I don’t know about you guys but it seems like I spend the spring and summer thinking about fishing trips and the fall planning for bow hunting trips.
This time of year it’s all about fishing, so here’s a few pics of our third annual Bluefin 2.5 day charter off of San Clemente Island. Every year has been great fishing and the Bluefin seem to be getting bigger each year. Figured I needed some heavier gear this year because we got into a ripper bite of 150-227 pound Bluefin last year. I burned the midnight oil after work to finish up several heavier United Composites rail rods for the trip. Here’s one of them on the rod wrapping lathe.
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The first day started off slow And is typical Bluefin fishing. The fish were everywhere, jumpers, breezers and everywhere on the meter, but we could only convince two to bite.
Day two was more of the same. Intel was that the fish were biting in the afternoon and you had to find the right school that wanted to bite. At about noon, the captain decided to make a move and it paid off. We found a group willing to play and each of our 11 anglers caught Bluefin up to 265 pounds.
Bluefin are notoriously boat shy and the majority of the fish we caught we using a kite to drag a frozen flying fish up to a 100 plus yards away from the boat. The best part was watching 200 plus pound Bluefin explode on the bait like a Largemouth Bass on a surface plug. Occasionally the fish would come completely out of the water and sometimes it would take 3-4 Strikes to connect with a fish. Each time a fish took a swipe at a bait, everyone on the boat went nuts. Good times!
We each took a turn on the kite and rotated every 20 minutes. It was a hero or zero proposition. I got my turn and Five minutes into my rotation, a huge Bluefin exploded on my bait, but missed.
Two more Bluefin tried to make a meal of my bait and on the third attempt we connected to a big one.
Once connected, you have to reel in 100 plus yards of slack line to come tight on the fish. I reeled in the slack and the fish burned off about 300 yards of line before settling down. About 45 minutes later, I got the fish to the boat. You know it’s a good day when it takes four or more guys to bring your fish over the rail! It ended up weighing 257 pounds. Happy day!
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