A Fish Tale

No, this is not a blog about the big one that got away but rather a synopsis of our fishing adventures since we left San Francisco last September. You may or may not remember when in 2008 Rog managed to hook a huge fish that very quickly stole his rod, reel and lure. This fishing set up had been a gift from our son Rob to celebrate his marriage to Stacy. Jump forward to 2010 and the entire family decided to try once again to outfit Rog with an outstanding rig. It is a beautiful Shimano Tallus rod, Shimano two speed reel and many various lures. This setup has been in use ever since we left Long Beach last October specifically to catch the big one.

At the end of leg one of the Ha Ha just before entering Turtle Bay we caught not one but two yellow tails at the same time, on the other two rods. You see, Rog drags three lures, one tickler and one hand line at all times. They can get tangled when pulling in a fish so we always have to reel them all in when we get something on the line. Do notice that Rog is wearing his heaviest coat.
On the rest of the HA HA we fought several more fish including a couple on the big rig but for several reasons we never pulled those fish into the boat. There was one fish we believe was a mako shark, definitely did not want him on board and then two marlin who were just to big for us to deal with. Nothing we could eat.

Since Cabo until just recently we have strck out. Nothing to write home about, a few Jack Cravels but nothing else. The entire time we were up in the Sea, nothing except a red snapper we bought off a local fisherman for $4.00. It was very tasty but not Yellowtail. Almost forgot, we did catch a very large marlin at the end of our passage from Mazatlan to La Paz. He danced all around the boat for close to 30 minutes to no avail. He spit out the lure. Sorry no pictures of him as I was busy driving the boat in reverse trying to keep him on.

Our last passage in the Sea was from Isla Partida to La Paz and it is just a 4 hour trip. We fought more skipjack tuna in that time frame than during the entire year. We were getting hit on two lures at a time. great fun. Rog sent all of those guys back so that they could grow a bit larger.
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I did mention that we have to pull all lines in when we hook a fish so Rog was finally getting tired of reeling everything in and turned that job over to me. Big mistake, my lure was no more than 10 feet from the back of the boat when I saw something big jump out of the water and snag the airborne lure. I immediately screamed for him to stop running all my line out but to no avail. I quickly had my spool in a mess, Rog busy with a Skipjack and I was trying to land our first Yellowtail of the day. I got him to stop playing with his fish and to take over on mine. He was a great fight but we decided to let go in case there was something bigger out there.

Our keeper for the day was at least 30 inches and a big boy at that. We had to release sails, put the boat in reverse and fight him very slowly so as not to loose him. This was easily a thirty minute fight never knowing what we had on the line.

Nothing hit on the entire trip from La Paz to Mazatlan so we thought we were done for the season. Did that put the poles away, not on your life and it was a good thing too. We had the day every fisherman dreams about, a nice breeze, soft swells and lots of fish! We landed four Skipjacks, two nice Yellowtails and released another sailfish. What a way to end the season. Rog filleted the larger Yellowtail for massive tuna steaks while we were sailing at 7 knts and a setting sun. It could not get any better for our final night out to sea.