Pacemaker Fishing Forum

Just got back from the CA desert.  Needed to take Dad to a VA appointment so flew out to see him and check things out.

While I was out there a high school buddy called me and said that a hurricane just pushed allot of warm water up the CA coast and brought tropical fish with it.  Mahi Mahi was biting in the channel between the Southern California coast and San Clemente.  Wanna fish?

Of course I said "F'sure" in my best valley girl voice.

Drove down to my buddies house and spent the night with him and his family.  Took them all out to a Dinners, Drive-In, and Dive Mexican restaurant and went to bed early.  Woke up at 3am for the ride to Long Beach and jumped aboard the Enterprise.  There was about 50 of us on the boat.  The boat left the dock at 0530 with a bunch of anglers already enjoying libations and the best breakfast burritos known to man - of course any food is good on the boat. No pix of the food, but here's a pix of us motoring across the channel to the island.



As soon as we got to the kelp beds, fish where jumping all over the place.  When we hit the first school of Mahi Mahi, the water was blue/green and glowing from all the fish schooling under the boat.  Instant hook ups and pandemonium hit when about 10 anglers hooked up.  It was f'n crazy!

Carnage everywhere



I finally hooked up.  Since we're fishing with 6-7" sardines, you have to let the fish chew up the bait and swallow it.  Many were setting the hook way to soon.  I let the fish run for a good minute free spooling the bait caster, and then threw the switch and fight on.

22 minutes later I landed a 25 pound bull (male)



Since the bite was still on, into my bag the fish went.  The mahi mahi loose their beautiful colors about 10 minutes after being taken out of the water and when the bite's hot, no one stops for pix.

Got on a fresh bait, cast out and instant hookup.  This time 6 guys were hooked up in a giant tangle.  When this happens the deck hands have to clip lines.  Since I was spent from the recent fight I told them to clip mine, I'm cook with it.

Towards the end of the trip, hooked up into a smaller female and she was gaffed less than 15 minutes later.

Deckhand filleted the fish for me, threw in an extra 10 pounds of fillets which gave him a nice tip and off to my buddies house.

We had fresh fish for dinner and mahi mahi omelettes the next day.  Took a small bag of fish home and left the rest in my buddies freezer.  When I went to pay him for the boat he said "This one's on me"

What a day.

Yellow fin tuna and yellow tail were hitting right off the surf.  Surfers were reporting tuna just past the break.  I almost went on another 1/2 day boat to target these fish, but Dad had a bit of an emergency and had to go back out to help him out.