Pacific Queen trip reports...A trip of many firsts!

[pjstevko]

The real quick report is we killed it! I'll write up a real report and post more pics in a day or two....

[CooldadE]

Outstanding !

Cool

[Ron Jones]

107 yellowtail in 3 days is pretty wide open!

The Man

[Bill B]

Good job!  Looks like you finally crossed yellowtail off your bucket list!  Bill

[David Hall]

Can't wait for the pictures and write up. 

[stoked4fishin]

Sounds like you had a great trip!  Can't wait for the pics and write up!

[JK47]

Right on!!!

[pjstevko]

Pacific Queen 8/17-20th
First trip was a 1.5 day from Sunday night until Tuesday morning. We loaded the boat at 8pm and got rods rigged up. The plan was to head to Cortez and Tanner banks for yellowtail as the med/larger sized bluefin went missing. I was super excited to hear that as I've been on a quest to land my first yellowtail for about 3 years. I rigged up a 30# flyline, a 40# flyline, 50# flyline, 60# for yoyo jigs, 80# dropper loop and 50# spinner for surface iron and snipers. (These would end up being my setups for both trips) Having all my bases covered and prepped for the next day I hit the bunk around 9:30pm to try and get some sleep. I set my alarm for 5:30am and hit the galley for some coffee while we steamed another hour north to get our spot among the other 10 boats already anchored.

Arriving on scene we set the anchor and the deckhand started a steady stream of chum and guys started dropping jigs and flying baits. The first bite came around 6:30am on a jig and a slow steady bite of yellowtail were caught for the next few hours. My first bite came on a blue/white JRI brass yoyo jig at around 7:15 and I was amazed at how hard the little 15# YT fought. I was so excited to finally land my first yellowtail and on a jig no less which made it extra special! I jigged for another 20 minutes without a bite and switched over to flylinig butt hooked sardines on my new Fathom 15ld2. Two baits after switching I'm bit and it feels like a bigger model and the PCH 801H is bent over with line screaming off the fathom, once it stopped running I put the hurt on it and got it onto the boat in 10 minutes. It was a nice 20# pounder to break in the new reel on.

It's now 8:30am and Dave the cook had the breakfast burritos hot off the grill so I sat down to eat and enjoy the fact that I am having a great day of "firsts". The bite slowed down a bit after breakfast but we were still picking off a couple here and there. I went up to bow to jig a sniper off the bottom and was rewarded with some quality Whitefish, rockfish and my very first sheepshead! After a long lull of no fish Gavin the captain decided we'd head north to Tanner Bank a couple hours away to try for my yellowtail. On the ride north we all relaxed and got to know each other and arrived on Tanner right around 1pm, just in time for boat burgers!

Gavin picked a spot right on the back edge and set the anchor and a slow steady bite of yellowtail got started after a little chumming. These were a nicer grade fish averaging 25-30# so 40# was a must so they didn't take you into the reef to cut you off. I picked up my last yellowtail of the trip on this stop and it was a good grade right around 25#. The hot stick of the trip nailed two beautiful 40#'s back to back on a dropper loop. The fish gods must have known it was his birthday! Out of nowhere a school of bonita found us and it was hook up after hookup for all the fun you wanted. I ran up to bow to grab the spinner and began an hour of fun catch and release bonita on a green backed colt sniper. After the bonita found us it was hard to get a bait or jig to the bottom without hooking into one so we made one final move for yellowtail. We moved a couple miles away and reset the anchor for another couple hours of yellowtail fishing. We fished the final spot until 5pm and landed another couple yellowtail before we went on the hunt for bluefin.

Gavin said we'd spend a couple evening hours looking for bluefin before we began the 100+mile steam back to San Diego. While searching around the bank Dave cooked up a killer meatloaf for dinner. It was so good it made me sleepy after a great day of fishing. We never did find the bft but ended the first trip with 74ish yellowtail and a mix of rockfish. Another quality trip aboard the Pacific Queen!

Stay tuned for the pics and the 3 day trip report......

[theswimmer]

Yeeee Haaaaa!
Congratulations P. J. !
You been after that one Yellowtail for a while...

[pjstevko]

Pics from 1.5 day trip....

[MarkT]

Nice! First YT on the yo-yo... great start.

[stoked4fishin]

Way to go!  Can't wait to hear about the 3-day!

[sciaenops]

Congrats PJ for scratching yt off your list. And some quality ones at that.

[pjstevko]

Trip report continued.....

Pacific Queen 8/17-20th

The first trip got back to the dock right at 6am and they let me leave my gear and stuff on the boat so all I had to do was head up the dock and check in with 5 Star Fish Processing. My pile of fish from the first trip weighted around 64# which wasn't bad for 3 yellowtail and a couple of small rockfish. I told them I'd pick up my fish on Friday after they process my catch from the 3 day.

After 5 Star took my fish I walked down the landing and grabbed a hot coffee and a couple of breakfast sandwiches for myself and my friend Ryan who's on the trip with me. I grabbed a spot in line and made friends with the other anglers already in line. Ryan showed up around 8 am and got a prime parking spot in the main lot right next to the loading zone. It's a good thing he got the parking spot because he had a ton of gear including a helium tank and 130# gear to fly balloons with flyers. I helped him unload and then we checked in at the front desk. We got back in line and chatted with the other anglers and I told them all about what worked on the last trip as I assumed we'd be headed back to Cortez and Tanner for yellowtail. We signed the roster and boarded the boat around 10am.

Since I left my rods rigged from the last trip I helped Ryan rig up his rods and then we verified and set the drags with a scale on all our reels. While rigging up Gavin called a meeting up on the bow to discuss the plan for the first day and told us to be flexible as the trip goes on. The plan was to head back to the Cortez and Tanner Banks to fish yellowtail and see if anyone had any intel on bft. We traveled north at a nice slow pace looking for paddies on the way since we wouldn't be fishing until Wednesday morning. We stopped on a few empty paddies and then struck dorado gold on a good size paddie and the boat landed about 8 dodos. I struck out but Ryan got a decent 12#er. After the mahi stop Dave served us up a great Spam fried rice lunch. We continued north and settled in for a long steam and wouldn't be on the YT grounds until morning. Dinner was a great herb crusted pork loin over wild rice with glazed carrots. I set an alarm for 5:30 am and went off to bed around 9:30pm....

I slept like crap and keep waking up every couple hours so I crawled out of the bunk around 4:30am and headed up to the galley for coffee. A few other anglers were up already fishing but hadn't caught anything worthwhile. There were a ton of mackerel around the boat so I grab a tiny 2" epoxy jig and started to catch maks but they were too big for bait. After catching a dozen or so maks I switched over to flylinig sardines. After a couple minutes I landed my very first pacific barracuda!

To be continued.....

[Bill B]

PJ what an epic trip so far.....congratulations on so many firsts.....yo-yo YT, first YT, bonito, barracuda.....hope the adventure continues in the next installment....Bill