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Fall Sailing Weekend in San Diego

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JimB517
Past Commodore

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USA
3285 Posts

Initially Posted - 10/20/2003 : 14:17:59

Friday evening I went down to the boat instead of hitting the freeway. Instead of a evening sail, due to fading light I worked on cleaning up and getting everything ready for the weekend.

Saturday was a non-descript day. It was foggy. My log says simply "No wind, no fish, no sun". I can't really remember what I did, except the ocean was choppy and the red tide is pretty much gone. I motor sailed about 4 hours.

Sunday I got an early start, however, the fog was intense. About 10 AM it lifted enough to go out. The autumn fishing is intense right now. I was ready. I got the first fish - a really large Bonita about 1 mile off the Ocean Beach pier. The pier was barely visible, the coast was lost in grey. I was not really prepared to catch a big fish! The cockpit was full of blood, the net tangled, the cooler inside the salon. I cut him and bled him in my trash can (which was full of trash). Trash went into the quarter berth. After the fish was on ice I cleaned up the mess.

I slowly motored west, trolling my gear and stopping on floating kelp (called patties). You troll around a pattie, throw chum (in my case, canned cat food) and fish big sinking lures (called irons). I caught a couple more bonito (called boneys) and released the small ones. Almost every pattie was holding large sunfish <img src="http://www.indiscipline.org/catalina/pictures1/sunfish2.jpg" border=0> On one pattie I caught a fish while a large sunfish (Mola Mola) was swimming all around the boat. He was about 8 feet long and perhaps 600 lbs. My trolling lures were hanging straight down. Now, the molas eat jellyfish, and there were many jellies also hanging in the floating kelp.

All of a sudden the mola picked up one of my hanging lures and headed straight down. I did not expect this, nor desire it. However, for a short moment I was hooked up to a 600 lb submarine. After he broke me off he made several spetacular leaps, probably trying to spit the hook - I certainly hope he did, and I am very sorry for hurting this big, harmless, fish.

Throughout the morning, it was flat calm, with the sea like a mirror, no wind, and a very gentle swell. By early afternoon it cleared up and I turned on the GPS to find I was 5 miles out, and it was a 60 degree heading back to Mission Bay. There was just enough wind to sail back - I was making about 3.5 knots with the wind on the port beam. I caught 3 more fish on the way in. I detected several areas of bait boils and was able to alter course enough to sail through them. Each time, this resulted in a hookup.

When I was finally close enough to see the MB jetty, it really was just too nice to head in so I tacked and gybed around the local kelp beds trying for another large boney. I got a small one and a mackeral (both released unharmed).

By 4:30 I was in, cleaned up and heading for home. The large boney was grilled, boiled in terrakai sauce, and fed 3 of us. Delicious white meat, not fishy at all.

Another weekend with over 10 hours on the water. 9 fish hooked, 5 boated, 1 kept.

<img src="http://www.indiscipline.org/cat25/pictures/icon.jpg" border=0>Indiscipline 1978 FK #398

Edited by - jimb517 on 10/20/2003 16:38:58

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Notice: The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.