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November 2003
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November 2003 |
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Nov 1 2003
Good afternoon folks. We will be at the dock at 8:00 tomorrow morning.
Everyone is excited to get to the weigh in scales and see the trophy
yellowfin they landed. With fishing being so good and filling the boat
in 4 days, most of the guys have forgotten what they caught. We ended up
with 168 tuna and 128 wahoo also throwing in 38 nice size dorado .
We tape 7 fish over 200 pounds and many others in the 170 to 190 pound
range. The kite action and the bites into the evening were memorable.
The 4 days spent fishing tuna went by quick. Looking back, most of our
bigger fish were on the kite. On the second day we scratched all day on
big fish right up until a good hit in the
evening. The kites were getting bit as fast as you could get them out.
When the smoke cleared we had all big fish on the deck. Just a couple of
fish under 140 pounds and a dozen others. Each evening we had a hit like
that. It was very good fishing , lots of chances to get a trophy fish.
The end of the trip with the action on wahoo is something these guys had
not seen. Kelp paddy wahoo fishing to the point of releasing them.
And then yesterday catch and release on trophy size Calico Bass in the
skiff at Chester's rock area. Everyone that wanted a chance to skiff
fish got it. I will look forward to doing that again on one of these
longer trips. Now we are enjoying perfect weather off the coast of Baja
on the last leg of our tour. We will report again tomorrow, Andy Cates
Nov. 2 2003
CAPTAIN: ANDY CATES
DATE OF TRIP: SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19 to SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2
LENGTH OF TRIP: 14 DAYS
PASSENGERS: 22
AREA FISHED: HURRICANE BANK
FISH COUNT: 165 YELLOWFIN TUNA (8 OVER 200 LBS)
127 WAHOO
38 DORADO
1ST PLACE JACKPOT: 233.5 LB YELLOWFIN TUNA caught by:
DENNIS BIDIGARE OF OSCODA, MI
2ND PLACE JACKPOT: 223.1 LB YELLOWFIN TUNA caught by:
ROB TAPERT OF STUDIO CITY, CA
3RD PLACE JACKPOT: 215.6 LB YELLOWTAIL caught by:
BOB MICHENER OF OXNARD, CA
Other 200 lbs. 207.3 Mike Massey of Jacksonville. Or.
207.9 Roger Nichols of Carlsbad, Ca.
207.1 Roger Nichols of Carlsbad, Ca.
205.2 Rob Tapert of Studio City, Ca.
201.9 Roger Nichols of Carlsbad, Ca.
REMARKS: Roger Nichols caught three yellowfin over 200 lbs., Rob Tapert caught two yellowfin over 200 lbs. and the trolling jackpot was a 50.3 wahoo caught by Dale Sommers of Costa Mesa, Ca.
An excellent trip on the larger fish over 100 yellowfin tuna from 100 lb to 200 lbs. Average size of wahoo was 35 lbs at Hurricane bank. Kelp pattie wahoo averaged in at 45 lbs.
Nov. 4th, 2003
Good morning folks. We departed yesterday on the annual ten day
Newell sponsored trip. After loading two hundred and seventy
scoops of what looks to be a good load of sardine bait. We cleared
Point Loma at 1:15
pm. I gave the mandatory safety speech after leaving Point Loma
and the first part of our tackle seminar in regards to yellowtail
fishing. Richard Hightower did a raffle after our talk and everyone on
board received a very nice give away item of some sort, the giveaways
included four Newell reels and four custom All Star rods.
We are headed for Cedros Island and should arrive around lunch time
today with the intention of starting our trip fishing yellowtail. We
will report back tonight with our first fishing report of our fishing
voyage. John and
crew
Nov. 5th 2003
Good morning, yesterday worked out just as we hoped with steady action
all afternoon on sixteen to twenty-two pound Yellowtail. The weather has
been a concern for the past few day's but it seems to be on the decline
up and down the coast. We have moved down the coast from where we fished
yesterday approximately forty miles and are going to try for Yellowtail
for one more day. Reports from down below are not good at this time so
we are letting things straightened out fish wise and hopefully the
weather gets better in the next few day's. We feel very fortunate to be
catching what we are catching and we are preying that thing get better
below
here. We will report back tomorrow with our catch report from today.
John and crew
Nov. 6th 2003
Good morning, yesterday went well as the weather backed off to almost
nothing, we have excellent looking conditions. The fishing was very
steady from 0800 till 1400 at which time we left for the bait grounds.
