Yellowfin Tuna in San Diego

Day 3. We called up the guy at 976Tuna and asked for help. He gave us some tips such as water temperature to look for (68 degrees) and where to head. He provided lat/lons that we plugged into the Garmin 4212.

He also told us to listen to channel 72 on the VHF. Bingo! All the rest of the Tuna ‘fleet’ was on this channel, recreation boaters like us. We had some fun listening to the chatter. Some obvious locals were being very secretive … other boaters (guy from santa cruz)  were asking everyone what the water temperature was and exactly where the fish were. Very few answered the guy, but it made for some comedy on the high seas!

We were at 32.2203 117.5043 in 65.7 degrees of water when we had a hit on a deep diving rapala. I reeled up a nice Yellowfin Tuna on a trolling rod. Not much of a fight, but a beautiful fish! Immediately after reeling it in we chummed the water with sardines and plunked a few lines over. Both Donald and I hooked up for a double. I caught mine on a very light spinning rig which made it a lot of fun.

Don gets one

Me too!

2nd Tuna of the Day for me!

A good day! We are both no longer Tuna -Virgins!

Porpoises off the Coronado Islands in Mexico

We left at 7:00 AM and decided we would find our own fishing with no help from anyone else. We headed straight towards mexican waters  – to the Coronado Islands. These Islands are about 15-20 miles south west of San Diego in Mexican waters. The Islands are surrounded by water about 100 feet deep which rapidly becomes 300 plus. We traveled west of the islands and found ourselves in 2000, 3000, 4000 an deeper water.

The first thing we found were tons of porpoises. They were smaller than the usual ‘flipper’ gray one’s I am used to seeing. These were small, grey and had white stripes on the side. They were every where and I had heard that where there are porpoises there are Tuna, so we started fishing! Fortunately porpoises are too smart to grab lures or even live bait on a hook. But we had zero bites.

In with the porpoises were these strange birds that popped up out of the water like fish but then immediately flew away. They were swimming under water like fish. Several actually bit Don’s lure and he had at least 2 on for a few seconds. Fortunately they let go.

Later we saw a whales spout on the horizon, so we decided to investigate. We came upon a big whale, perhaps 50 feet long. We kept our distance.

Agressive whale was attacking the boat

Next we knew, the Whale decided we looked interesting. It surfaced about 40 feet behind the boat and was headed toward us. We motored up, but Shamu, the retarded whale just kept coming. We moved further away and then slowed again, but there was the whale again, right behind us.

viciously agressive whale about to attack boat

Goddam whale! Probably wanted to kill us! Fortunately we escaped with our lives.

Later we tried fishing around North Coronado Island, but there were too many sea lions. As soon as we threw a delicious anchovy over the side they would deftly remove it from the hook and eat it. So much for fishing here!

Our final run-in of the day occurred when a lone speed boat came flying directly over to us. It was a Mexican gunboat – law enforcment of some kind. They asked us what we were doing. “Fishing Sir”. Do you have a license? “Yes Sir”. I proceeded to read my license number to the kind english speaking gentleman. Satisfied that we had procured our licenses before entering his sacred mexican waters, he departed. We found out later that if you didn’t have a Mexican fishing license and they caught you … they might well take your boat if they want! I was really tempted to say “License? We don’t need no stinkin’ license!”