F
freedivr2
Guest
I headed out of with 22 other friends on our annual Tuna Charter, this time not an overnighter, but a 1.5 day trip last Sunday night. We boarded the "Ranger 85" out of H & M at San Diego at about 8 pm. At 6 am Monday, we were 76 miles from San Diego, and kept heading south in Mexican waters. Probably got as far as 100 miles SW of Diego before we turned around at 4 pm.
Early am we picked up about (8) 30-40 lb. Yellowfin Tuna on the troll. The water was aquamarine blue, conditions perfect, small 1' wind waves in the morning, and 2-4' swells. Sky was overcast and the water temp about 72 deg. The tuna bite was super slow, so we started fishing floating kelp paddys around 9 am, and picked up some really nice yellowtails (the pic below is me with my 28 lb. YT and a couple of 10 lb. Dorado)
The vast majority of the Yellowtail we were finding were in the 12-18 lb. class. Then, around 10 am, we found a small paddy full of hungry dorados!! We pulled in a few of em, and then kept paddy hoppin. Almost every paddy had Yellows and/or dodos, so everytime we spotted one the anticipation level was purty good.
We had one or two pretty hot stops on the dodos, and they were lit up and jumping real good. Biggest bull dodo filled the length of the kill box (about 4'), we estimated him to go around 25 lbs. Most of the dodos were in the 8-10 lb. class. Below is a picture of some of the fish (the rest are on the starboard side of the bow, there was no angle I could get to take a pic of all of em).
Total damage for the day for our group was 83 YT, 72 Dorado and 8 YFT (for 22 guys). I ended up with 5 Yellowtail and 2 Dodos. So, not a bad day out on the pond......Oh yeah, almost forgot; The yellowtail above got me the jackpot for the trip; $220 smackers!
Early am we picked up about (8) 30-40 lb. Yellowfin Tuna on the troll. The water was aquamarine blue, conditions perfect, small 1' wind waves in the morning, and 2-4' swells. Sky was overcast and the water temp about 72 deg. The tuna bite was super slow, so we started fishing floating kelp paddys around 9 am, and picked up some really nice yellowtails (the pic below is me with my 28 lb. YT and a couple of 10 lb. Dorado)
The vast majority of the Yellowtail we were finding were in the 12-18 lb. class. Then, around 10 am, we found a small paddy full of hungry dorados!! We pulled in a few of em, and then kept paddy hoppin. Almost every paddy had Yellows and/or dodos, so everytime we spotted one the anticipation level was purty good.
We had one or two pretty hot stops on the dodos, and they were lit up and jumping real good. Biggest bull dodo filled the length of the kill box (about 4'), we estimated him to go around 25 lbs. Most of the dodos were in the 8-10 lb. class. Below is a picture of some of the fish (the rest are on the starboard side of the bow, there was no angle I could get to take a pic of all of em).
Total damage for the day for our group was 83 YT, 72 Dorado and 8 YFT (for 22 guys). I ended up with 5 Yellowtail and 2 Dodos. So, not a bad day out on the pond......Oh yeah, almost forgot; The yellowtail above got me the jackpot for the trip; $220 smackers!
