• BIG Life Lessons
By Rober Moorers (Online)
“I wanted my two sons to experience big game fishing, what we got was a whole lot more.”
We started our adventure by arriving in Cabo San Lucas on Monday, November 23rd. We figured we would spend the Thanksgiving week with one day of fishing then enjoy all that Cabo has to offer for the remainder of our time there. We booked a fishing charter in advance with Fin Addict www.finaddictcabo.com, a 31’ Bertram captained by Martin Olascoaga and his crew David and Alex.
The advanced preparation was a good sign, they took care of everything: fishing licenses, box lunches, beer, water, and ice. The boat was fueled and ready to go when we arrived at 6:15 AM on Tuesday morning. I must say, I have never seen a boat, of any size, more equipped for the task at hand. The Fin Addict is purpose designed and built, from its twin diesel power to the bait system and outrigger configuration to the way the kite is managed, and the beautiful Okuma and Phenix tackle.
Article by Doug Inouye
by Ryan June and Dharyl “Big D” Shelbourne (Online)
As we all know 2020 was a year that many of us would like to forget, and the word “challenging” doesn’t even begin to describe it. With so many long range trips being cancelled, I was preparing myself to take that dreaded phone call from the Royal Polaris office about the possibility of cancelling our trip until further notice. Like many of us, I’m always preparing for my trip months in advance…but this past year was different.
I remained optimistic, but something kept telling me to hold off on the preparation process until we’ve been given the green light. With our trip 2 weeks out, the office confirmed that we’re still a “go”. I still didn’t believe it, but I was forced to put the process into motion. With the pandemic weighing heavily on our minds, our entire charter elected to voluntarily take a COVID test within 72 hours of our departure and to present our negative results during the check in process.
Since we were on a 10 day trip, we wanted to take every necessary safety precaution to reduce the chance of an outbreak among the crew and passengers. It was the by far the best move we could have made and here’s why. The day before our scheduled departure date, 2 of our regular passengers had household members who tested positive. One of the family’s tested twice just to be sure, same results. Although unfortunate they couldn’t
AMERICAN ANGLER 8-DAY ADVENTURE SCORE MONSTER BLUEFIN TUNA AND MORE
by Steve Carson (Online)
The 24 PENN Fishing University anglers who headed out for an 8-day long-range adventure aboard Captain Ray Lopez’ American Angler from Point Loma Sportfishing in San Diego knew they would be faced with a dilemma. Head deep into Baja waters to take a chance at tropical exotics like wahoo, or just go partway down, and then come back into US waters for a shot at big bluefin tuna.
YELLOWTAIL, YELLOWTAIL, YELLOWTAIL
Captain Lopez opted to head south immediately upon departure, and after cruising all night, the next two full days were a blur of wide-open yellowtail, sprinting crewmen, and fish being dropped in the RSW hold. Moving among coastal hotspots meant as one area’s bite slowed down, a timely move would put the boat onto another voracious school.
The coastal-grade yellowtail were mostly all nice taggable 12-20 pounders, with a sprinkling of bigger ones up to 25 pounds. The most productive method was yo-yo iron, but surface iron, flylined sardines, sliding sinker rigs, Slow-Pitch jigs, and dropper loop rigs all scored decent numbers of fish.
For the anglers who were interested, a number of bonus species were available along with the yellows. Bruiser-grade calico bass were the most enticing, along with sheephead averaging well over 10 pounds. Plenty of whitefish, sand bass, barracuda, and bonito eagerly attacked jigs and bait intended for yellowtail, though virtually all of these species were safely released.