We announced our “Ask A Captain!” program in late July and questions covering a broad range of topics have come in. I am learning more and more every day about sportfishing thanks to your wonderful questions. We are so lucky at Team Searcher to have such knowledgeable captains – we haven’t stumped them yet!  As mentioned, we will be posting selected questions and answers here each week. Here is our first posting with a question from Howard!

“Hi Jen, and welcome to Team Searcher! I’d like to ask, both Art and Aaron:

What is their most memorable fishing trip, and why was it memorable? I have a few Searcher stories, but I always love hearing some of theirs. Thanks!” – Howard F.

Captain Art’s reply:

One of my most memorable trips took place last season. It was Sept and we left on a ultra limited load trip with 14 passengers. There were plenty of options for catching fish and we decided to try first for yellowfin tuna close to San Clemente Island. We woke up the first morning and started catching fish. By noon we had enough yellowfin tuna aboard so we thought to try option #2. We travelled overnight and went to Cortez Bank hoping for bluefin tuna. We arrived at daylight and started catching bluefin tuna right away. We drifted with a school until noon and again we had enough bluefin tuna. We decided to try option #3. Dorado!. We travelled overnight and found a kelp paddie with a school of dorado. We fished until noon and had enough dorado. Next decided to try option #4. There was only one other species to catch and round out the trip. We travelled overnight and fished for yellowtail the next morning. And we managed to land a few. It was the first trip in a long time where we set out to catch a certain type of fish each day and reached that goal. It was a great trip with good people, nice weather and over-the-top fishing. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Captain Aaron’s reply:

One of my most memorable trips was last August. We were on a 4 day with Dennis Braid, and the fishing was great.  It was a beautiful day, and in the afternoon another boat called us to tell us about a huge breezer of bluefin they had seen.

Note from Jen: At this point, I had to ask, “What is a breezer?” and Capt. Aaron and Rock Cod Rick told me that it is called a breezer when there are so many fish that it looks like a breeze is blowing across the water from all of the activity below the surface. Sounds beautiful and I’d love to see that someday!

The captain from the other boat said over the radio, “We couldn’t get them to bite, but you should go check it out. It’s one of the biggest schools I have ever seen.”  We headed over and saw it–a massive school. We got right up on top of them. Everybody started dropping lines, we were using 6 in. sardines, and pretty soon, bluefin tuna started coming over the rail.  We fished well into the dark, the last one came over the rail after 10 pm.  We caught almost twenty 60 to 90 lb bluefin that day. I know I’m not the only one who was on deck that day who will remember that trip forever.

Hope you enjoyed this week’s edition of “Ask A Captain!”  I’ll see you next week with some new answers!

Keep your questions coming!

-Jen

jen@searchersportfishing.com

Got a question about tackle or gear, Searcher history, long-range sportfishing, or maybe Baja fishing spots?

Submit your question via email to jen@searchersportfishing.com with “Ask A Captain!” in the subject line. I’ll hunt down answers from one of our captains and post for all to see.

Each individual who submits a question will be entered into a monthly drawing for a FREE tackle swag bag, courtesy of our generous sponsors. Selected questions and answers will be posted every week on www.searchersportfishing.com, Facebook, Twitter, and anywhere else anglers gather.