Dutch Anglers Get Big Tuna

We have a group visiting from Holland right now, who are having the time of their lives.

Yesteday they fished aboard 38 ft Blackfin " C Rod" and did very well to release a striped marlin and then to boat two hefty yellow fin tuna. The first tuna took a black & green lure and took 45 minutes to land on 80 lb test, weighing 160 lbs; the second fish took a dead ballyhoo and weighed a little under 200 lbs taking one hour and 15 minutes to bring to the boat. They were fishing at the 180 spot on the Cortez side which is about 1 hour and 15 minutes out from Cabo. Pictured here are  Ron Veenendaal, Kees de Bie, Piet Weldam, Louis Bakker, Barry Sillerman and Theo Buddingh.

Making the best of my options

It’s been about 5 weeks since my last trip. That wouldn’t have been that big a deal as I should have been in Wexford this week for 6 days Bass fishing. Unfortunately this was quite rightly cancelled due to a horrendous forecast that would have made it pretty difficult to catch anything on lures. Add this to the fact that I had to cancel my trip to Alderney late in October due to work commitments (Wexford was the replacement) left me feeling a little sorry for myself.

So on Monday despite a grim outlook in relation to wind strength and direction I left home at 4.30am. The plan worked, two fish on lures with the best one about 3 pounds and then with a bit of a drive and a change in tactics four fish on fresh crab with the best again 3 pounds and the other three about 2 pounds.

So there you have it, not where I wanted to be but with the time off work I made the best of it. There is little chance of me using lures for the rest of the week but I do have plenty of crab left over. The tides and weather look ok for Wednesday so, will see what that brings.

Here is how not to take a photo, self timer in sunshine oh dear! The fish sat pretty but I failed miserably and this is after trying to change the contrast in Photobucket!

Just Like This

And The Heat Goes On

85° F IN OCTOBER ?

Average Max = 55° F

oh well

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.. As the warm weather continues, (briefly interrupted by insignificant cooling showers,) the neighborhood hunters and fishers are befuddled about how to approach this most searing of late fall weather in recent memory.

Upper Gllatin Dry Channel

.. It looks like after the hottest decade on record, it’s the hottest year on record, and barely removed from the hottest week of all time in satellite record, (LINK.)
.. Don't fish the Gallatin River above Bacon Rind Creek. Don't fish above Mile Post 25. Don't fish the Confluence Meadows or Fan Creek.
.. Don't even think about fishing until you're well below Specimen Creek. And then, don't bushwhack through the willows because the bears are thick.
.. And why not? Simple enough; there's no water. And where there's no water, there's no fish; not even the fabled sand trout of Arrakis.

Upper Gallatin Nearly Dry Channel

.. The hoppers are dying of heat stroke and the beetles only come out at night. The heated air is so thin that caddis seldom make it off the water, and the trout are too few and lethargic to bother them.
.. Or: it's so bleak in the N.W. Corner of Yellowstone National Park that most of our fishing neighbors have taken up indoor, (air conditioned,) shuffleboard.
.. Some fishers are braving the intense heat and lung searing dryness, (not really as bad as it gets around Bad Water, California,) and occasionally hooking up with a dehydrated and oxygen-starved trout.

Local Hopper - Not Hopping

.. These poor fish look worse than kippered herring and some of them are floating belly up in the few shallow runs left in the Confluence Meadows.
.. Discharge from Bacon Rind Creek , and Specimen Creek add just enough water to the Gallatin River to make fishing a possibility.
.. Catching is probably still a crime, but it's being done.
..There are a few runs and deep holes in the meadow sections of the river along the Bighorn Trail that still hold energetic fish.
.. These are the fish that the bears and coyotes haven't caught yet. Human entrails full of jelly beans have been reported but remain unverified as of this moment, (thanks Tom.)

Fish Here If You Must

.. Were we rich enough to afford the gasoline we would sail across the park to the Lamar River. There's still water over there, along with bugs, fish and good catching.
.. Were we smart enough we would take our own advice and saunter down the shady path beside the upper Firehole River.
.. Were we sociable enough we'd hitch a ride with the neighbors that have cabin cruiser's on Yellowstone Lake or Hebgen Lake.
.. As it is, we choose to visit the Gallatin River near the big shady pools around Black Butte. Had some brief dances and a fairly long conversation with fish in the 10" - 12" range. But we bailed out when the sweat fogged our trifocals.
.. If you have an excursion planned to this part of the world in the near future, please exercise the telephone. Locales, hatches, heat, and water temperature will affect your chances for catching.
.. Call a local fly shop and ask to speak to someone that was on the water an hour ago. You may get some good tips. Better yet visit them and ask the hard questions: when did you last fish that stretch?, or have you ever fished that stretch?, or who told you that story?, or are there a lot of fish there?, or . . . .

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Smallmouth Bass Eats a Snake

On Saturday we electrofished a 4 acre smallmouth bass lake over near Victoria, IL. We found this smallmouth bass with a partially digested snake hanging out of it. We either shocked the snake out prematurely or the bass was trying to get rid of it from its gut:

Smallmouth bass lake looks pretty interesting eh?

Greg Grimes from aquatic environmental services down in Georgia came up Thursday night with a truckload of fish for many of my clients. He stayed for a few days to do some deer hunting and helped out quite a bit on a few electrofishing surveys on Saturday between hunts.

I thought this retaining wall looked pretty cool. The beach is still under construction, but will be real nice once completed. It is from a clients lake near Henry, IL.

