rays fish was finally in the boat after a long battle!
Ray with his Yellowfin that weighed in at 27lbs!
While this was all going on the clouds kept putting on this amazing show for us! We kept saying how surreal it all looked and seemed, especially now with this amazing fish and paddy.
We fishing this paddy for quite a while boating 4 Yellowfin Tuna and one really nice Dorado which I am now realizing we got not picture off! Actually we have no pictures of any other fish besides Ray’s 27lb Yellowfin! Woops! I think we were too excited to finally get a good bite going and just couldn’t do anything else but focus on getting more fish in the boat! So due to this, I will share another shot of Ray’s Yellowfin because it is such a great fish!
Ray again with his 27lb Yellowfin Tuna.
After about an hour of this there were 3 other boats on the paddy and the bite came to a stand still. I am sure if we stuck it out we may have plucked off one or two more fish. But it was getting a bit late and the mother nature was still giving us a smooth ride home! On the way in there was rain over the Coronado Islands which created a light rainbow above them. You have to look closely, but the rainbow is there!
Just another way mother nature made this day so amazing!
Overall it was a great day on the water with amazing conditions, amazing weather and amazing fishing!
Until the next report, tight lines!
Captain Peter