3 day freelance on the Indy (San Diego) May 12-15 2023

749 Views 7 Replies 4 Participants Last post by Drundel, 17 d ago

esgeo

Matt (@matawest), Grant and I booked this trip pretty soon after it came out on the schedule (last summer?) and unfortunately Matt had to postpone for a future year because of a conflict. So Grant and I went out on this Graftech/Avet sponsored trip, and it ended up being a good time. Grant took 2nd place in the jackpot with a bluefin right around the century mark (1st place was 110ish?) and also won an Avet SXJ for having the biggest fish the first night.

We fished between Upper Hidden and 60 Mile Bank. Found several biting schools of bluefin 200-350’ down the first two nights, but no bite materialized on night 3 before we had to head back to the landing around 1AM. Had a shot at paddy yellowtail each day, with daytime conditions being best on the last day. Chartermaster and West coast fishing guru Rick Ozaki was the only person to catch a tuna during the day, and he managed to do it twice (with a 4 oz glow slider and live sardine).

Otherwise I’ll let the pics speak for themselves…

Fish Automotive lighting Automotive design Seafood Fish products

Food Vertebrate Fish Gas Automotive tire

Fisherman Outdoor recreation Fish Fishing Recreation

Fish Fisherman Recreation Entertainment Fishing

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esgeo

Discussion Starter · #2 · 25 d ago

Went over the limit on pics… here’s a few more and maybe Grant will post up a few as well.

Asphalt Road surface Automotive tire Art Sidewalk

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jayweston

· #3 · 25 d ago

That looks like an awesome haul! Who did your processing? I did a four day trip on the Poseidon last August, and i've done a handful of 36 hour trips when i was going to college at SDSU. The level of care and service you get on some of those west coast boats is just second to none. Were most of the bluefin on knife jigs? I caught most of mine on 400g pontchartrain speed jigs on 300lb mono test leaders.

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esgeo

Discussion Starter · #4 · 25 d ago

jayweston said:
That looks like an awesome haul! Who did your processing? I did a four day trip on the Poseidon last August, and i've done a handful of 36 hour trips when i was going to college at SDSU. The level of care and service you get on some of those west coast boats is just second to none. Were most of the bluefin on knife jigs? I caught most of mine on 400g pontchartrain speed jigs on 300lb mono test leaders.

We both used Five Star, having had good success with them in the past.

Was my first time on a true long range boat and I would concur that it is an amazing tier of experience.

My first two bites came on a shout strobe 250g, but I got sawed off on the second one. I got 5 bites on the shout flash 250g in the 2nd photo. I also tried a Daiwa SK 300g but the fish that bit it was the smallest one I caught, so I went back to the flash. Was using 3-4’ of 200# mono bite leader. Fortunately the wind/current was pretty mellow so lighter, low profile jigs were getting down. I cranked up a few 400-500g jigs to start and that sucked!

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jayweston

· #5 · 25 d ago

esgeo said:
We both used Five Star, having had good success with them in the past.

Was my first time on a true long range boat and I would concur that it is an amazing tier of experience.

My first two bites came on a shout strobe 250g, but I got sawed off on the second one. I got 5 bites on the shout flash 250g in the 2nd photo. I also tried a Daiwa SK 300g but the fish that bit it was the smallest one I caught, so I went back to the flash. Was using 3-4’ of 200# mono bite leader. Fortunately the wind/current was pretty mellow so lighter, low profile jigs were getting down. I cranked up a few 400-500g jigs to start and that sucked!

Lol yeah the big jigs suck to work with, I literally just drop them til i'm 50' below where fish are marking then just burn it back without pumping. I tried to speed jig with one once and lasted about 3 seconds. We had too heavy of current to use anything lighter, but the other advantage to the big jigs is just getting down faster. I remember last year a lot of folks started using just plain sinkers with a hook attached with surprisingly good success.

Y'all chop up any of those paddy yellows for sashimi?

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esgeo

Discussion Starter · #6 · 24 d ago

jayweston said:
Y'all chop up any of those paddy yellows for sashimi?

I was hopeful that was going to happen, and asked something along those lines but my timing was poor. The basic response I got was 31 people is too many to do sashimi for on a trip this short. FWIW we didn’t get consistently biting YT stops until the 3rd day. I will have to wait for my shipment to have my belated hamachi feast!