Another Weekend Planned for Me (9/15)

[Latimeria]

I was planning on fishing on Saturday since my Sunday plans have already been issued and it doesn't include football.  Sunday is Family Boat day again which is fine, but they just want to stay in the bay and Saturday has turned into a Honey-Do list day as well as more "family" things that I need to take care of.

My texts started coming in about marlin literally outside the kelp.  A buddy fought one for 20 minutes before losing it (Later to find out Tombo got one outside the inlet yesterday!).  I heard about the BFT, YFT, and Dodo.  I am so busy at work and have to be there, but at 8:00, I said F-It... I'm going fishing.

New navigation lights were tested and approved.



My plan was to jig up squid for bait, run to LJ looking for marlin and shooting offshore and trolling for BFT, while stopping at any paddy that looked like it was holding.  Well, signs of squid, but definitely not getting anything up through all of the 1 to 1.5# macks.  I kept a few beasts in case I come across big tuna, dodo, or marlin.

I just skipped LJ since I found no squid and time is of the essence....

Water was not looking like "Pelagic Water" at the 9, but I passed a lot of life at the edge of the world.  I saw a few paddies with cigar sized yellows on them, but nothing big.  I found 3 groups of the fleet  all within a 8 mile  square of each other, but I only saw a handful of sporties catching.  All the boats were drifting baits trying to poach their chum line.

I kept well clear and went on the hunt to get my bent butt some love on the Curmudgeon.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing, but a small school of 80-100 pounders started foaming and coming clear out of the water!  I looked back at my spreader bar and curved the boat to go over them and they sunk out.  As I was watching my spreader... BOOOOOMMM! I watched a triple digit go airborne in the middle of it and the drag was screaming!  It screamed for only about 5 seconds and went quiet.  After trying to raise them again, I reeled in to see a squid bulb shredded, but it wasn't the one with the hook damnit!   

I trolled and trolled .... stopping at what all seemed to be empty paddie... or my mackerel was scaring everything on the paddies...



I needed to get home before the traffic since I was also in charge of cooking dinner.  As I was coming in, I could just smell fish in the air.  I didn't see any paddies or boats and cast my monster mackerel in.  It got slammed, but was constantly getting let go.  I reeled in my dead mack and it was followed by the culprit, a free swimming dodo!  I threw irons and everything but nothing came back, so took my smaller rod and started trolling a pink jet head. 

I looked back and said to myself "Why don't I have any line on that reel?"  Then realized I forgot to put on the clicker and I'm on!  lol

I finally get a mahi to the boat and was going to swing him in, but decided to make sure I boated something so gaffed him.  Well miss the gaff on the first shot, but got him on the second.



That was it.  I just made a B-Line to the ramp looking for paddies along the way...  At least I didn't get skunked!  LOL

After hearing about the Marlin on Thursday, I see Tombo got one a few miles out also!  WTH!?!?  I so wanted to get out today, but too much to do.. Ugh... Maybe sometime this week...

Well, thanks for reading and until next tide!

[jrodda]

A little fresh mahi is a sweet deal, too bad about the bft not finding the hook.

Sounds like I might have to check things out of DP real soon if I can swing it. Trying to be extra sparing with my cash right now so I'm upset with the pelagics' sense of timing this year.

[skrilla]

Sometimes we Door Dash the kids when we escape for a bit. 

[vdisney]

Running lights looking good my man, remember 'fishing beats working'   

[Tim524]

 Nice to see a Dodo get landed and avoid the skunk  I hear Oct. should be EPIC fishing, I hope to get back out soon after smelling like trout for 4 days

[Latimeria]

Nice to see a Dodo get landed and avoid the skunk  I hear Oct. should be EPIC fishing, I hope to get back out soon after smelling like trout for 4 days

September is usually the epic month historically, but I would consider getting out soon and strike while the iron is hot!   

[KogaHead]

what a lucky bastid

[Chris]

Not a bad day all in all.

I always tell people to give me 3 days, one to find the fish, one to figure out what they want to eat and one to catch them... most of the time I don't make it past day 2 and lately I've been starting on day 1 a lot.

I did a loop from oside to La Jolla and back last Saturday and got hit on my American flag daisy chain. Couple short rips of the drag and it was gone but came up in a mess. Told myself it was a marlin and now after actually reading your report it just may have been.