San Diego California Saltwater Fishing

Cindy and I spent a few days last week in San Diego as she had conferences for work. The days that she had meetings left me a lot of free time. I saw many great and interesting places, National parks and memorials, a tour of the USS Midway, beaches and last but not least a ¾ day fishing out on the great Pacific ocean. I have fished for almost all of the freshwater fish that we have in the United States but saltwater is something that I have never done before. This trip was a true learning experience and one that I will not forget.

I spend many days looking at different companies that offered an open day fishing trip. I got some great advice from some IDA people before my trip, to those I want to say THANK YOU. I chose a boat that had some good to great fish counts in the previous days. A fish count is the number of fish that each boat catches that day. It also tells you the number of people fishing so by knowing those numbers one can tell if the captain and his crew are on fish. My choice was the 60 foot Chubasco II captained by Ron Baker, 619.977.2829 , a former tuna boat owner and operator. He has had his U.S.C.G license for almost 40 years and ran a fishing talk radio show for years also. He runs the Chubasco II out the Islandia Sportsfishing Marina. His wife, Deena Nelson was also on board for this trip. She is the world record holder for the largest yellowfin tuna, 73.4 pounds, caught by a woman. I never really got to talk with her during this trip as she always seemed to be hooked up or helping clean the boat or fish.

I paid my 60 dollars and another 15 to rent my rod, a six foot heavy rod with a Penn 155 spooled with 30 pound line and a small bag of assorted hooks and weights. Now that I have my fishing equipment I head out and board the boat. I am met by Trevor and John, the deck hands for this trip. Trevor is a great young man that really knows his way around a boat, he also is planning on getting his captains license this winter. He fishes some saltwater tournaments as well. John is also a seaworthy veteran that knows his way around the boat as well as the galley. He makes a man size egg, ham and cheese breakfast sandwich and the double cheeseburgers for lunch looked just as good, both for around 6 dollars. I sat and talked to many different people on the two hour long boat ride, the most helpful was a nice gentleman named Jack Darling. I told Jack that I had never done this before and he explained how the fishing should go and how we would fish. He also told me about rail and how it works. The rail is the gunnels that run all around the boat. The fishing takes place along the rail and when one gets hooked up on a fish, he/she has the right-of-way, meaning that they can and will move along the rail to follow the fish. It was very entertaining when three or four people had fish on at the same time since when saltwater fishing other anglers do not reel up when another angler has hooked a fish.

We drove into Mexican waters and needed to get a permit, 15 dollars, to fish their water. We started fishing dropper rigs and using sardines for bait. We would drop the baits down to the bottom and reel up two turns of the handle.

We had action almost immediately. The first fish that came aboard was a bonito, a strong fighting fish. The fish that we were after though was the yellow fin tuna. After a short time I hear FISH ON and then I hear Trevor say that is the fish that we were targeting. The great fight was well organized as the fish had made its way around the rail. A few more fish were caught before the captain made his first of many moves to locate more tuna. The second spot was near the first but it held some seals better know locally as DOGS. Having seals in the area caused many problems as they sent the fish deep and also they attack hooked fish that being landed. On two or three occasions a fisherman was fighting a hooked fish only to have a seal bite the fish and only the head would be left attached to the hook. We moved again and this time we hit the mother load as fish were breaking the surface all around the boat. We anchored off a shelf in 18 fathoms, or about 108 feet. A change in the presentation was called for and went with flylining. A hook, a minnow and no weight, just set the minnow in the water and put the reel into free spool. The minnow would take 40-80 feet of line and while the reel is still in free spool put your thumb on the spool and stop the minnow. IF nothing happens in three to five minutes reel in and change minnows. When you got a bite and line would rip out and after a few seconds you engage the reel, let the rod load up and set the hook, HARD.

I caught six fish including one tuna that fought like no other fish that I have ever hooked. While I was battling my tuna, Trevor looks at me and said THIS IS NO SMALLMOUTH RON On our trip we caught barracuda, lingcod, rockfish along with yellowtail tuna

I really enjoyed my trip with Captain Ron, Trevor and John. If you get a chance to go to San Diego look these guys up as they are world class guides in my book.

Ron