Trip Reports

Art Taylor docked his Searcher October 13 after a seven-day trip with 20 anglers. He tied up at Fisherman’s Landing and weighed the best of the catch. “We went to Guadalupe Island first,” said Art, “and found good sign of tuna there, in 70-degree water, though they didn’t bite very well. We spent our last half-day of fishing at Cedros Island and made a good catch of yellowtail there.”

In his blog October 11, Art wrote, “Yesterday we fished San Benito Island. We arrived there in the afternoon. We had a little action on good size yellowtail in various spots. There was a good sign of fish on all the spots but it didn’t want to bite all that well. “Today we fished the coast south of Cedros and Cedros Island itself. We had great fishing on 12-18 pound yellowtail on yo-yo irons and dropper loops. After lunch we moved up to the lee of Cedros and we had a good bite on those big yellows–25-35 pounds–late in the day. What a way to end our fishing season for 2007 with more of those great fish!”

Searcher winners had a wet homecoming Saturday morning. Joe Preciado of Imperial Beach won first place for a 73.6-pound yellowfin, a tuna he caught with a sardine on a 4/0 ringed Super Mutu hook and 40-pound Big Game line. He said he used a TLD 30 reel and a Sabre 1771-C rod. Mas Kaneko of LA won second place for a 68-pound tuna, and Dale Bunting of Cambria took third place for a 65.8-pound Guadalupe Island yellowfin tuna.

Art Taylor docked his Searcher October 6 after a seven-day trip with 19 anglers. He was thwarted in reaching Alijos Rocks by tropical depression Julia,, so he fished offshore kelps, The Ridge and Cedros Island, where his anglers got over five dozen big yellowtail.

He also found some wahoo and dorado, and wrote this on October 3:

“We decided to stay on the Ridge today. We figured since we came all this way to try for wahoo we might as well put in the time to try and catch a few. We got lucky and caught 12 wahoo before we had to leave. For most everyone that caught one, it was their first wahoo. Even though we didn’t get everyone a wahoo we were at least in the right zone and had opportunity to catch one.”

We traveled north the rest of the day with no luck finding something floating, so we are in position to be at Cedros Island tomorrow morning to try for those nice, big yellowtail to finish the trip.”

At the Fisherman’s Landing dock, Art weighed the biggest wahoo caught on bait or cast jigs. Trolled fish are not eligible. Two brothers took both ends of the jackpot.

Ballanti Brothers Score: Don and Bob Ballanti have Mike Jimenez bookended in the Searcher jackpot.

Don Ballanti of El Cerrito won first place for a 46.8-pound wahoo. Hed said the ‘skin took his Burns Bomb in blue and silver. He fished 50-pound Big Game line, a Tiburon ST 12-2 reel and a Calstar 700 M rod.

Mike Jimenez of LA won second place for a 44.4-pounder, and Don’s brother Bob Ballanti won third place for a 41.8-pound wahoo.