Bag O Luck by Bill Roecker

“The weather cooperated with light winds and hardly any swell. We left from 163 miles from home so we are going to be a little late. All in all a great trip with 102 bluefin tuna, five yellowtail and four dorado.”

“The weather cooperated with light winds and hardly any swell. We left from 163 miles from home so we are going to be a little late. All in all a great trip with 102 bluefin tuna, five yellowtail and four dorado.”
The next bluefin to show up on Fisherman’s Landing dock was a 26-pounder caught by Dennis McDougall of Idyllwilld, one of only three taken from a good school on The Ridge found by Art Taylor and his Searcher.
“I got him after a long soak with a sardine,” said McDougall. “I had half my spectra out.”
He told dock reporter Bill Roecker the trip was seven days with 14 anglers, and that he used a 2/0 Owner Flyliner hook on 30-pound Blackwater fluorocarbon, 30-pound P-Line and 60-pound Line One spectra on an Avet MXL reel and a Calstar 700 M rod.
It appeared at first that McDougall’s bluefin would win the jackpot, but it was sandwiched by a pair of yellowtail caught by Bruce Gothar of Menifee, who got his 27-pound yellow along with a 24-pounder, good for first and third place. Bruce said he got the better yellow on a mackerel bait and a 4/0 Mustad hook on 20-pound Izorline and 30-pound Power Pro spectra. He fished with a classic 220 Newell Blackie reel and an eight-foot Seeker Deckhand Special rod.
“Excellent fishing,” pronounced skipper Taylor, “with good variety on The Ridge.”

There was a larger fish caught than the winner, weighing 86 pounds on the scales, but it was missing a foot and a half of its propulsive unit, courtesy of one of the island’s numerous white sharks, and therefore ineligible. It was Remy’s first trip with the boat to Guadalupe, and he remarked that it was a good one.
Lindsey’s fish were: a 75-pound yellowfin tuna, a 48.3-pound tuna, and a 34.8-pound yellowtail. The big one bit on a sardine and a 1/0 ringed Owner Super Mutu hook tied to 50-pound Suffix fluorocarbon and 65-pound Suffix 832 spectra on an Avet MX reel and a Seeker Black Steel 6470 H rod.
“He fought for about 45 minutes,” said Lindsey.
“He got into the rudder and the props,” added skipper Remy, “with two sharks around.”
“My advice to get a big fish,” said Lindsey, “is to change your bait.”
He then made a request.
“I was a good friend of Bill Poole’s,” he told Roecker. “Would you mind taking my picture next to his statue?”

Jennifer’s jackpot was all the more remarkable in that she swept the top two spots for her second-place fish, a 26.8-pound yellowtail. The wahoo was brought to the boat on 50-pound Izorline on a Penn Baja Special reel and a Calstar 700 M rod.
“We had excellent yellowtail fishing on The Ridge,” commented skipper Taylor, “and we tried Cedros on the way home, but there wasn’t much going on when we were there. We got lots of dorado down below, too, in 75 to 76-degree water.”
Jim Marshall of Jackson won third place for his 26.4-pound yellowtail, a fish he bagged with a green and yellow CP 105 jig.
Penn U. Charter
Searcher docked at Fisherman’s Landing September 24 under owner-skipper Art Taylor’s hand. Following a six-day trip chartered by Penn University’s Steve Carson, who acted as chartermaster. He also caught the largest tuna of the trip, a 92.5-pound Guadalupe whopper yellowfin.
Gary Chung of San Jose got the first-place fish, an 87.6-pound tuna that bit his sardine on a 2/0 Mutu hook and 50-pound pink Yo-Zuri fluorocarbon tied to 50-pound Big Game line and 80-pound Izorline on a Penn 16 S reel and a Calstar 765 L rod.
Matt Kirkpatrick of Bakersfield won second place for an 86.4-pounder. Curtis Howard of Diamond Bar tied with Leon Walraven of Whittier for third place. Both men had 84.8-pound tuna. Kirkpatrick and Howard were on their first long range trips.

