June 18th – Yellowtail on Kelp

Long days and another opportunity to get out after work.  Reports of bluefin just 5-10 miles off the beach made the temptation to go further very tempting.

Summary

The plan was to go out, catch mackerel and head toward the north 9 and see what I could find.  The macs were harder to get than I expected.  I got about 5 Spanish and 1 giant green.  With time being of the essence, I headed out.  About 7 miles out, I found good water and lots of life.  Birds everywhere.  I was metering a lot of life all around the boat, but it looked like the small pelagic crab and anchovie fry that has been everywhere.

I spent a while looking around the life, but the fish are clearly on the small food and my big baits weren’t on their menu.  I pointed in a bit an north a bit.  In about 1000′ of water, I found a little bit of kelp.  The water wasn’t as nice, but it was worth a look.  On my second cast with a surface iron, I got bit.  It got me into the kelp pretty quickly and I spent the next 20 minutes battling it out.

Braid is a nice thing to cut kelp, but the slick stuff that casts nicely doesn’t cut as well (I have the Suffix 832 Gore on).  I eventually got it to gaff all wrapped up in a ton of kelp.  That brought me to sunset and a very nice ride home.

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Catch

I got one stubborn 22 pound yellwotail off a kelp with the surface iron.  I was using my Diawa Lexu 400 on a Phenix 867ML.

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Conditions

Water

Water was 65 at the harbor entrance to 69.5 out further.  Waves were small and a very light wind chop.

Tide

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Weather

Splendid.

Notes

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