Game plan was to hit the 9 and make our way north. Got a sweet half scoop (mostly sardines with a few macks and 'chovies mixed in) and bee-lined it out of the little bay. Near glass conditions allowed us to hit 28 knots most of the morining.
First paddy spotted straight west of the channel, maybe 6 miles out. I'm the first in witha sweet mack and I was rewarded for it. A fiesty YT was invited to dinner. Maybe 20lbs??
The captain also managed a LYBW (little yellow, big world) from the same paddy. No pics taken, of course! The fish on this went lock jaw after that. We would soon discover this would be theme for the rest of the day. A fish or 2, then lock jaw. Heard a lot of the same scenarios playing out over the radio too.
Didn't find another paddy holding fish until we were well north, about 5 miles west of Del Mar. Again, I was first in the water, this time with a horse of a sardine. I get slammed while I'm picking out loose line from the cast. Definitely a tuna on this one. A few minutes later, I boat the only tuna for the day, a chunky YFT about 15-20lbs??
The captain followed right after me and it was finally a fish worth taking a picture of...
A solid 12-15lb YT was warmly greeted. He'd hook another fish on his next bait, but lost it as he started to brag about... Ha!! Saw it at color and it was cute dodo... that stung a bit. Fish went lock jaw again. We soaked baits for another 10 minutes... time to move.
The next paddy that was willing to bite would not be found until we headed back home. This paddy was about 3-5 miles from the channel and yielded another LYBW for Alex. Since we thought this was it for us, I chummed heavily what little bait we had left. About 4 healthy sardines and a bunch of near dead ones we tossed back into the tank after not getting bit on previous paddies. Nada. Lets go home. We got about a 100yds from the paddy and we come across another paddy with a couple birds sitting on top of it. I look in the tank and there's 3 baits left at the bottom. What the hell, why not? Alex long soaks a near dead sardine and gets rewarded with a dimunitive 5lb YT. As he's "fighting" the YT, a huge school of dodos come under the boat!!!! I'd say there was 20-30 dodos under the boat with a few more jumping out the water after what ever was under the paddy. Holy sh!t we needed some fresh bait!! We tossed a crap load of artificials at that them, but they were only keyed in on the live bait. Bummer. They were looking so delicious too! That was all she wrote.
What worked for us:
20lb line or 30lb flouro
2/0 hooks
the freshest bait possible and get it in the water ASAP!!
Lots of radio chatter of fish with lock jaw and loads of dorado out there!!! Especially near the north county and Oceanside area. Only heard of paddy caught fish, nothing on the troll or off of the porpoise. No mention of breaking fish either.
I'm happy! I love fesh sashimi, especially at work
