The past 2 weeks, I have had the opportunity to fish offshore with Dustin Sergent and Randall Norris. Offshore fishing is pretty new to me, and the feeling of being enthralled about it would sum it up well. These are the toughest, hardest pulling fish that you can imagine. You could tie one tail to tail with a Steelhead, and the Steelhead would drown, without much trouble.
Chasing these Pelagic fish takes you miles and miles offshore, following deep water trenches you hope they are traversing. Often these fish will stop and stage near any kind of structure floating in the water, as they migrate through an area. Kelp patties are the obvious and most encountered structure. The first day offshore we headed out in the dark, and were lucky enough to be on not only a patty, but the best kelp patty of the day by 7 am. Finding a patty is half the battle, and this day we got at it early. We hammered fish, after fish, after fish, for hours on end. We caught everything you could hope for, including: Dorado, Yellowfin Tuna, Yellowtail, and Skipjack. The entire morning consisted of multiple hook-ups, two broken 12 weights, and absolute mayhem. It was one of the top few hours of fishing in my life. Eventually multiple boats started to fish the same patty, so we decided to move on. We had success on almost every patty we hit, but nothing like we had on the first, but still phenomenal fishing.
We headed back out yesterday (a week later), only a little farther South. The ocean was about as rough as we would venture out in. Rough seas make the fishing much harder. The reason being, it is hard to spot the Kelp patties. With the higher swells and choppier water, often you are right on a patty before you see it. Needless to say, we headed out bright and early and spent the majority of the morning searching. The first patty we located had a few small yellowtail and we managed one Dorado. We had similar results on all the smaller size patties we found, minus the Dorado. Not giving up, but starting to venture home as we had a 3 hour boar ride ahead of us, we started to cruise back with an eye open along the way. Then it happened, and we found the patty we needed. A few drifts through, and some live bait thrown in to get em fired up, and we were back on the Dorado. I have no clue how many Dorado were staging at this spot, but we had to have hooked 12-15 fish from it, and there was still a lot more fishing to do when we had to leave. Headed back, we made full use of the day, and came home fully whooped just as the sun faded while arriving at Dana Landing.
Below are a few pictures from the past 2 weekends. These fish are unreal, the amount of pull these fish offer will make a 12 weight seem weak. The Dorado are absolutely perfect for a fly. They stay up top, most of it is visual fishing, you can get them on the surface, they leap multiple times when hooked, and a picture will never do them justice as in hand they lose color instantly. A new fish to me, and all are are among my favorites, but the Dorado may stand out as being my number one. They are truly awesome.