We feel very good about the prospects of the remainder of the trip with
good weather, lots of time and a full load of bait the outlook is
promising. The fishing has improved in numerous areas over the past
twenty-four hours, giving us many options in which to choose from. Our
intentions are to be looking off shore today in hopes of relocating the
kelp patties holding Wahoo and Dorado.
We also would like to say HELLO to Gabi, Brianna and Blanca, DAD says HELLO... Donna say hi to the girls. We will report again tomorrow with a progress report of how things are coming together, wish us luck. John and crew
Nov. 7th 2003
Good morning, yesterday was very encouraging but not totally what we
were hoping for. We had thirty Wahoo and sixty Dorado, but we
really feel if we can find the right kelp we will do well on Wahoo.
The weather continues to be very favorable for offshore fishing so we
plan on spending today expanding on what we found yesterday hoping to
find the right kelp patty. So far this trip we feel very fortunate
to be catching what we are catching and with any luck we will continue
to put a little aboard each day. We have a few pictures of some of
the quality Wahoo that came from yesterdays action, in the
pictures we have Roberto De La Torre, Kip Young and Allen Howell also
two group pictures, before we go Kip Young would like to say HELLO to
Nixie and Sheri. Enjoy the pictures and we will report back in the
morning. John and crew
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Nov. 8th 2003
Good morning, well things are coming slow but sure, we put a little on
aboard once again yesterday. The Wahoo and Dorado fishing was not
what we were hoping for once again but we did manage to get eleven Wahoo
in the a.m. and then we opted to run into an area where we fished tuna
on porpoise all afternoon. There was a fair show on fifty to
ninety pound fish of which we caught fourteen, we also put down another
fifty, fifteen to forty pound fish, it was very good action type
fishing. We are going to give this today before moving on to other
areas in hopes of more Wahoo and some bigger tuna. The weather
continues to be picture perfect and we are enjoying that aspect of the
trip immensely. So far this trip we have not drove up to any one
place and just loaded up on a particular spices, but we have had good
fishing in quite a few places. Have a great day and we will report back
with all of today's activities in the morning. John and crew.
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Nov. 9th 2003
Bingo, we finally found what we have been looking for the past couple of
days, excellent Wahoo and Dorado. This Newell charter is very
interested in catching Wahoo so we have concentrated our efforts for the
past few days on finding the right kelp area, yesterday it paid high
dividends. We started our day out looking for the porpoise that
had tuna and found a nice area with good fish but there was a lot of
small tuna to contend with, so many it was hard to catch a fish over
twenty pounds so we left once again in search of Wahoo on kelps.
At lunch time we found a very nice kelp loaded with Wahoo and Dorado, we
did very well on both spices. We left that kelp and almost
immediately found another and we had the same results as the first kelp,
what an afternoon. The totals on the day included a fine very nice
grade Dorado and seventy-nine Wahoo. Needless to say everyone on
board had a wonderful time and are very exited about the prospects for
today. The pictures we have sent are a few of the Wahoo we caught
yesterday and a group shot of fifteen anglers with Wahoo that came at
the tail end of one of our stops. Enjoy the pictures and we will
report back tomorrow, wish us luck.
