Tuna Helpers 7/26

Gentle Readers:

     Once again, your reporter has been derelict in advising this thirsty readership of recent piscatorial adventures, which have mostly consisted of salvaging some kind of harvest from the flotsam of our dreamy plans.

     This report is all about chasing tuna, with a few detours along the way.

      As a reminder, shown below is what they are supposed to look like when the deck becomes the final resting place of the combination of plans and dreams.

Earlier this month, Secret Skipper and your narrator headed out to St Stanwyck for yellowtail and white seabass.  We left at 10 pm and spent the night catching the few squid that the seals allowed and then spent the graylight failing to catch the exotics we were targeting.

Fortunately, we were able to take advantage of plan B and get a nice pile of Rockers and this superb 38 inch ling that put Secret Skipper back on the leader board.  Note the troller of hope in the background.

     A few days earlier, Tommy and David took David's team mate Tristan out to catch yellowtail and white seabass, but plan C prevailed and we  had a fun day on the light gear we brought as a hedge against failure.  We experienced a wide open bite on local calicos, sandies, and barracuda off the beaches above Cotton's in San Clemente on a boat we rented from Aaron Kitakis of Harbor Rentals in Dana Point.

     This time around, Skipper once again put out the idea of making our own squid and getting those white seabass and yellows that had failed to RSVP to our prior invitations (I think it is rude of them to not send their regrets when we yank squid jigs all night to get ready for them, but polite society is just so hard to come by these days).

    Your narrator requested a reset on the whole make-our-own-squid idea and begged into an equally unlikely quest for the bluefin tuna we have not really made the maximum effort to take on so far this season.

     Skipper insisted that the Little Boys, who still go by that classification, go with us.  This inclusion is not only because we have had remarkably good luck most of the time when they are on board, but also because in the event we actually encountered bluefin, we wanted someone young to turn the handle and make our fantasy of putting little boys on a big tuna into a reality.  They have been elevated to the ranks of tuna helpers.

     On this adventure, we decided to frontload our consolation bottom fishing and headed straight for Stanwyck at 3 am with a tank full of anchovies (they had no sardines) and our beloved frozen squid.

The ocean was lumpy and confused when we got on the spot in the gray light. Things started off slow, with way too many whitefish taking the elevator up for release.  We eventually found the red fish in 250 feet and began a pretty solid harvest, capped by your reporter's 21 pound ling cod, which became the season's best in a year that has seen us catch the 7 biggest lings in the last 35 years of pursuing these gators with Skipper.  This one took me into the rocks, but I managed to sweet talk him out and into the boat.  On any other day, this might have been a higher ranking fish.

     After we counted out close to limits on what was a very good early morning of rock fishing, we iced down our catch with 80 of the 120 pounds of ice we brought and turned our attention to the primary objective.

     We sent Tommy and David up to the tower to glass for breaking fish as we headed to a spot in the middle of the triangle formed by St. Stanwyck, Roberto Clemente and the Island of Romance.  Water temps had come back up to 67-68 degrees.

     We put out the Mad Macs about 300 yards behind the boat and watched a gray morning evolve into a sunny downswell ride with great visibility.

     We made a couple of stops at dry paddies and got to reel against these heavy resistance lures to the point that we wanted to change them out for the more visible but unwieldy Spreader Bar.

     The boys began to pick up spots of white water and whales to the south after we dragged around the 499 for nothing.  We got close to a few spots and they sunk out.  Some were holding what looked like 20 to 40 pound fish and others seem to have larger splashes.  There were Ferris-wheeling birds, as well as several whales crashing about.  The area was extremely fishy.

     As we got closer, it became clear that it was tuna, not dolphin, that were creating the ruckus on the surface.  We pulled up a little over casting distance from the boils. I could not resist throwing a big chrome and blue Tady with a giant single hook in the direction of the uproar that seemed to be coming toward us rather than sinking out.  I threw the jig with all my might just as I saw a fish that was certainly over 200 pounds come out of the water in the melee off the bow.  I reeled that lure in like my life depended on it, as I had no chance of stopping anything that big on my jig rod. 

    David came off the tower long enough to make a frantic cast toward the pile with my jig stick, but instead he hooked up Skippers jig stick and ripped out three of Skippers guides, disabling both rigs for the day and sending that cool jig to an ignominious burial at sea.

     The fish popped up again to the west and the boys sang out like Tashtego claiming his gold piece.

     We regrouped and had the Spreader Bar back about 350 yards as we looped into a turn that allowed us to drag that spreader into the foamer without driving too close.

