With the work on our new offshore boat the Rogue being complete, we decided to try our hand at the Tuna fishing recently, which has been entirely out of control. The warmer water conditions present this year are pushing Tuna and many other species both closer to shore and farther North on the California shore line, than normal fishing conditions dictate. This is perfect news the Southern California fisherman. You can read more here:
Kory and John headed out early in the morning, with thoughts of Tuna on the fly in mind. As always—when you are finally able to head out—the fishing counts on most the charter boats reporting in the area dropped off slightly the previous day with most of the overnight charters catching the majority of the fish. A signal that momentarily many of the fish had moved. On the way out we both could not believe the amount of “life” we were seeing on the water, birds and porpoise were everywhere. I have never seen so many Dolphins while on the water, the majority of the morning you could see them at any angle in the distance in huge pods. We tried a few early spots closer to shore, to no avail. Most the talk we heard on the radio pointed to the successful guys heading out.
Left with the decision of running more miles than we had planned offshore, or dropping back a little to prime mako water, we opted for shark. This was by no means a rough decision, the decision for the day is tuna or mako, you already made the decision of the day by putting yourself on the water. All things aside, you will never convince Kory to not go shark fishing, so shark it was. With a late start under our belt we got on them as soon as we could, and 30 minutes in, the first mako was in casting range and hooked up within seconds of announcing his arrival. The day basically proceeded along the same lines, with very consistent fishing and makos steadily finding the slick. All in all we went 5 for 5 on mako sharks, which would be a good day to begin with. The highlight of the day was as always the one that got away. Hands down the biggest shark I have seen personally ( I am new to the game) and one of the bigger sharks John has seen as well ended up being a giant blue Shark, that snuck in later in the day. The blue shark ate very soon after having a debate of wether we took a photo first and hooked the shark second or vice versa. In hindsight I made the wrong decision, with more concern for casting than filming, but no regrets as we were able to hook that blue twice, but failed to get the hook to hold. The site of that fish alone, made the day that much more exciting. Ideally this coming weekend involves the same Sunday morning decision of Tuna or Shark??? Check out this video to see what this shark fishery can bring.
