08-29-2003, 11:12 PM
Hey there guys,
Just thought I'd give a report on my overnighter. Our fishing club went out of Pierpoint landing and chartered the Aztec for a 'go find the yellowtail at San Clemente' trip.
The club managed to round up a few over the planned 25 but there was decent room on the boat. We left the dock a little before 9pm Wednesday and went to get bait. Having filled up all three tanks with nice sized sardines and no anchovies. We didn't stop to jig for mackerel.
Got to the first spot on the southern frontside of the island before dawn. Although we fished hard up and down a good part of the morning, we couldn't hardly even get the Calicos to bite. Just a couple of yellows caught.
Decided to give up on the island, and started to paddy hop with the first few stops just getting our casting and rails shuffling techniques down pat.
Later in the afternoon, we did manage to hit some paddys that did hold some BITING fish and caught a few fish. Sounds silly but I didn't get a final count on the fish but I'm positive it was less than the number of anglers. Fish ran very small around 8 to 12 pounds with one big fish closer to 20. but not that close! ha ha
I got my fish on a tip I'd heard from some albie anglers. When we got to a paddy, I'd just drop a white with red gill flare Ironman jig straight down and yo yo it then reel back up to the top like real, real fast. That's how I got my only Yellowtail of the trip. (got some Calicos too) I fished nothing but iron for the paddys. Man it was tempting to go to the bait but.......
Brovo on the Captians attention to us and efforts to find biting fish. Food was good and inexpensive. The deckhand knew his business and almost as important.... he knew how to clean a yellowtail professionally as if it were his own!
Not so brovo- The luck of not finding more biting fish.(no ones fault) I don't mind deck hands fishing IF things are slow or everybody knows what they are doing but NOT when a bite is on and there are soem guys, ladies and kids on board that aren't experienced paddy anglers or anything else for that matter. True, I believe the decks handed off fish to some of our guys and that goes in the bravo department but some resented their taking fishing space at the rail. Ya ya I know a rail space is no ones and not so important on paddys but some casters wanted to be close as possible to the paddy. I fished 90% on the bow.
Had fun, good trip. Neighbor enjoyed my Yellow.
JapanRon
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