Fished out of O-side Friday with my old fishing buddy "Bellybuster" Norm.
The short versian is we kept 16 fish 7 Dorado and 9 Yellows up to seventeen pounds. In close all day never more then twelve miles from the harbor. Ran out of bait once went back in a got more then went out and caught more fish. Pretty much fished the same two paddies all day, sometimes with other boats sometimes alone, for a steady stop and go pick.
Longer Version:
When it comes to fishing I really pretty much love it all. That said there's not much that excites me more then light line paddy fishing for Dorado. For over a week now I've been trying to get the time to get out. Several times I put all my gear next to the door but it seemed each day something conspired to keep me off the water. When I got the call from "Bellybuster" Norm I finally broke down and said this is it, I got to go.
Norms a former internet poster who gave it up, posting that is.
I met him online years ago, he's not only a great freind but a great fisherman. My trips with him read like some kind of fishing hall of fame. I caught my largest butt, yellow, and albacore etc.. on his skiff. He's one of those guys who always seems to instinctively know where to go, and when we get togeter we always have a great time.
Friday we met down at the 405 about four in the morning and headed down to O'side. Shot the crap, and compared notes on the way down.
We kind of agreed with all the warm water inside that we'd probabably do better on a short run rather then a long one. Lot's of guys overrun these fish headed offshore. Our take was it's better to find them quick then work them until they bite rather then run all over the ocean looking for virgin paddies with wide open fish.
With the cost of fuel these day why go long if you don't have to. So we decided it would all be about finding the right paddy then waiting them out.
For me with my small skiff this is the standard MO. If you can't go as far you concentrate on presentation and timing rather then trying to be the first one there. Often I'll mark paddies all day then hit the good ones right at dark. what can I say...it works.
The Ramp was very busy for 5:00 AM.on a Friday. By the time we got on the water there were five boats waiting in line for the reciever. Several guys were pretty impatient. One guy even tried to cut in front of us...
The bait was big dines with a few mini macks thrown in. Good big bait but not very cured, the bait guys relised there would be some die off and plugged us. We actually had to cut them off, not the usual other way around.
So we got our big scoop and headed west.
We saw our first paddy about six miles out. Nothing on it. Maybe four miles later we saw a nice big paddy. Sure enough there was already someone there.
I'm not a "sneek in" kind of guy. I like to talk to the other guy and ask permission. So we pulled up downwind shut down and waited for the guys to drift in close enough.
"Hello mind if we take a shot"... "No problem".."There's Dodo's here so don't get too close"...."Cool!!! Thanks"
We waited for him to set his next drift then set one up on the other side. As far as I'm concerned the first guy deserves respect and I gave it to him. We idled over to the other side and it was instant hookup on the right kind. Nice female maybe 12 pounds.
A few minutes later another boat showed. They didn't ask permision and pulled in a little tighter than I'd of prefered but the fish didn't seem to mind. For the next few hours it was a steady pick. It seemed like every ten minutes or so one of the boats would hook up.
Dead calm and quite so we started talk back and fourth a lot.
The one boat was hooking all his fish on macks, we were scoring with dines on light line. For a while they just wanted chunk bait thrown out with a pile of dine chunks. Seems like every time I'd butt hook a dine I'd hook into a yellow but since they kept pulling us right up to the paddy I quit fishing that way.
The first boat "Shortbill" decided they were going to go find some new kelp. They pulled up along side and asked if we had any extra hooks, I gave them half of what I had, thanked them for the initial wave in, and watched them head off. Nice Guys.
About 9:00 we started getting a lot of boats stopping, most were coming back up the line from further offshore. The word was slow out there. These guys generally took one drift and left. That's the problem when your fishing offshore out you just don't feel like you have time to work the paddy if they are not biting. Inshore gives you more time to fish so your'e less impatient.
By 10:00 It had pretty much died on our paddy though you could still see an occasisonal Dodo come up for a chunk. Still there but line shy.
Norm and I decided at this point the paddy just needed a rest
The more boats you have on a paddy the more your'e going draw in to it so we deicided to take off in the hope that eventually everyone would leave, and it would get a chance to rest.
We headed up the line maybe four miles and saw another paddy about the same size with three boats on it. As we were passing two broke off and headed in so we decided to give it a shot.
Pulled up and asked the remaining guy for permission, an he said "Give it your best shot but they are not biting"
He then said in the last hour five boats incuding a sportboat had hit it for no fish....
..Ahhhhh yes a challenge
We threw some chum chunks and no less the twenty Dorado swarmed on them. Well that's good enough for me.......
The fish on that paddy were definately shy. We had a lot of pick ups and followers but no hook ups. I started tossing nose hooked dead baits right into the paddy and working them back across the top like a popper. You should of seen the boils and followers that produced. Man o man they swarmed like killer bees
Still no hook-ups :104167739
The first guy took off leaving us the paddy to ourselves. So we started chumming them harder. Lots of fish there, we could see them but not hook them.
