Captain Chris Smith
VOL . 36 • ISS . 15
BAJA TIP OF THE WEEK
Yellowfin Tuna ( ìAhiî in Hawaiian ) are a beautiful and tasty fish found throughout the world in warm waters . They are probably the most commonly caught offshore gamefish . Yellowfin Tuna swim great distances during their lifetimes . They attain sizes in excess of 300 lbs , although fish this size are only found in the Eastern Pacific and are generally caught in Mexico .
You should scale your tackle to the size of fish targeted . Small schoolies in the 10-15lb range are great fun on light tackle in the 15lb range , while the large ones require heavy gear and 100lb braided line . For the big guys , many recommend an Accurate Platinum ATD 50 .
In terms of bait , anchovies and sardines work well for the smaller school size fish . Pacific Mackerel work well for the larger ones , while the biggest ones can be targeted with large live Skipjack Tuna in the 2-5lb size . Many baitfish work ; just try whatever is in the area that the tuna might be feeding on . They also eat squid if those are around .
Very large Yellowfin Tuna can be caught fishing baits below a kite . The kite keeps the baits right at the surface . The baitfish splashing on the surface often works when nothing else will . I believe this works because the splashing attracts them and they can ’ t see the line because it ’ s out of the water .
Goggle eyes work well for kite fishing ; you rig a three-way swivel and fish two at once and that really gets the tuna going . If you are trying for giants you can try slow-trolling a live Skipjack .
If live bait is not available you can try ìchunking . î This entails cutting chunks of a large bait fish ( perhaps a Skipjack ) and then tossing them over the side like chum . In one of the chunks hide a circle hook and let it drift down naturally with the rest of the chunks . Make sure you let out a lot of line so that the chunk can drift without any drag . If something picks it up it will take off and you will know right away . Tuna don ’ t nibble .
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SALMON • - ROCKFISH • - ALBACORE
831-633-2564
Get to the fishing grounds fast on our 50 ’ charter boat in Moss Landing-Monterey Bay WWW . KAHUNASPORTFISHING . COM
56 ’ High Speed Stable Catamaran Halibut • Stripers • Rockcod
Captain Quang Vo
3508
GOLDENEYE 2000
Call for CRAB COMBOS !
Departs Daily from The Berkeley Marina www . goldeneye2000 . com RESERVATIONS : 510-610-0888
Captain Chris Smith
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SALTWATER
BERKELEY & EMERYVILLE
Charter Boat Trollers Round Up Quality Kings
BERKELEY- Guys trolling from charter boats have been catching some very nice salmon beyond the Golden Gate . The average king goes 8 to 9 pounds and there have been a lot of 15 to 25 pound fish in the mix . The only downside to the salmon fishing at this time is that the success rate fluctuates quite a bit from day to day . Some days it ’ s limits and near limits , other days it ’ s well under a fish per rod .
Captains Joe and Joey Gallia of the New Easy Rider out of Berkeley have been riding the salmon roller coaster recently . For example , on their last trip they had 15 salmon to 13 pounds for 23 anglers .
A few days before their last trip they rounded up 31 salmon to 20 pounds for their 25 anglers . Most of the fish landed were pretty husky on this trip .
If salmon fishing isn ’ t your cup of tea , outstanding live bait potluck action continues to take place on San Francisco Bay .
On the Happy Hooker ’ s last trip , Captain Chris and Jonathan Smith put their anglers on 9 halibut to 25 pounds , 27 stripers to 15 pounds and a pair of keeper leopard sharks .
Captain James Smith of the California Dawn reports that his anglers have been averaging better than a fish per rod while potluck fishing . On Captain Smith ’ s last trip , a 12 man charter hooked up with 17 halibut to 12 pounds and 6 stripers to 9 pounds .
Ay , way back in a time before graphite rods , CD players , MAC computers , and microwave ovens , people did something called “ reading a book .” Books were made with lots of sheets of something called “ paper ” and had words and pictures printed on them .
