Memorial Day 2 1/2

[MarkT]

Went out on the Pacific Voyager from Seaforth Landing in San Diego on an annual charter with 22 people. Unfortunately, the charter master had to back out due to health issues. The weather on Saturday was great. The wind picked up on Sunday and it was a little rougher but still very fishable.

We fished 113 miles south of SD off Punta Colonet.  We started 10 miles north of the high spot for Bluefin. We got into them pretty good. They wanted sardines on light line (20#) and small hooks (#2 or #4). Fluoro leaders helped. I was prepared for the bigger units they were getting 30 miles west of SD so was rather over gunned for what we found. I was using 20# fluoro tied to 25# mono ang got two on this rig. I'll have a Fathom 12 with a 20# leader next time! A 20# rig will handle 30# BFT with no issues when there's no structure.

When we moved down to the high spot off Colonet we got into the YT. They were between 12-25# or so. I got one on yoyo, one on a surface iron and 4 on bait. I should've used the surface iron more because they really liked the mint iron! The guys dedicated to the surface iron really did well.

[tgorman]

Accept for Todd..  Man  I had a run of bad luck.  I did catch the very first fish a 2# yellowtail .. I think we had bigger sardines. Tossed it back to live another day.

I had tackle failure on 3 BFT!! 1 bad knot and one chewed off and one spit hook. Deckhand hooked one for me and I brought it in.  0.5 - 4 
I had even worse luck on the Yellowtail.  Went 0-3. I had one spit a treble hook?  I had another spit the hook etc.
Just wasn't my day.  I worked my #### off trying to cast the 9' Black Steel I had with a Mint 6x  and finally caught 1.

Several guys caught a ton of fish.   Bob must of had 6 BFT and 10 YT.

Kevin (through a solid mint) and hooked 6 on iron right next to me.. cast after cast.  He had several bluefin and 6-10 yellows for the 2 day.
Seemed like no matter what I did the guy next to me got bit and I didn't

The skipper came down and hooked numerous on his 7x on a 10ft rod.

Things I learned.. 
#1  I don't ever want to be tying Mono to Floro  Pain in the ####.   I want wind on leaders and hollow core.   I felt like I spent more times tying knots than I did fishing (exageration.. )
Need a better knot for the Floro. I use a uni with 2 loops through the hook. It has never failed me when trying Mono. But is sure did with Floro. I was using Seagar 20# Floro and found it to be a pain in neck.

#2  I need to learn to cast a Tady 45 better. the Black Steel rod I have it too stiff to through the light surface Iron.  Need a 9' medium that will loud up better and cast the lighter surface iron

#3  If you dont have a mint colored jig.. get one. Seemed the vast majority were Mint and white

Can't wait for the BFT to start biting.. They were out of the water all day.. Boils everywhere around the boat.  We hit a large foamer on the way back.. 40ft radius of foamed water with
birds, bait and BFT.   2 guys landed them. Sooner or later that are going to bust wide open. There is soooo much fish out there.

Going to be an epic season.

And like any sport it takes patience and practice.

I need a lot of practice on tossing the iron and knot tying. :-(

[MarkT]

You were on fire a month ago and "not so much" this trip. Hey, it can happen, even to you! I think I was 2 out of 5 on the BFT. I had a bite off, a knot failure and lost one in a bad tangle that Capt Charlie apologized for 3 times. The knot failure was after losing the fish in the tangle when I had to retire my leader. Yeah, I lost the redemption fish! Kevin, who was so hot on the iron, tangled me up several times on bait including twice on one fish! Maybe that's why he was mostly on the surface iron?  Most of my YT came on a long soak... 100+ yds with a 1/4 oz sliding sinker. Chef Jeff's food was great as usual. I was able to catch Deadpool and the Wolf of Wall Street, neither of which I'd seen.

Kevin's fish were on the solid mint jig as was mine. I ordered a mint and mint/white JRI 4 and a couple of 66's in blue/white today. I'm sold on the JRI jigs for both yoyo and surface iron.

[maxpowers]

It was good fishing with you Mark and Todd.  Yeah between Todd, Alex and myself we probably had about 15 knot failures which just was incredible string of bad luck or something.  One observation I made was that the guys catching multiple BFTs was that their reels had long mono setup 25 ft to a hundred yards or so.  Also that the BFTs really do not seem to fight all that hard.  Most of the time, the hook-ups were about 30-40 yards from the boat and the BFTs took about another 50-70 yards of 20-25 lbs line at best.  Made me think that the old timers fishing with Squidders and Jigmasters with 15 to 20 lbs mono and catching all those schoolie BFTs knew what they were doing.  I brought along my Lexa 400 more as a lark (just in case situation) and ended up using that for the majority of the trip.  Hope for better luck and preparation next time.

[MarkT]

I used an Improved Albright/RP/Alberto/John Collins knot for spectra to mono and a double surgeons knot for mono to fluoro and a San Diego at the hook. I had a knot joining the spectra to mono break when I was snagged on the bottom... something had to give since I was trying to either get the jig loose or break it off.

I'm definitely bringing my Fathom 12 w/20# on a Phenix Abyss psx807 on my next trip!

[maxpowers]

I'll bring my 525 next time as well as my sealing 30 xha