San Diego Saltwater Fishing Blog – El Gato Dos

Wow! What a whirlwind the past 3 days have been. We had 5-5 trips each day and finally have today off so I have a chance to update here, get some sleep, fuel the boat and get ready for the next round of fishing. The Offshore action in our range has really heated up. Yellowfin tuna are around, as well as more Dorado, Yellowtail on the kelps and Skipjack jig strikes to keep us entertained. Here are some pics of our trips. We are open the next few days if you want to go catch some tuna!!!

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday the Gato is ready to go slay some fish. We will offer a discount to get the boat out these days. Dates are the 25th, 26th and 27th of August.

Of course, Dickie’s idea of music is
Jazz. He has a saxophone. To my ear Jazz
is just noise, just an insolent noise.

Took a great family from Italy out today. Had good Calico bass fishing at the end of the trip for an hour or so. Had a few Rockfish and mackeral.. Lorenzo had great form and caught a bunch fo fish. He and his sister outfished their parents all day. Good stuff! They had a ton of fun and were really good at fishing… Chow Bella!!!

Princeton is like a fog, America’s like a fog.

It’s just not going to be a pretty day when on your way to landing you see a 27′ boat on the trailer, heading away from the ocean. Then get out of your car at the grocery store, almost get knocked over by wind and see bags and debris flying across the lot. Talked to guys out there and it was rough! Guy in a 50 footer could only make 4 knots.
Sorry kids, there will be no fishing today.

Took Jeff and Ron out fishing with images of Yellowfin dancing in our heads after what we saw Thursday. They were stoked, we were stoked!! Got out to where we fished less than 18 hours before and guess what? All gone…. Fish, life, bait, birds were no where around. Water had dropped 2 degrees overnight and the fish split. Talked to guys 40 miles around us that had not seen a thing. Trolled and looked for hours, around 11am decided to work toward the islands. Just west of the islands found one spot of fish under terns. They did not want to bite. Into the Coronados for about 2 hours of some of the best fishing I have seen there in a while. The boys landed 3 Yellowtail, 4 Bonito and 2 nice big calico bass. Fish were rolling behind the boat on almost every bait and all the chum baits we tossed. Best and what made is best was that the Sealions left us alone the whole time! All day for a few hours of good fishing. Thanks for coming out guys! See ya soon. Bryan and Sacha

Started the day fishing an AM 12/ along the kelp, all the time listening to my buddies and other boaters wacking the Yellowfin close to home.. Now if you know me, I live for offshore fishing, my favorite type of fishing hands down. So our afternoon trip cancels and right then I know. Go tuna fishing or you will regret it! Made a call to my buddy Mike. “Hey Mike, how would you like to be our afternoon charter? Yellowfin are in range” Phone slams down and I hear tires screaching as Mike yells ” I am on my way!!!!” So we treat it like a regualr PM 1/2 day to see if we can score tuna in a short time. Weather was choppy and windy but doable. Omn our way, 15.6 miles out of Mission Bay, I see a spot of terns, ok well maybe 10 spots of terns, jumping tuna, foamers, etc… Hmmm. Maybe let’s try here. Put in the jigs, less than 5 minutes later, “Hookup!!” Double on the YFT. Worked the area until we were out of time for 2 more landed and 2 lost. Made for an Epic 1/2 day trip. I wanted to catch Mike his limit, but we had to go to make it official. One thing that scared me was how fast these fish were moving West. Very fast…

[caption id="attachment_165" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Couple of guys, couple of tuna. Left after lunch, home before dinner!"][/caption]

Slow to post here as we have been running doubles nearly everyday. Pretty standard Summer calico bass fishing. Lots of bass on anchovie and some bigger models on the sardine.

Had a last minute cancellation. The day is open and the tuna are getting closer!!!
Call me asap to book the day.

Had Paul and his group of talented anglers on the boat today. We started outside the islands trolling and looking for kelps. Found a few with no fish. Sacha, my deckhand sees a turtle floating on the surface and claims “that’s it man, our luck is going to change starting right now” Well he was right on!! Shortly before the turtle sighting we spotted a Mako cruising on the surface, tried to bait it, but it sunk out and we never saw it again. Post turtle I spot another Mako in the binoculars. This one stays up and with a good cast directly in front of the fish, he bites a live sardine and its game on! Jumps a few times and 20 min. and a few anglers later he’s boatside. Sacha sinks a gaff in the fish and it freaks out! Fish is thrashing and rollling creating a real mess in the water, Sacha and I both are trying to get this thing with gaffs and they keep ripping out! Fish gets the mono around the tail, but lucky for us he’s settled down a bit. I make the split decision to get the flying gaff and not a second too soon. I fly to the bow, then back with the gaff, taking the rope of the gaff shaft takes about 4 hours, so it seems. Sink the flyer and have the guys hold the rope. Ping!line breaks at the same time as the gaff went it. Get one more regular gaff in it and drag it in the transom door. Woohoo! High fives all around. Who what a battle.

After cleaning up, we head toward the Cornado Islands and find great fishing on California Yellowtail. We hook 6 and got 5 to the boat. Even stole on back from a seal. Found a few Bonito as well. We enjoyed the nice weather on the ride home while eating Bonito and Yellowtail Sashimi. Sacha was correct, the Turtle turned our luck and we sure hope it continues the rest of the season.

Fished La Jolla again for similar conditions to yesterday. Found some huge schools of Bonito toward the canyon that did not really want to bite. We managed 2 out there. The rest of the day we fished the North West corner of La Jolla for a Yellowtail, Bonito and a few Calico bass. Very nice day on the water.