They didn ’ t run on batteries so you never had to plug them in to recharge . Amazingly , people would read the
SALTY TIPS by Steve “ Hippo ” Lau words on the pages and actually learned stuff instead of looking it up on Google or YouTube . One of the books I read over and over again was Jason Lucas ’ s wonderful tome on bass fishing . One of the chapters listed ten representative artificial baits that he thought were most productive . One lure in particular I remember him writing about was the famous Helin ’ s Flatfish .
Helin ’ s Flatfish was one of the biggest selling , fish catchingest lures ever produced , although you would probably have to go to an antique bass lure museum to find one nowadays .
This banana shaped lure ( a modern day equivalent would be the Kwikfish or Flatfish of river salmon trolling fame ) had a crazy wild wiggle that attracted all sorts of fish , but Mr . Lucas ’ s biggest complaints was that it was a “ cussed thing to cast .”
July 7 - 21 , 2017
SALTWATER REPORTS
Berkeley ’ s Goldeneye 2000 with Captain Quang Vo at the wheel has been achieving a fish per rod on a 50 / 50 mix of halibut and stripers .
In Emeryville , the New Salmon Queen pounded the kings on June 24 , with 16 anglers taking home full limits of salmon .
Emeryville ’ s Sea Wolf has been taking anglers to the Farallon Islands in search of bottomfish and they ’ ve been coming home with limits of quality rockfish . On the best day ’ s limits of lingcod to about 20 pounds are boated as well .
BODEGA BAY
Rockfish , Lingcod Are Biting North And South Of Harbor
BODEGA BAY - Salmon fishing had been slow since the opener out of Bodega Bay , but there is renewed optimism with the arrival of decent salmon scores within the past week . Rockfish and lingcod fishing remains outstanding , but July is go time for salmon out of
GLIDING TO SUCCESS
What brought this to mind was an incident the other day when I took out a number of lures to the casting pools to work on their retrieves . ( What ? You don ’ t work on your lures ’ actions to see how they swim with various retrieves ? Shame on you !) The one I was most interested in was River2Seas ’ s S-Waver .
I have had limited time throwing this lure , but the times I was able to throw it have been rewarded with better than average success . More importantly , a number of good anglers I have spoken with have had good success with it , oftentimes producing that oversized fish that put them into the money in some tournament or other .
If you ever talk with the new fangled bass folks , you will find they have more categories of lures than Carter had liver pills . You will hear about prop baits , swim baits , jerk baits , vibe baits , square bills , round bills , searcher baits , spy baits , poppers , floater / divers , neutral buoyants , twitch baits , and maybe another dozen or so families of lures . In the old days , we just called them all “ plugs .”
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Bodega Bay , and it looks like the fish are willing to cooperate . Captain Rick Powers of Bodega Bay Sport Fishing and the New Sea Angler was able to
CONTINUED ON PAGE 30
Big S . F . Bay halibut and big smiles . That ’ s been the scene from the decks of Berkeley ’ s Happy Hooker recently . Photo courtesy of HAPPY HOOKER SPORTFISHING ,
Berkeley .
Anyway , the S-Waver is in the new hot category of baits called “ glide baits ” because their action is primarily that of gliding along . No crazy wiggling , no pushing water , no sending out vibrations , just a nice easy side to side gliding motion through the water .
The action reminds me of when the ol ’ trout truck backs up to the lake and dumps its load of trout into the lake . The trout , having spent several hours penned up in a dark tank , are now out into a strange environment , in the bright light , and are meandering around trying to get its bearing . These very trout , having been raised in runs and totally unaware of predator fish like bass and stripers , become easy pickings .
It is my belief , that when a predator fish , like a striper , encounters a baitfish moseying around like it doesn ’ t have a care in the world , it brings out a primitive instinct to attack , much like a mugger is drawn to a drunk stumbling out on the sidewalk . This is evidenced by how vicious the strikes are when using this lure .
So what ’ s the problem ? For me , like the Helin ’ s Flatfish , this lure is a cussed thing to cast !
NEXT TIME : Can anything be done to improve the castability of the S-Waver ? I call River2Sea to find out !