I went on a 2.5 day trip fishing offshore with Senor Tuna aboard the Pacific Star out of Sea Forth landing in San Diego. This was my first trip for 2013 hunting for pelaegics. There have been reports of Bluefin Tuna being caught about 130 miles offshore, and was hoping that they would hang around. I knew this was still early in the season and it'll be a hit or miss. It's a big ocean out there. As usual, the game plan was to troll while looking for floating kelp paddies that might be holding fish. It turned out that this trip was scratchy fishing at best. We ran across many floating kelp holding only three to four fish. Most of our jig strikes on the troll happened when passing by kelp paddies. We saw several boiling schools Bluefin Tuna, but they didn't want to play despite our offerings of live sardines. The school just sank and left. Despite the scratchy fishing conditions, we still managed to land one nice Bluefin, many Yellowtails, and a few Dodos. Overall, I had a great time. Fishing with old and new die-hard angler friends is always a blast. The food was great, and the crew of the Pacific Star did an outstanding job of assisting us, especially during tangled lines. As far as gears, I brought along four combos on this trip. One for trolling, two PE6 casting combos, and one PE8 casting combo. My hot combo on this trip is the 8 footer Major Craft Crostage Big Game-K paired with the Van Staal VM150.
The water was like a lake on the first day. A bit too calm for my liking.
Waiting for the jig strike on the troll
Trolling with the Shimano Stella. I did get a hookup with a Yellowtail. In my excitement, I forgot to turn on my Go Pro.
Hot stick! Hookups 1 & 2 with the MC Crostage Big Game-K and Van Staal VM150. Love the sound of that drag!
Mako shark hookup! Catch and Release.
Several hookups on this shot.
Old school Penn 9500SS in action!
This one's a juicy! A nice Yellowtail hooked, fought, and landed using the Abu Garcia Revo Toro baitcasting reel and soft plastic swimbait. Amazing!
