Just got back from 3 days of fishing in Vallarta. Ya might of guessed that I fished on Yolaray. I got there Saturday and chilled a bit, and looked forward to fishing on Monday. Saw Terry at the boat and heard they got a couple of shots but missed. Also it seemed the full moon was messing with the bite a bit. So I took in some scenery til Monday
Head to the rock where life seems decent, make some bait, troll some skips, and drag a caballito long. Early hit on a 50lb tuna, then a 40lb sailfish, and then Hillary sends some 18 knot winds our way and some 6 second swells and we head for the barn early.
Day 2 we leave later cuz we think the bite is gonna be late, we made a good call. Get to the Rock again and life seems to cover a much widened area. We work somewhat close for the first few hours, and then Manny sees some tuna crashing about 2 miles to the SE. That shotgunned Cab is turning into the hot ticket and we get a quick 3 tuna to 70lbs and as I was getting the 3rd to color, me and Tony were watching a bird school about 150 yards off the port stern and Isaw the biggest Yellowfin I've ever seen break 6 feet out of the water and crash on top of a bait ball. If that jumbo wasn't 400 it was pretty close. Anyway, the 3rd fish is on, and we flyline the skips that were on the riggers. The one that was on the port rigger gets muy nervoso and the little fucker is starting to rip line , stick it in gear, wind tight and swing. Nice! I'm on! Right gear too, COFE Tiagra 50, 755XXH that I got from Basil, 100lb mono with a 200lb Seaguar topshot with an 11/0 J. In 15 minutes he was up and down, and I wasn't feeling no tailbeat. 25 minutes and we have him at color and realize he was professionally hooked in the tailbone.
Lucky or good I'll take it, 224lbs and a personal best by 4 lbs.
A couple of hours later we get another nice hit off the shotgunned caballito. Of my 5 bigger tuna this trip, 3 come on this setup. I have an Accurate 30 on a Yo's Graphiter 46H (basically an 80lb stick, not the thicker glass stick with the same name) , with a 30 foot topshot of 130lb Pink Yozuri FC over 100lb spectra. All the rigs have Sato's crimps,(day after my last trip some guy lost a 200lber with a worm knot/reverse albright connection). This pink FC seemed deadly the entire trip, plus it was bulletproof. 3 fish between 140 and 190, plus numerous 40-80lbers and I retied once. For whatever reason, this fish was just a beast. He was a pussycat to just before up and down, and then he just said FU. At some point hi gear started to grind a little, not a big deal because when it got bad is about the time I needed to be in low anyway. And then the sh!t hit the fan, my bitchin lookin alutecnos harness busted a seam on the plate strap stitching which was soon followed by another Ripppppp! on the reel strap connection. Luckily I was pretty stable and in the corner. Drag was at full sunset and I was pulling as hard as I could til that point, and let me tell ya, it was kinda freaky. Word to the wise, don't buy nothing that has alutecnos and harness in it's name. Unfortunately, we tried to jury rig it and when we did I had all the pressure on one kidney, blew that off and tried the rail, but with a short transom and a 4.5 foot rod, that wasn't happening either. I finally handed off to Manny and he had on some day belt but one that had a reel strap and that thing busted off. Geeeezus! Anyway, I took it again, and then Manny, and then Tony finally finished it off.
Ended up going 189lbs, but hands down it was the meanest fish I ever pulled on. By then it was late and we hauled ass home, getting back to the dock in the dark. We fished hard that day, but all aboard seemed pretty stoked.
Prior to blowup
Back at the dock
Dark, Carlos took some better shots, hopefully I'll get those soon. This shot the fish's nose is hanging over and leaning on the step. When we weighed it we had to open the engine compartment and lift the fish over the step
Day 3 and we leave late again. This time the fish bite as soon as we get there. After making bait, and heading to our zone, Tony is setting one of the skippies on the starboard rigger. As he's letting it out he gets nailed. I put on a borrowed Braid harness(not a bucket, but still a nice back harness that performed great), shake off the sleep, and proceed to catch the first of 7 tuna with 3 going between 140 and 185lbs. Back in by 5pm and the conclusion of another great trip on the Yolaray.
Couple of observations. Inside the bay is just loaded with crap from all the rains washing it from the various rivers. Clears up pretty good by the Marietas. There are no dorado around, and although divers have seen lots of wahoo, there don't seem to be many caught. This is a little weird, dorado should have showed by now. We opened up the tunas and found 12 inch Humboldt squid, crabs, shrimp, sardinias, baby flyers, and of course skipjack. Tuna may be migratory, but when they hit Vallarta with all this bait in the water they stick around for obvious reasons. Alutecnos harnesses are a POS, that's a fact. The Accurate 30 at the end of the fight of my 2nd fish had low gear grinding at the end of the fight too.
For all my big rigs I used Berkely Big Game in Electric Blue and gotta say this line is really easy to work with, and has practically no memory. That Yozuri pink is good stuff. And the custom 11/0 J hooks by Roddy Hays, I guess we can call them Hays hooks, are really effective too. They look similar to Jobus but their drop dead center is actually closer to the shank than the barb, which is characteristic of pretty much every other hook out there. They are also cone pointed so they need to be manually sharpened as opposed to the chemically sharpened hooks that many Captains just don't like. With the drop dead center closer to the shank, imo you'll be able to pull harder with less of a chance of the hook bending or worse.
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