Throughout the summer the weather and fishing have been tough(translation: shitty).

Our total catch til now was 3 - 2 mid 20's albies and 1 17 pd BFT. But yesterday we tripled our score. The weather was fantastic with glassy seas in the morning and the wind picking up to 3 knots as the morning progressed. Recent action was been between the no long Hidden Reef and the upper 500. So we headed to, basically, where the entire fleet was working with sportboats and increasing numbers of the mosquito fleet.

Lots of fish are being taken by drifting - 2 - 3 - 4 hours at time and constantly chumming with either the real stuff of chunking. The area was a little bellow the bank. Later in the day we scouted down towards the upper 500, but the temp dropped 1.5 degrees and most of the fishing has been reported on the warmer side of breaks. I think our first bit was about 0720 for 30 pd albert (as the crowd is prone to say) on a B&P Zuker jig.  Next was on a cedar plug. A few more bites all on the B&P Zukers, nothing close on a rapala. and we managed to hook several bait fish. Had a double on jigs that twisted and one cut off and a bait fish unbuttoned. In retrospect I think that drifting for a while after each bite with chumming - chunks or live ones - might produce. WE were bit throughout the morning. With all the boats lined up drifting one had to troll outside of them lest we hear the cries "keep out of our chum slick." 

When it slowed down we went scouting in the direction of the Upper 500. In between the temp dropped more that 1 1/2 degrees. So back we went. I heard a report of a skiff with steady BFT in area SE of the Hidden. He gave his numbers and I ran over, but nothing materialized for us there. We worked back to where the fleet had been.

Many of the little boats reported steady fishing and some with limits - all drifting. In the afternoon the winds picked up to about 5 kts as we headed north. Shortly above the Hidden we got our 9th fish on a Zuker.  Shortly thereafter I took off. Just SE of the 425 we encountered a large area of porpoise (dophin, etc). We ran the jigs through them and snared a nice YFT. We tried the run and gun stopping in front and dropping baits, but no show. Finally, we took off again and ran back to Mission Bay at 26 knots.  Depending on the water temp the fish might stay in the same area, but they might be doing the slow NW departure. We'll have to see what Bob Vanian reports today and tomorrow. I believe one Marlin was taken yesterday - nothing for the Marlin Club as yet. One of these days! Who knows - maybe Saturday. It also looks like one must come prepared to have their fenders over the side for the tournament. You set up a drift NW of the crowd and if there is wind you drift along with everyone else. When you get to the end you pick up and run back to the start and pick up the drift again. 

Get the drift? And not one word of Dorado or Skipjack yesterday.

In summary:

We caught 9 albacore and 1 yellowfin tuna.  All their fish were caught in the region of the Hidden Bank except for the yellowfin tuna which was caught from porpoise late this afternoon below the 425 Bank.  

     The bite was near the Hidden Bank in the area of 3200 and 11726. There were a good number of private boaters and sport boats and all doing well. 

     Water was 67.8 to 68 degrees . A lot of the boats were drifting for large amounts of time and soaking live baits and doing well.  We trolled around looking for jig strikes and trying for fish on bait after getting a jig strike rather than just drifting and soaking baits.  Our catch included 4 bait fish caught after a jig strike, the rest were  troll fish.

The water temperature cooled off by 1.5 degrees near the Upper 500 Bank.  The best fishing overall was just below the High spot at 32.00-117.26.