“We had an excellent day at the South End of Cedros Island,” Art told dock reporter Bill Roecker, “on 15 to 20-pound yellowtail. Most came on bait, but they bit on the yoyo and the surface iron, too. Then we fished offshore for three days and had very good tuna fishing. About 75 percent of them were yellowfin and the rest bluefin. The yellowfin averaged about 18 pounds.
“We got ‘em on sonar marks, meter marks, blind jig strikes and jig strikes when we were heading toward a spotted school. Our best trolling jigs were blue and white Zucker’s with some pink color, and the Braid Speedster. We ended up with near-limits by fishing on a 30-mile spread of tuna. We saw no seiners.”
Harold Guy of Winnnetka won first place for a 22.8-pound yellowfin tuna. He said he got it with a sardine on a 2/0 Owner Flyliner hook tied to 25-pound fluorocarbon, 30-pound Izorline and 60-pound Line One spectra on an Avet JX reel and a seven-foot Sabre rod.
Jeff Nagel of Laguna Niguel won second and third spots for his yellowfin of 22.6 and 22.2 pounds.
Uranga Memorial Gets Rare Albacore
The first memorial trip for recently deceased Dick Uranga, who was also known to his many friends as “Captain Potatohead,” was aboard the Searcher, a three-day trip that arrived at Fisherman’s Landing August 16 with 28 passengers. It was skippered by owner-operator Art Taylor.
Three albacore were caught at one stop, noted second skipper Aaron Remy. Two of the fish came on bait and one on a trolled Zucker jig in Mexican Flag pattern. One of the baitfish was handed off to Anthony Yumori of Culver City, by Loren Rowton of Durango, CO. Later Rowton traded a bluefin to Yumori for the longfin. They posed with the albie, a rarity this season, on the dock.
Derek Taguchi of Orange won first place for a 44-pound bluefin tuna. He said he took it with a sardine on a 2/0 Owner Flyliner hook on 30-pound Seaguar fluorocarbon. He fished with 65-pound Power Pro spectra on a Talica 10 reel and a Seeker Hercules 70 M rod.
Bob Bayus of Azusa won second place for a 42.2-pound tuna, and Jim Arens of Bayfield, CO won third place for a 42-pound bluefin tuna.
Aaron Remy docked Art Taylor’s Searcher at Fisherman’s Landing August 13 after a four-day trip with 16 anglers and chartermaster Dennis Braid. His anglers caught yellowtail and also got into the bluefin bite some 140 miles south.
Bill Parker of Chula Vista won first place for a 23.8-pound yellow that bit on sardine and a 3/0 Mustad 91450 hook. He said he used Seaguar Premier fluorocarbon, 65-pound spectra, a TLD 20 reel and a Seeker 6460 rod.
Jeremy Bart of San Clemente tied for second place with a 23.6-pound yellowtail, and Tim Farmer of Bakersfield tied for second and won third place with fish of 23.6 and 23.2 pounds.
Chartermasters Wendy Tochihara of Izorline and Matt Towner of Bass Pro Shops fished aboard Searcher with owner-skipper Art Taylor and arrived at the Fisherman’s Landing dock August 3. There were 18 anglers aboard and they got a mixed catch of tuna and yellowtail up to 80 pounds.
“There was no tax man at the island this time,” said Towner. “We didn’t see any sharks.”
Lloyd Doyle of Long Beach won first and second places for yellowfin tuna of 79.8 and 78 pounds, and was assisted in displaying them by skipper Taylor.
“Pink was the word,” said Doyle. “I got five nice big tuna with 50-pound pink Yo-Zuri fluorocarbon leader. The big one took about 20 minutes to land.”
He told dock reporter Bill Roecker he fished with 4/0 Owner Mutu ringed hooks, 50-pound Izorline and 80-pound Line One spectra on an Okuma Makiri 15 reel.
Howard Pukini of La Mirada won third place for a 77.4-pound Guadalupe Island yellowfin tuna.

Dave Knight of Corona got the big tuna. Tony DiPaola of Encinitas won first place for a 22.4-pound yellowtail. He was tied by Henry Nguyen of Victorville. Third place went to Jim Freed of Carson City, NV, with a 21.8-pound yellow.