The Great Chef of LA (11/10)

[Latimeria]

So, I've been FB friends with this guy Faisal for quite a few years.  The guy is chef for some amazing groups over the years.  He was the Chef for the Washington Nationals (Baseball Team) for years, he was the chef for literally the Duck Dynasty guys for 9 week stints on their 6,000 acre ranch, more famous people from Hollywood that I even know of... and then it all started to catch up to him.  I guess being a chef is literally crazy work and his life was starting to get stretched out to its limits.  I told him to come down and he can get rid of some of that stress by doing a little fishing with me.

He came down to SD for a bakery consultation gig and was ready to fish.  He was worried about the boat and said "You take this all the way out in the ocean looking for tuna?" . hahahaha, yep now get on board and lets get some fish!

The wind was supposed to blow opposite of the swell and current and I wasn't sure how nice conditions were going to be.  We headed straight out of the inlet looking for mackerel and used small irons to load up on about 18 of them as well as a bunch of bass, rockfish and whitefish!  The damn whitefish were hitting bare metal jigs!





Then we heard on the radio that there was a good bonito bite going on in LJ.  I was going back and forth as I did not want to get stuck heading home with a South Wind in our face, but we decided to make the run.  We find an area with a few boats and meter around.  I grab my small rod with the Calcutta 200 and cast out... BAM!  Rod doubles over and it was a BIG FISH!

I get it to the boat 15-20 minutes later and it's a HUGE bonito!  Maybe the biggest one I've personally ever seen and Faisal was tripped out how big that fugger was!  On it's last run, I finally was sure that I had it subdued and was bringing it to gaff when it burst out one more run and straightened my hooks.  Crap!

We bump up the gear a bit and start working the irons.  It was sporadic, but a fairly steady bite of big bones!  We caught 2 under 5 pounds and the rest all over 6 pounds with a few nice 8# fatties!







Unfortunately, his camera was on small pic mode so all of his pictures that he took of me came out blurry and pixelated.  Story of my life...



I was also soaking a live mack on a circle hook looking for yellows.  f@ck circle hooks!  They lose more fish than they catch!!!!  I lost a few fish and then finally hooked up.  This one seemed really heavy and all of a sudden it popped off.  I reel up to see a shark snipped my line and left the rough leader behind.  I'm guessing a soupie, but who really knows since I never saw it.

We then decided to troll around a bit and that was the way to go.  We released a bunch and kept a bunch.  All in all a great day!



We only kept what we needed, but it turned out to be a fantastic day on the water! The great thing was the wind started to hit soon as we got into the inlet.  Perfect timing for sure!

[xjchad]

So rad!
I bet he can make some amazing dishes from those bones!!

[Pinoyfisher]

Dang, bones of that size are awesome!!!

[vdisney]

Gotta ask Tom, how do you prepare your bonito?  I only smoke them, but then again they are not bled and chilled after catch......................disadvantage of fishing on cattle boats   

[Latimeria]

Gotta ask Tom, how do you prepare your bonito?  I only smoke them, but then again they are not bled and chilled after catch......................disadvantage of fishing on cattle boats   

Bled and iced right away keeps the meat firm.  Bonito Poke, pan seared fish tacos and smoked are my favorite ways.