Long "boat ride"

[Needlefish]

Saw this fish report on SDFISH.com

Boat: Endeavor 1.5 day trip 19 anglers, 1 yellowtail

Brutal, but it happens. Was on a tuna trip like that many years ago, makes for a long boat ride, and a long drive back home.

[Robert]

Needlefish,
I've been on some stinker 1 1/2 day trips like that. The last tuna trip I went on
we ended up with a couple of dorado for 30 people! The boat was friggin jinxed
big time. We were fishing in an area 130 miles South of Point Loma with several other boats in the fleet fishing fishing right near our boat. We weren't getting
squat! Several boats around us had everyone on board hooting and hollering. It looked like everybody on board was hooked up at the same time. The other boats felt sorry for us, so the let us slide up on their spot after they limited out.
Wouldn't you know it every time we did this, and we did it 4 separate times, the bite would die. It wouldn't just die, it was beyond dead! The hell of it was, that this was supposed to be a 1 day trip, but when we got down to the landing the captain informed us that the fish had moved out of 1 day range and if we wanted a better chance at getting some we would need to pony up some more money for the longer trip! It turned out that the fishing was just as good in the 1 day range! I never went on a tuna trip again! I bought my first kayak and was happy as can be catching lots of fish, even though they weren't tuna. I never regretted my decision to never go out on those boats again. I have more fun being my own captain. But a lot of people like to go out after those tuna. More power to them!

Robert

[PerryC]

Robert,
You know, that's the same thing that happened to myself and my fishing buddy Bill. We went on two 1.5 day tuna trips that would have been "The Three Stooges" go party boating if we had one more friend with us. One trip, the captain turns the boat towards the Coronados by 10:00am and we fished for bass for the next day because things were slow. We got some good fish that night though and we had a good time night fishing with a few other anglers. The other tuna trip, was on the Tide Change when Gary Adams owned and drove it. We went into a storm that was in Mexico that had closed the Cabo port. When we hit it, an hour later there was only 2 guys left on deck fishing. I got wiped out, but the Captain and a few of the deckhands got wiped out also so I didn't feel too bad . It was like in Jaws when the people are looking at each other saying "We Need a Bigger Boat". So, Gary turns us around to the Coronados and calmer water. My buddy is already in the bunk room laying down so I grab my bunk across the isle from him for a snooze. Not 2 minutes later he sits up and yells smoke! The AC unit above him shorted out and was spewing smoke in the bunk room. We're right up at the bow, so we know were not getting out before anyone else. It looked like the bulls running through the street in Spain all the anglers getting out of there. Ok so scratch that trip. OK, so we decided to do a few yellowtail trips, no problem. We're on the New Lo Anne 2 and I think Andy Cates was driving. About the second stop, the hydraulics on the windlass go south, and we form a anchor gang down the rail just like in a Ben Hur movie. And Andy wants to keep moving and dropping anchor for the breezing tails. After about 6 moves, we get the anchor stuck right? So, now the captain decides to power the anchor loose by putting the boat in reverse to power it out. Well....the back end lifts up for a long enough time to cut off the water to the generator and it overheats and shuts down. So now the boats goes dead in the water. The saving grace is The Big Game 90 had come by because he heard what was going on. So they're standing by in case we can't get the generator lit back up. So a few hours later, we pull back into port and that was the end of that trip.

It was a short while after that I bought my float tube then kayak, and haven't been on a cattle boat since. Not saying I never will, but I do like the tube and 'yak

Perry