Greg and Justin were able to get some good practice in before going out to hunt every evening.

Not a bad day.....

After checking the weather last night I was delighted to see some high pressure sneaking in between the constant low pressure we were having. From past experiences I found that if you can find some clean water on the open coast the day after a strong blow that it can fish its socks off, so hopes were high for a good day.

I arrived onto the copper coast early afternoon and after checking the usual marks it was clear that it wasn’t going to be easy to find some clean water, after checking countless marks I said Id take a gamble and try a mark I had not fished for a couple of years. After a bit of a trek I found what I was looking for, some reasonably clean (mixing) water with plenty of fizz!

Lure of choice was a Sasuke 140 in candy colour. Within the first few casts I had a nice Pollack, I was delighted thinking to myself if the Pollack could find the lure if there were any bass around Id be in with a good chance. Sure enough within 20 minutes I hooked a good fish that doubled the Injection and proceeded to strip countless yards of line of my 3000 sized reel, the gear was well up to the test and after a few minutes I slid the most well conditioned bass I have ever seen onto the shore, the girth of this fish was remarkable, on the boga she came in at over 9lb.

The tide was really pumping in at this stage and there was a thick line of kelp on the foreshore which was slowly starting to get picked up and beginning to float in front of where I wanted to fish, making things difficult. Fishing amongst this floating weed was a nightmare, but on one of the retrieves I felt a bang then another, thinking to myself here is another Pollack I stopped the lure and bang…not a Pollack but bass on, the fish really wanted that sasuke, giving yet another outstanding fight on the light gear, definitely the best way to catch these fish. Again on the sasuke 140.

Confidence was sky high at this stage and but the line of kelp had made its way out in front of me so time left fishing the mark was of the essence. A few minutes later I hooked another fish again in close which went on one hell of a run but the on this occasion the fish won and all I got back were two big bass scales on my sasuke.

A quick break for lunch and into the shop for a couple back up lures to have for the dropping tide and of course to let Cian know what he was missing. So onto the next mark that I generally fish on the dropping tide, and which had been fishing very well for me of late. Sure enough within 5 minutes I had a fish which came in around 8lb on the boga.

Fishing where I was I only had another 30 minutes before the water would strip off in front of me making the gulley I was fishing into impossible. Just as I was thinking I would move on I hooked a reasonable fish which after a bit of head shaking on the surface took me to ground,, DISASTER the fish and the lure of the day gone.

The confidence knocked a bit after losing my lure of the day I fished on and to round up the day nicely I had a nice 6lber as the sun was setting on yet another perfect day on the copper coast.

Tight lines,

James.

Latest Fish Report

PISCES FISH REPORT

September 26th to 30th, 2010

Overall Catch Success Rate 100%

BILLFISH: Wow what a week…the big fish continue to appear and the biggest story of the week was aboard our very own “Shambala” the 60 ft Hatteras, with Captain T.J Dobson producing his third fish over 600 lbs in the last two months. T.J had a group from Texas aboard on September 26th this fish was just a few pounds shy of 800 lbs. Yesterday a group of Texans were aboard fishing with T.J and were having a great time; they had already released a striped marlin and a sailfish, when T.J spotted a huge marlin in the Destiladeras area where they were fishing, attracted by a teaser tied to the back of the boat. Captain T.J was quick thinking and told his deckhand to toss a sierra; he had on board, back to the fish. The fish leapt on it, grabbing the bait, but then jumped and spat it out. He must have been hungry because he turned with a vengeance and inhaled a lure still in the water, known as a "Gay Bob", which is blue, white and pink. The fish was solidly hooked and Ed Shatte from Houston, Texas was on the other end of the line. Ed pumped and heaved the fish on 80 lb line for three hours, when they realized that it had died.....it takes a while to haul up 780 lbs of dead weight and then drag it onto the deck through the transom door, but they did it. Another large fish was a 500 lb’er aboard “La Brisa” for first time angler Adam Damini from Pittsburgh who had never been fishing before in his life.....we are talking not even a river, lake or stream, but today he was fishing with his friend Roger Young from Connecticut, just three miles off of Los Arcos when a large marlin assaulted a green/yellow lure being dragged by "La Brisa", after a considerable battle they got what ended up being an approx 500 lb blue marlin aboard, but wait, there's more......they also caught 18 dorado and released seven. Sixty one percent of charters caught billfish, with many excellent catches – we had a total of five blue marlin, two sailfish and twelve striped marlin.

OTHER SPECIES: Dorado were the number one catch in Cabo this week with eighty seven percent of our boats catching from one to thirty two fish (many released) – we should mention here that catch limits are being strictly enforced in Cabo and the limit is two dorado per fishing license. To enable our anglers to keep a few more fish, we have purchased yearly fishing licenses for our crew members, so that anglers have the opportunity to take more fish home if they like. Weights on dorado are from 15 to 30 lbs. Our total dorado tally this week was 266. Wahoo catches were pretty good with nineteen percent of boats catching fish in the 35 to 45 lb class. Yellow fin tuna catches are beginning to increase slightly too with twenty five percent of boats catching mostly football size fish with the odd big one up to 100 lbs.

LOCATION: Los Arcos, Herradura, 7 miles out from Solmar, Punta Gorda, Migriño, Gaspareño, Pozo Cota, Golden Gate, San Jaime.

AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 84 F

BEST LURES: Ballyhoo, guacamayo, tigrillo, purple, green/yellow, red/black, green/black, petrolero.

Based on the catches of Pisces by Tracy Ehrenberg