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

[pjstevko]

continuing....

At around 6:15 am I started flylining baits with no luck until around 6:45 when my sardine starts acting nervous and line starts ripping of my reel  so I knew I was bit. . I let the fish have it for a 3 count then slowly moved the lever drag forward to strike, the rod bent over and it was game on!!!! The fish was pulling hard for the bottom so I put the brakes to him and cranked him towards the boat and 10 minutes later the deckhand sunk the gaff in him and I had my first yellowtail of this trip, it was a nice 15# fish. With the bite steadily improving I rebaited and got another bait in the water and was bit almost instantly and could tell right away was a better grade yt. I put the wood to this one and got it to the boat in around 5 minutes and it was just over 20#. It turns out this fish would be the last of the morning for me as I developed a funk and couldn't get bit even though the bite was steady for others. We stayed anchored on this spot for a few hours and then moved North to target yt on the Tanner Bank after a great lunch of Spinach ravioli.

We arrived at Tanner after lunch and anchored on a high spot and it was game on right away. Unfortunately the funk followed me north and I never hooked up all afternoon. The other anglers were killin it on the yt and smaller bft that showed up about an hour after we arrived. I couldn't get bit to save my life and I tried every trick I could think of but it never happened, such is fishing! The yellowtail were a great grade averaging around 25# but the bft were 12-18#. We stayed on the spot until just before dark when Gavin got intel on a good grade bft bite about an hour away so off we went.

We got in the general area right at dark and started marking schools right away and guys went straight to fishing knife jigs. The hook ups were instant once you hit the target depth and all the fish were between 50-70#'s. I tried several different jigs and never got bit until around 11pm when my Katy Perry Daiwa Mr. Slow jig got hammered at about 270ft deep. The bite came on the sink and the fish peeled a good amount of line off my Fathom 40nld2 and put a good bend in my PCH741XXH rod. Once the initial run was over I put the reel into low gear and winch the fish into gaff range and Nate the deckhand put the hook to it and hoisted it up over the side of the boat. It was a solid 50# bft and another first as this was the first fish landed on my Fathom 40! I was glad to get the funk off and land my first bft on the trip. The bite stayed solid with people hooking up every 15-20 minutes. My friend Ryan landed 4 nice sized 60-70# bft that night and a passenger named James stuck a huge fish that taped out at just over 200#!!!!! Ryan and I stayed up until about 1:30am trying to hook into a few more but when nobody hooked up in over an hour we called it quits for the night. The plan for the following day was to head back to Tanner tonight to be ready for more yt action and then mid-morning come back to the bft grounds for the remainder of the trip. It was a long day but with the quality of the yt and bft we caught I had high hopes for the last day of the trip. I set an alarm for 5:30am which would go off in 4:15 minutes, uuuggghhh....

[pjstevko]

Final day.....

The alarm wakes me from a dead sleep and I wake Ryan so we can get up and have a quick cup of coffee before we get back to business. With a lot of the boat staying up past 3am jigging (without a bite) there were not a lot of people on deck yet until fish started to hit the deck. The first few fish were bonita followed by a few small 10-15# bft but the bite was getting better by the minute. Having only one bft with my tag number on it so far I graciously excepted a bft donation from a fellow angler to help fill my limit. Around 6:15am my sardine is picked up and line is racing off the reel so i slowly engage the drag on my new Fathom 15ld2 and the rod doubles over, once the fish slows down I start gaining back line. Ten minutes later I boated the first yt of the final day, it was a respectable 25#er. The action is fast and furious with guys catching great sized yt (20-30# average) and schoolie sized bft for the next 3 hours. I landed another 4-5 quality yt with my biggest being around 30# and 2 more 15# bft before we pulled anchor and headed north towards Tuna Town.

While heading north a pod of two-tone dolphins decided to join us and play off the bow of the boat giving us a great show as the splashed and jumped in the bow wake, it was amazing to see! We snacked on a fresh fruit platter as we pulled back into the area and Gavin began the search for the better grade bft. It didn't take long before the boat throttled back and heard the call for chum over the load speaker and within two tosses of chum the water exploded with great size tuna. For the next 6 hours it was tuna school after tuna school and they all wanted to bite! If you picked a good bait and could get it 15-20ft from the boat you were most likely gonna get bit. I landed 2 more 60-70# bft and handed off 3 hook ups to people who hadn't hooked a big one yet. It was great to see everyone hooking up and landing such quality bluefin, it became a party of yelling, laughter and smiles along with some good natured riffing if someone blew a hookup and popped one off!!!! Gavin let us fish as late as possible but with the fish holds so full the deckhands had to use their boot to get the hatches to close we called it quits just after 7pm and began the long steam home!

Dinner the final night was Cornish game hens over rice with grilled asparagus and mocha cheesecake for dessert! After dinner and in a food coma everyone started breaking down gear and settled in early to try to get a little extra rest to make up from the night before. The ride back to port was calm and we made great time arrive in the harbor around 5:30am with just enough time to pay our galley tabs before we docked. We unloaded our gear, filled our trucks and checked in with 5 Star to get our catches processed. My whole fish tally was 337# for this trip and 63# for the previous trip bringing my 2 trip total to 400# of whole fish! I texted my wife the total and told her to start figuring out where to put another freezer in our garage and she just laughed! After 5 Star grabbed our fish a few of us meet up for breakfast at "The Broken Yolk" to   share one last meal and have a few final laughs. After breakfast 3 of us needed to run across the street to Dicks Sporting Goods to buy extra coolers to transport all of our fish home because we were ill prepared. Having to buy more coolers and freezers is a great problem to have! After getting home my wife and I tallied up all the fish and i ended up with 58 packages of bft steaks, 15 packages of bft bellies (3 were gifts from other anglers), 4 packages of bft sushi cuts, 47 packages of yt, 8 packages of yt collars, and 4 packages of various rockfish. Overall a great haul from a couple quality days of fishing!

It was a great couple trips aboard the Pacific Queen with an amazing captain, killer crew and awesome passengers who definitely became friends. I highly recommend the Pac Queen operation if you ever have the chance to fish, you won't regret it. I highly believe the are the best short range boat in the entire SD fleet! Do yourself a favor and book a trip for next year and realize why their trips fill up a year in advance.

Pics to follow....

[Crab Pot]

Excellent report!

I leave Friday on the Pacific Voyager for a four day.

You got my juices going!

Is you guys troll at all?

[foakes]

Great job, PJ —

Nice to have that excellent haul of fish all processed and stored away — that will make many good meals.

Best, Fred

[pjstevko]

Excellent report!

I leave Friday on the Pacific Voyager for a four day.

You got my juices going!

Is you guys troll at all?

No trolling....

[Crab Pot]

Trolling

Out of curiosity: why not?

Captains call?

[pjstevko]

Just not their thing

[Hamachi]

Nice write up pj. Almost like I was there also!
If you ask to troll they might say ok, but after a Bonita or so, they'll say to reel in. Last several years haven't been worth trolling, except for the odd yellowtail or mahi-mahi, but you never know...

[pjstevko]

pics

[pjstevko]

more pics

[pjstevko]

more pics

[pjstevko]

more pics

[pjstevko]

more pics

[pjstevko]

final pics

[pjstevko]

Can an admin please reorient my pics?   Thank you