After a while a small skiff comes up and it turned out to be Quietman in his sixteen foot Gregor. Great guy, we talked a bit then he headed in to Dana to make macks, Jersey Bro and others were fishing North of us on a good bite but they said you needed macks.
Several guys on the radio said Macks was the only way to go, but the only fish we caught were on dines... I got a feeling we were using lighter gear.
So lots of action: breaking fish, freejumpers and followups buit no hook-ups. Norm finally pulled in the smallest Dorado I've seen. Maybe twelve iches long, half a peanut. I think we settled on "punkinseed Dorado"
We took a pic but it was on his camera so I don't have it, what a great marlin bait it would of made
Norm said let's head in and get some more bait....well he didn't have to twist my arm. It just felt like it was going to go off.
One advantage of being only twelve miles out in a boat that cruises at 28 knots is it doesn't take long to get in. About an hour later were back out at the first paddy with a new tank of bait.
Still three boatss on it (new ones) but it was now completely dead.
Norm decided to take a nap and I did a few drifts. Nothing... Nadda... zilch...
Since he left me in charge I started up the line looking for Paddy nunber two. Turns out there was a pretty hard current moving east. Took almost two hours to find the sucker, and I had to climb up on top of the T top to do it, but we finally located it.
No boats and ready to go
What followed the next few hours was just an epic bite. Every drift resulted in a hookup or two. I'm not sure how many fish we hooked up but we kept sixteen fish seven Dorado and nine yellows. Several times complete foamers erupted around the paddy. One of them I kid you not was over a fifty square yrds wide of solid breaking fish.
Some of the foamers were Dodo's some all yellows, there must just been a ton of fish out there.
We pretty much came to conclusion that there's a lot of fish moving through, and the big foamers were probably passing schools. They would come up and drive the bait off the paddy attack it then move on.
After each of these eruptions it would take the paddy a while to reset but once the bait got back on the paddy the bite would resume.
All our fish were on dines. Norm was fishing straight twenty mono and I was fishing twenty spectra with a seventeen pound Flurocarbon topshot maybe eight feet long. No doubt the fluoro worked better. For instance Norm only got one yellow all day which means of the ones we kept I got eight. Also the spectra really helped with the kelp.
At one point we had a double going and Norm needed some help with a big bull. I had just snagged a yellow so he was in that go for the paddy stage. I pretty much quit paying attention to him so I could gaff Norms fish.
By the time I got back to my fish he'd swam right through the paddy. With mono he'd of been done but I freespooled the spectra and he just cut himself right out of the padddy...Now that's just cool.
Just before dark we had a very nice Mako around seven feet long and 230+ pounds come right up to our stern. Like he could of licked our paint
I've fished a lot of sharks and it's the biggest Mako I've seen come in that close that wasn't hooked.
I've been hoping to run into one that size with my fly gear but since I left it at home along with my shark leaders I decide to try and get it to eat iron. The idea was to hook it up and try to get some good pics of it jumping trying to throw the iron. Like I said I want to get a good one on flygear so I was interested to see if I could get him to go on the artficial vrs bait.
He was hungry...Three casts later he ate a Tady 45 right at the boat.
Initially it just sat looking at the boat, I'm rarely spooked by sharks but the way it sat there just looking us over was pretty weird, and kind of intimidateing. I swear Norm and I both litterly backed up to the other side of the boat because we were afraid it was going to jump right into our faces.
Finally it took off on a blistering 300yrd run ripping off 65 spectra off my Torium twenty so fast it heated up the whole right side of the reel. We played with it for maybe thirty minutes (chased it) before it rolled up in the line and cut off.
Just as well. I was beat from fishing all day and it didn't want to take air, besides we weren't going to keep it anyway.
No pics of the mako. This isn't the biggest Dorado but it came in all lit up silver-white so we took a pic.
That fish is fully alive as it just came out of the water, and it's still changing colors. It came in bright metalic but as soon as we stuck it just the head went dark green and yellow. Two tone Dorado..Too cool!!
Maybe two seconds after that pic that fish went completely yellow, you can kind of see how it got yellower between the two pics and of coarse as soon as I let go of the tail all hell broke loose
Here's my share of the fish, lots to cut up and give away.
How about a special Bloodydecks extra photo set.
I was trying to get a photo of this really bright green Dodo while it was still alive. The thing was struggling around around so it was hard to get the shot:
Evidently it twisted the gaff into a major blood vessel because all of a sudden blood just started spraying out one side: drenching the fish, my shirt, it even got in my eyes.
Didn't bother me too much but later when I went into a convienence store some people were looking at me like I was an axe murderer.
What can I say....Great day on the water. Probably the best trip I've had in a few years and maybe on total enjoyment rating one of the best I've had period.
Tight lines, Jim