El Nino Marine Life (10/23)

[Latimeria]

I took the day off to look for some of the elusive local Wahoo that have been caught on a daily basis down here.  Steve took the day off because he didn't want to be left out...

Man, we headed out the inlet at dark and went to make some bait for our journey.  I brought an extra 12 gallons topside which doubled our fuel capacity and was ready to whack some Hoo!



Conditions were much better than they were calling for in the morning report and we made 14 macks before heading offshore.  We were definitely in the right area as we were trolling the line with the other 100 people that also took off.  Steve spots a fin in the water and we box the area with a troll, but couldn't identify what it was.  Soon after, we spot a paddy and give it a good soak for nothing.  Lots of bait on the meter, but no real marks, so we continued on.



We trolled up and down for miles, while boxing in areas that looked better than others.  I see something jump out of the corner of my eye and look to watch a 500 (?) pound marlin free jumping near the boat!  We sped up our troll to get over there, but I have to be honest, I wasn't sure if I really wanted to hook up with it as it looked bigger than my boat!  LOL
We couldn't get him to bite and found another paddy loaded with bait.  It looked like little flying fish and later we realized that it was all grasshopper sized flying fish everywhere!
Just then Steve looks over and yells "Manta Ray!"  I look over to see a 1,000+ pound Manta jump 8 feet into the air!  What a friggand cool sight to witness!  We would end up seeing 4 jumpers throughout the day!

We trolled...





And trolled ready to hit the GoPro just in case...



To no avail...  We burned through 3/4 of our total fuel and decided to try in closer to LJ.  I thought I saw a submarine breaching when I realized it was two humpback whales jumping and breaching like crazy!



I got some video and watched him for a while as we dropped some baits down into the depths looking to get on the board.  Lots of Lingcod down there, but all they did was shred baits. 

We decided to call it the day and stop off for a halibut drift.  We made a few drifts for nothing, when we were just ready to reel in and my rod get walloped!  It never grabbed the hook, just the big mack and I lost it.  we made one more drift before calling it quits and heading in.

Needless to say, it was cool trip seeing all the exotics out there, but we got skunked on the Wahoo.  This is not over though as I'm determined to get one before they disappear!

Good fishing with you Steve, and until next tide.....

[sasquatch]

We had a legit shot. Right place. Right gear. Wrong time.

Mantas and humpback were way cool.

[xjchad]

Amazing! I want to get a boat so bad!

[vdisney]

Damn dude..........1000 lb plus mantas, 500 lb marlin plus whales surfacing like subs!!!!  Sounds like a stellar time, fish or not 

[Pinoyfisher]

Be nice to see some manta footage! Amazing to see those things go airborne.

[Fish Jerk]

Be nice to see some manta footage! Amazing to see those things go airborne.

Here's a pretty cool video from the sea of Cortez in baja.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-HkeGcj24K0