Just got home last night from this trip last night and thought I would post my thoughts on this trip. Pretty much I think in general every one had a good time. The crew on this boat are very professional and take extremely good care of the passengers. The food is exceptional. The boat is very stable and rides nicely in snotty weather which we had on the way down, and for the first part of the trip back up hill.
Day 1 Sunday. Got loaded and went to the Bait receiver and spent about 2 hours loading some very nice sardines. Off we went. The captain gave a very good briefing and then we had a great prime rib dinner. Everyone was pretty excited and having a good time chatting watching TV etc prior to hitting the sack.
Day 2 Monday. Trolled south about 80 miles offshore. Weather was somewhat snotty. Stopped on multiple kelps. About every third one or so held small yellow tail 10 to 15 lbs. All of these where released, but where fun to catch.
Day 3. Tuesday. Arrived at Cedros and hunted around for the yellow tail. The captain put us on them and we started putting them on the boat. Very nice size yellows. The average was between 20 and I think the largest was around 38 lbs. in general very good quality fish.
Day 4 Wednesday. Continued fishing Cedros kept putting excellent quality fish on the boat. By the end of the day most everyone on board had very close to their Mexican limit on yellow tail. I believe at the end of the day the boat was within 20 fish of the Mexican limit for yellow tail. As we could not specifically target yellow tail anymore it was decided to run off shore and check the lupe and see what was happening there.
Day 5 Thursday. Started at the south side of the Lupe checking several spots for the larger yellow tail that this island is famous for. We worked up the island making multiple stops using dropper loops, fly lining, and tossing jigs. On multiple stops we had tons of mackerel below the boat. There is lots of bait there, but the fishing was pretty hard. We ended the day with three nice yellow tail, one Mako shark, and a 150 lb black sea bass that was caught by the smallest guy on the boat on a single speed 6/0 senator boat rod. Yes he kept the sea bass which is legal in Mexican waters. Its swim bladder was fully extended, and it was pretty much dead by the time he got it to the boat. There was no way to save it and get it back down to depth. So the choice was either to keep it, or let it float away on the surface and get consumed by the sea birds or whatever happened upon it. I think the best choice was to keep it rather than letting it go to waste.
Day 6 Friday. Trolled all day up hill on the temperature break about 120 miles off shore. Not many kelps found. Made several stops on meter marks with no joy. It was fairly snotty until about midday when it calmed down some. We made it back to port around 6:00 am on Saturday.
All in all this was a great yellow tail trip, which it was posted as. Everyone either got their limit or very close to it. We did not find the tuna as a bonus, though we spent several days looking, but it is still early. I Understand that the trip that left Saturday after we got back went further south and are in to the tuna. Many thanks to the captain and crew of the Independence for a great trip. Also Steve from Izorline and Robin from Youngs Tackle for acting as sponsors and handing out some great swag
. Sorry that the photos are all grouped at the bottom of the post. I could not figure out how to space them through the text as I would have liked.
. Dropping down to low gear winches them in to the boat with little effort keeping them out of the rocks 
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