The Un-Mellow YellowFIN – By Dan Ross
“The most wide-open bite I have ever been on”, said Rob Whittaker. This one was one for the FIB’ers’ record books. We had reports of the storm from the north and the possibility of the trip getting cancelled. I called everyone during the week to let them know that Captain Todd said it would be a game time decision. Nobody was sure about how bad the weather would be down south on Monday, 10/25 and going west for the big Bluefin was out of the question. Although there was rain in the forecast for fishing, but Captain Todd said there were reports of Yellowfin down south off the coast of Baja, Mexico below Ensenada. Captain Todd got back to me the night before the trip and his prediction was almost dead on; it wouldn’t be too rough going down south 130 miles. We had the possibility of rain in the afternoon and a possible rough ride home on Monday night. More on that later. The 12 FIB’ers were a go for the trip. We all arrived around 5pm and motored away from the docks at 6:30. We stopped for some smaller grade sardines, got the rundown from 2nd Captain, Chuck, a kick-off prayer via Rick Chalmers and off we went.
The ride down wasn’t rough. The overcast weather saw us putting out the trolling rods around 8am. Dave Weeks did the honors on the first jig stop with a smaller grade Yellowfin Tuna. That’s a good sign. Dolphins were all over the horizon. We continued to follow the Dolphins with a few more jig stops and then Chaos ensued. Walt Galen put it best, “nothing like a wide-open bite with EVERYONE hooked up simultaneously. A fun time on steroids”. He wasn’t kidding on that one. For the next 45+ minutes everyone was hooked up. Captain Todd was running around the boat screaming with excitement. At one point we literally could drop our baits in the corner and WHAM! You got bit. The fish were chewing heavy line with no issues. I have been in a lot of wide-open bites, but this one was different. Absolute chaos with very few breakoffs, tangles and lost fish. Probably 85 to 90% of the fish were caught on the first two stops. Everyone worked well together, and we ended up with Mexican boat limits of Yellowfin from around 10 to 20 lbs. We were hoping to find that school again, but it never happened. We ended up picking at a few fish for the rest of the day. That’s okay because everyone was very happy and had some quality Yellowfin. The crew did a great job of controlling the chaos. Robert Gist had the Jackpot with a 20lb class Yellowtail. Tom Handzus was the runner up.
Josh did a great job making his breakfast sandwiches, breakfast burritos, amazing pastrami sadwhiches, hamburgers and steak dinner. Nolan the deckhand was all over the deck helping people and making sure everyone got what they needed. We were greeted by the afternoon sun glistening off the steel blue water and storm clouds in the distance. Todd turned north in the afternoon and kept the trolling rods out until it got dark. The heavy mist and wind kicked in and the FIB’ers hunkered down for the ride home. It didn’t end up being as rough as we all thought it would be on the ride home. The mist and wind died off around 3am and we arrived at the docks around 5:30am. Captain Todd did a great job putting us on fish for our last two FIB’ers charters of the year. One was in August at San Clemente Island where we landed 67 quality Yellowtail and then put us on this awesome, wide-open Yellowfin bite. All of the FIB’ers were extremely happy with the trip and we are blessed to have a great end of the season trip. It was an honor to be the Charter Master for the last two FIB’ers trips this year. I have been blessed with the many friends and look forward to many more trips with FIB’ers. I’m looking forward to an amazing 2022 season. Tight lines. Stay safe and God bless!