     When the commotion of the spreader pulled into the scrum, the reel began to grunt its happy alarm as the rod tip flattened out toward the azure horizon beyond the transom.

     We put David on the stick and told him it was his to lose.

He is an athlete, so he enthusiastically put the muscle into subduing this critter that he figured he could vanquish because he has opposable thumbs, fish can't read and because the rod was still in the holder.

The fish had other ideas and charged the boat, causing David to stop reeling and think all was lost.  We screamed at him to keep turning the handle,which he did, and the fish came tight again after a minute of loose reeling. 

Then it took off and began an epic battle of constantly trying to get into the props and cut below the boat.  Over the next hour, Skipper spun the boat like a matador getting out of the way of a charging bull as the toll of a long fight began to manifest in David's body language and suggestions that someone else take over his job.

Eventually we got it along side and were able to sink a couple of gaffs into it to hoist it into the cockpit amidst cheers of celebration and relief.

     Before we got too pleased with ourselves for accomplishing our mission, we tidied up the cockpit and sent the boys back up in to the nest to look for another victim for Tommy to murder.  Your narrator was the one advocating for more carnage, as Skipper was trying to counsel against fish gluttony and making too long of a day, which is something your reporter constantly strives to achieve.

     The boys spotted what seemed to be the same foamer and we steamed toward it while paying out the spreader to drag across at a right angle.

     This time, before we got anywhere near the foamer, the rod started screaming.

     Skipper informed Tommy it was his turn and he happily began turning the handle with the rod in the holder before announcing that the lure was just tangled up in kelp, which was a total lie. 

With the motor out of gear, we went to the corner to confront Tommy's excuse for not reeling hard and then the kelp started taking line at an alarming speed for a vegetable.

Once again, it was game on as Tommy's heroic pose gave way to the slump of despair as the tuna railed him into silly putty.

     After we yelled at him, just as we had done with his brother, he found the energy to turn the handle and stopped begging for someone else to carry his cross.

     Tommy's fish came in quicker and greener than David's, but we got a gaff into it before cleating it off with a tail rope.

     Since the fish were the same size, we engaged in the efficient use of one fish for the photos, as we were too weak to move them about.

     Once again, it was time for whooping and hollering, though the boys celebration was muted a bit by fatigue and the shame of trying to weasel out of grinding these fish all the way to the boat. Tommy's fish was about one inch shorter than David's, which taped out to 130 pounds.

     We managed to get the second fish into the kill bag where the first had already burned down the 40 pounds of ice we had to spare

     Your narrator once again advocated for putting the line out right away, but Skipper countermanded that notion by pointing out the time of day and the fact that we were certainly going to have to go to Avalon to pick up another 100 pounds of ice before we even started to cut up the rockfish while the tuna cooled off for their turn with our medieval barber.

     We made it into Avalon around 7 pm and had to hike into town to get ice, as the ice for sale at the convenient end of the dock was closed for the day.  The Avalon party scene was cranking full blast with music and dingies full of happy people prowling for festivities.      We would have liked to have hit the cocktail circuit and join in the fun, except for the fact that we were tired, smelly, and had another three hours of wet work to perform before we started toward Pedro.

     We found a quiet spot past Descanso and then arranged our dead pets for an organized photo before we cut them up.  We did not want to go through the giant effort of pulling the tuna out of their icey pouch for the photos, so their appearance is marked by two sickle shaped tails that did not quite fit into the kill bag.

     We had a great assembly line of cutting, salt-water rinsing and sealing the bounty of our harvest before getting it on clean ice in the fish hold.

     As always, Skipper efficiently butchered the rockfish before turning to the tuna, which Tommy and David were able to hoist onto the cutting board after regaining their strength.

     Skipper displays his bladework after he had already cut up limits of rockfish.

     Tommy noted that the tuna were easier to hold up for the camera once a certain amount of disassembly created that Ozempic vibe.

     We got in to Pedro and staggered up the ramp with our gear and what we had killed.  It was 3:30 am when your reporter got out of my bloody Hitchcock Psycho shower and fell into bed.

     The following day, we had plenty of friends to help us mow through the sashimi and poke' we kept putting out, as folks came by to pick up bags of fish, play music and enjoy a Sunday afternoon.

   It was truly a dream come true for Skipper and your narrator to put the Little Boys on tuna and come home alive again.

It is a great feeling when a plan actually comes together and the fish perform to our loftiest expectations so we can have fun times with our friends.

One of the biggest elements of angling success is in the art of being there when they bite. In any plan to make dreams become reality, we must never forget the foundational notion that

These are the Days