[Dupree]

Invited my buddy Frank to take me out to La Jolla Friday in his 20' open bow to go search for Whitey. Departed Dana Landing at 0600 and picked a nice mixed scoop of 'dines + mini-green backs and headed up the coast for La Jolla. Small, long period swell made for a quick ride up to the fishing grounds.

Started out a little south of the point in 100' of 62.5 degree water. Not much happening there, occasional small bait puddling here and there; being pushed-up by mac's. Short ling ate my Carolina-rigged mini-mac on the bottom. Decided to make a move around the point and ended up drifting pretty far inside in front of the former "Childrens Pool" (Hey, what happened to kelp forest?) where my son Cory C/R'd a nice #5 calico that took a fly-lined greenie.

Went to making bait replenish our supply of mac's but it seemed that most of the ones we would catch were 'too big' for our liking. After lowering (raising) our standards, we put about 4-5 pieces in the tank. During the process of making bait, caught a glimpse of some type of disturbance to the outside of us but I only saw it out of the corner of my eye and didn't have my glasses on so didn't really get a fix on what it might have been.

Made the move back towards the area where the calico bit and started another drift in 72'. Almost reluctantly, Frank puts out the big 14" greenback on a fly-line (in part to lessen the stress on the remaining bait) and goes back to the sabiki rig. I make a comment about playing for a three-run homer. Within two-minutes, the TLD25 goes OFF!!!

We're excited. No signs of the pesky fur-bags that had been harassing us earlier. This is the Right Kind. Frank puts down the sabiki and starts fighting the fish on his 40# outfit. Cory and I clear the other lines, ready the gaff and wait expectantly. I do a mental coin flip and decide the fish is a yellowtail. After a once around the boat, Frank reports head-shaking. Soon the 14" mac – still on the line - comes to color. Frank asks if he should button down the drag? I counsel, "No, just go to short-stroking it". Soon Whitey is at color and swimming off the port stern. I get out on the swim-step with the gaff and, on an 0-2 count, finally bury it right behind the gill-plates and Frank's 1st legal WSB is on the boat! We are happy & excited – to say the least.

After spending some time trying to repeat the feat, we decided to head outside and join the search for Mr. T. No love there so we headed back in for another drift and then called it a day. Fish weighed in at 36.9#'s on Dana Landing's scale. Overall, water looks very clean and there was a lot of bait around La Jolla; should be more fish coming our way!