San Diego Fishing Adventures

First Yellowtail for 2008!

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The lee side of South Coronado Island produced the first Yellowtail for 2008 kicking of the season to a great start! A few Yellowtail were caught Sunday and Monday on the 3/4 day party boats which started to get the hopes up. With a small craft advisory for Wednesday and Thursday I realized that Tuesday might be the last opportunity to get on the Yellowtail before the wind blew and the bite possibly shut down. So I called up Pat Hastings who brought along his friend Jim White for a last minute mid week run to the islands.

The morning started with a smooth run to the South kelp ridge where we found 63 degree water, bait, meter marks and enough seals to supply Seaworld for many years to come! Pat hooked up the first Yellowtail for 2008 just outside the kelp line which produced a good fight. Unfortunately the seals were barreling down towards us so I threw the boat in reverse to try and back down on the Yellowtail before the seals got to it. With less than 20 feet to go we watched our first Yellow get devoured, not by one seal, but by three seals! They all had a part in their mouth as they quickly tore apart Pat’s fish. Once they let go Pat began to reel in what was left, but even that didn’t last long. Just as he had the other “half” of the fish near the boat another seal came up from underneath and ripped the last of the Yellow off the hook before you even knew what happened. After a few more tries at slow trolling, we realized that it was just impossible to fish with that many seals around. With that realization, we packed up and headed over to the lee side of South Coronado Island.

We noticed that there were the 3/4 day boats on the lee side along with the usual private boats that seem to hang around the sport boats. I decided to begin slow trolling a few hundred yards away from the group of boats to hopefully pick up a bite away from the crowd. Sure enough a few minutes into it we had some quality Bonito explode on the surface and grab some baits. After a quick release we kept on slow trolling Sardines towards the outside of the boats. About 15 minutes later my bait was picked up and I set the hook into my first Yellowtail of the 2008 season. I also marked the spot on my GPS so we could use it as a reference point in case the school was sticking around. After a long awaited battle we gaffed and boated the first Yellow for 2008. With the thoughts of fresh Hamachi (raw Yellowtail) for dinner the day was already considered successful, but was not over yet!

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We continued slow trolling live Sardines and Jim White had the next lucky rod to get ripped by a quality Yellowtail. With the way his line was screaming we knew this one was a nice fish. He battled his fish for a good 20 minutes before we had any color near the boat. Unfortunately, at the same moment we called out color, his hook pulled out of the Yellow’s mouth and left him heart broken. The good news is that it was still early and their was more time to try for another. Back the lines went and I pointed the boat back towards my original GPS numbers that I had marked. Sure enough, another Yellowtail took Jim’s live Sardiine and he was back in the game to redeem his loss. After a good battle with his fish we successfully boated it and got it into the ice chest for more great dinners.

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We continued to slow troll around the marked GPS spot and continued to catch a few more Yellowtail. All of the fish were taken within 500 feet of the original GPS numbers from when I hooked the first Yellowtail. One fish was taken 10 feet off the numbers! By 1pm we had 5 quality Yellowtail in the 15-20lb range and a sixth Yellowtail that we gave to some Mexican commercial divers who were out at the Islands. Overall it was a great day and we were back at the docks by 2pm.

I am sure they enjoyed catching, and eating, their Yellowtail as much as I did. It’s only a matter of time until the 2008 season kicks into full speed!

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