Report by Dan Ross

“Frustrating but fun!”

“Still beats working.”

“Amazing how many fish were puddling and breaking all day long.”

“Two eyes and a squirm.”

These were a few things said about this trip. It all began two days before the trip when Captain Marcus called and told me that there’s a large volume of Bluefin Tuna off the backside of San Clemente Island. They haven’t been biting a lot but we all remained optimistic. All 20 of the registered Fibers wanted to chase the Bluefin, and chase we did! Everyone arrived at the docs between 7 and 9pm. The docs looked like a normal weekend night. There were a lot of people enjoying their meals at the local restaurants and strolling along the walkway. I thought about COVID and was thankful that we were allowed to get out to fish and have a somewhat normal adventure. We all checked in a little after 9pm, started preparing our gear and off the boat went to grab some bait. The crew gave their safety talk and gave us info on what was working to catch the fish the day before. We opened the trip with prayer and off we went to San Clemente Island.
Most of the anxious passengers started rolling out of their bunks around gray light, and then the search started far behind the west end of the Island. The plan was to chase these fish south along the Island. We soon pulled up to what would be our first of many puddling fish. They sunk out as soon as we rolled up on them. This would be the routine for the day; Pull up to fish that we soon found out were feeding on those tiny anchovies (AKA two eyes and a wiggle). Finally, around mid-morning Charlie Massingill hooked a nice sized Bluefin. The fish came off after a few minutes. This seemed encouraging or so we thought. Every stop seemed to be the same routine of guys throwing Colt Snipers and Kent Elmore launching his 10” Mackerel pattern hard bait at those picky Bluefin. It seemed like we would have a better chance hitting them in the head and knocking them out. Frustration started setting in. It was around 12 when Valarie Handzus and Kent Elmore landed the first Bluefin that were both in the 28lb range and both were caught on Sardines. The routine continued as we chased what felt like endless number of bluefin.
Johnny Dewitt and I were the next to hook up sometime in the early afternoon. Fish seemed to be all over the place and the captain got on the speaker a lot and said, “Marking lots of fish 60 to 120 feet.” We all had hope that these would start feeding on the Sardines, but it just wasn’t meant to be. There were so many fish jumping and the big fish were mixed in too. It was crazy. I have seen Bluefin act like this before, but not the large volume that we saw everywhere we went. I ended up handing my fish off to one of the new young guns, Greg Shade, because he hasn’t caught a tuna yet. It wasn’t meant to be. The fish spit the hook. Johnny landed his Bluefin in the 20lb range. The day continued, and we picked at the fish up until it got dark. Tom Handzus landed a nice Bluefin in the mid 40 pound range which ended up being the jackpot fish. Nice job, Tom! We got to see Greg Shade hook into his own fish only to have the fish straighten what appeared to be the wrong type of hook. Greg had that blank look on his face as if to say, “what in the world just happened.” It was great to see him hook up. A lot of the guys didn’t get bit. Many went down to 20lb test but we all were hooking them on line up to 40. It wasn’t that they were line shy as much as full of the abundance of anchovies.
The last stop of the day proved to be the most entertaining. Kent Elmore hooked a fish earlier in the day on his popper but it spit the hook. This time was different. I think we all heard a splash at the bow and everyone up there went crazy with excitement. There was Kent, bent over making his way from the bow to the stern in what felt like 2 seconds. He had a nice one on. He fought it back up the starboard side all the way back to the portside stern corner. We all saw the fish come up and make a huge splash pulling line back out. Kent was able to bring the fish back up and the deckhand sunk the gaff in and pulled the fish over the rail. That fish ended up being in the 70lb range. It was the big fish, but Kent didn’t enter the Jackpot. This fish spit up a lot of those smaller anchovies…..all of the bluefin were plugged with them.
The fish put on a show the entire day. We held up hopes of the fish going nuts on our baits, but it wasn’t meant to be. We still ended up with 7 nice-sized Bluefin. Kent graciously donated his fish to those who didn’t catch any fish. Kent ended up being the hot stick with 4 hookups and 2 fish landed. Throughout the day we saw private boaters and a few party boats. The day had very little wind and we had the most smooth ride back to the harbor. I kept waking up thinking we were back at the harbor. The conditions were calm and overcast all day. A lot of the guys were very frustrated because they didn’t catch fish. That’s Bluefin fishing, right? Overall, we were all happy to just be out fishing on a great boat with an awesome crew. Captain Marcus is great to fish with and I look forward to the next time I get to fish on his boat.
Stay safe and, until next time, tight lines!