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Name: John Loo Age: 54 Vessel: Edgewater 175CC Location: Vista, CA Job:Manager
Posts: 311
| San Diego Offshore Report 10/19/2009
I went out Monday 10/19 with Floyd Sparks (Tuna Kahuna). We headed south towards the 390 Bank (about 50 miles SSW of San Diego), but were not 100% sure where we would go from there. There were reports of albacore and big bluefin tuna out towards the Mushroom Bank, but that was another 30+ miles further west.
The water was mostly around 67.5 - 68 degrees and clean, with a small swell from the SSW, and a light breeze of 5 knots or so. We averaged about 25 mph all the way down to our starting point.
Weatherwise, air temps were great - maybe high 60's in the early AM, low-mid 70s during the rest of the day, but there was a heavy marine layer. We got maybe 20 minutes of sun, and much of that was in the afternoon when we were on our way back in.
Once we got near the 390 Bank, we put the trollers out, and headed south. We found several paddies along the edge of a cooler water band (around 65.5 degrees), but we saw only a solitary dorado, and hooked nothing. We weren't hearing any radio reports of fish on the Mushroom bank, so we decided to continue south towards the 450 Bank.
About this time, Floyd decided to go below to get some sleep, and said, "This is a guaranteed strike in 5 minutes, just wait". Well, he was a bit off. It took about 15 minutes, a double on some small skipjack. Not what we were looking for, so we continued on, and got another skipjack on the troll a few minutes later. Then nothing more until...
Right near the top of the 450, we found "the paddy". It was loaded with hungry yellowtail, mostly small fish in the 3 - 6 lb class, but with a few fish to 10 lbs mixed in. There were also a few dorado in the 10-12 lb class hanging around.
We broke out the fly rods, and had a great time, landing a dozen or more of these guys, releasing almost all of them. Blue-white or pale-green/white Sea Habits or Tuna Kahunas in smaller sizes (1/0, around 3"), sinking lines, and a fast strip did the job for us, but other things might have worked just as well.
As we drifted off the paddy, about 75 yards down-swell, we starting marking fish down around 70', so we cut up some sardines and started throwing chunks to bring the fish up. We had one person fishing conventional gear and maintaining the chunk stream, while the other person fly-fished.
The fish responded well, rising up in the chunk stream, and occasionally boiling on the surface. These were yellowfin tuna in the 10-15 lb range, with a few fish to 20 lbs mixed in, and Floyd managed to catch one bait fish that was close to 30. The flies seemed to do best dead-drifted or twitched occasionally.
Floyd was fishing a T&T 12 wt, while I rotated between the new Sea Level Fly Fishing Extreme rods (10 wt & 14 wt), and a TFO Mini-Magnum. We were using sinking shooting heads, 450 - 550 grains, and 12-20 lb test leaders.
Flies were mostly the same as what we used for the yellowtail, although the pale-green color seemed to get a few more hits, as did flies with less flash. Again, other styles might have worked just as well or better, but we didn't experiment much.
We made several drifts off the paddy, picking up a number of fish on each pass. Our last drift took over an hour, and ran almost two mile according to the GPS, with the fish hanging out below the boat almost all the way.
Unfortunately, when we turned around to make another drift, we were unable to find the paddy again. As best we could tell, the current was taking it up-swell and against the wind, but even after backtracking along the GPS trace, and circling the area for about a half hour, we couldn't find it.
On the other hand, it was about 2:30pm and time to head home. The wind had picked up to about 15 mph, and the swells were getting a bit larger (3' sets rolling thru occasionally), so the ride back was a bit bumpy, with the occasional face-shot of spray over the windshield. We made it back to Shelter Island by 4:30pm, just in time to fight trush-hour traffic home.
Floyd was probably most jazzed about completing a TYD Tournament slam. He managed Tuna, Yellowtail, and a Dorado on the fly. I was 2/3 of the way there, with Tuna and Yellowtail. I missed my dorado shot when one followed Floyd's fish back to the boat. Where were these fish in August during the tournament?
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