John and crew
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Nov. 10th 2003
Good morning, we have finished our quest for Wahoo this trip and are
very pleased with the result for our efforts. Yesterday worked out
great as we had fifty-three more beautiful grade Wahoo to top off a nice
catch of the highly targeted species. We made what we hope is our
last move of the trip, coming out to Alijos Rocks looking to top
off our catch with some quality tuna. If today shows any kind of
sign and we can scratch a little of the bigger fish we will stay for
tomorrow and end our trip here, time will tell. This ten day has
been a little different than most in the fact that we spent the past
four days offshore fishing kelps and porpoise, the results were
rewarding and we are thankful for what we caught. Wish us luck on the
final leg of our voyage and we will report back tomorrow. John and Crew
Nov. 11th 2003
Good morning, yesterday went basically the same way this entire trip has
went, we had to work very hard to catch what we did. But we did
manage to put together a day on nice Yellowfin tuna and a few
Yellowtail. It
was nice to have the opportunity to sit on the anchor and fish over the
side for a day, we had our fill of driving around looking and this was a
nice change of pace. Today we are finishing the fishing part of
our trip right here at Alijos Rocks, with any luck we can finish this
great trip off with an action pact morning. Our departure from
Alijos Rocks homeward bound should be around noon and we will report in
tomorrow morning with an E.T.A. for Friday. The pictures we have sent
are of a couple Yellowfin tuna from yesterdays action. In the
pictures are Fred Williams and Ralph Hughes. John and crew
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Nov. 12th 2003
Good morning, this trip ended yesterday on a good note, catching
forty-eight tuna and nine nice Yellowtail at Alijos Rocks. We did
lose one fish yesterday that in my estimation was between one-hundred
and thirty and one-hundred and forty pounds right at gaff when the knot
between the mono and the fluorocarbon leader broke, a real heart
breaker. All the tuna this trip we caught at Alijos for the most
part were from twelve to seventy pounds with the exception of one caught
by Ralph Hughes which should go one-hundred and ten to one-hundred and
fifteen pounds. The ride up is a little bumpy but we are still
making good enough speed to make the E.T.A. at Lee Palm Sportfishers
0830 Friday morning. Check back on the web site this afternoon and
we will up-date the E.T.A. with any change if there is one. Have a
great day and we will report back then. John and crew
Nov. 13th
Good Afternoon Everyone, the sea's and wind's have subsided to a certain
degree and our traveling weather at least for now is much better than
yesterday afternoon and evening. We are continuing to make good speed
and anticipate our ETA tomorrow morning to be 0800 at Lee Palm
Sportfishers. For those of you coming down to meet the boat you can just
plan on 0800 or a hair after, we will not be their before that.
Just to give a summary of this trip and as I stated numerous times on this web site throughout the trip, we feel very fortunate to have the catch on board we do. It seems like a long time ago now that we started this trip at the North Head of Cedros Island, with 25 knots Northwest wind and a current pulling hard right into the wind the tone was set for what this trip had to offer, nothing was to come easy. Our timing in various places was good but every where we went I got the feeling things where on the decline and definitely not on the upswing as far as the fishing was concerned. The saving grace to this trip was the three day window of good weather we had to look for kelp paddies offshore enabling us to eventually find what turned out to be "The Needle in the Hay Stack" kelp's that produced our 171 Wahoo and quality Dorado. That fishing for one afternoon and a morning which produced 150 of our wahoo and most of the dorado was spectacular and definitely the highlight of our trip. There is never in this business two trips that are ever alike, but this trip was even a little more different in the fact we spent so much time offshore and fishing very few of the traditional well known spots we visit so often on these 8-10 day trips. It all worked out very well and again ALL of us are very pleased with what we where able to put aboard in the time frame we had to work within. This group of passengers for the most part was not a seasoned group of long range anglers that at times we encounter on a 10 day trip, many of these guys where fishing 3 days or more for the very first time. There was a huge learning curve from the yellowtail grounds to the wahoo fishing and then eventually finishing at Alijos Rocks, the group listened well and worked very hard at learning what it takes to have a successful Long Range Trip. I've had numerous first timers on this trip come up and tell me that they are now hooked on the Long Range experience and they will definitely be back, we are very proud to have been a part of the process to help them become seasoned Long Rangers. The crew of the Red Rooster III would like to thank each one of our passengers this trip and congratulate them on a job well done.
YELLOWTAIL- 317
WAHOO- 171
YELLOWFIN TUNA- 158
Nov. 16 2003
Good evening folks. We spent most of the day traveling. We went over a
few things this morning and spent the rest of the day getting rigged up.
We made a short stop at the North end of Cedros and saw very little sign
of yellowtail. We are traveling tonight and going to fish offshore
looking for kelps. The weather has come up and there was very little
success in the old area today.
We are going to focus our efforts on a different area to the east were
it looks like there is some warmer water.
We need all the luck we can get right now. Things sound tough, at least
in this upper area. We will report again tomorrow. Andy Cates
Nov. 17 2003
Good evening folks. Windy conditions made for a tough day. We found
porpoise with small fish and a few kelp paddies. Only one produced fish.
And not that much, 4 wahoo and a dozen Dorado. Very poor. We are going
to fish offshore tomorrow and hopefully locate something good. Reports
from other boats do not sound to promising either. Hopefully things
straighten out and we can get started. We will report again tomorrow.
Andy Cates
Nov. 18 2003
Good evening folks. We spent the day outside Mag Bay hitting different
spots of porpoise. We ended the day with decent count on the tuna. A few
bigger fish mixed in, up to 65 pounds, but most of the fish 25 to 40
pounds. We had a nice day of action and now we are running into the bay
for bait. We are going to start on the Finger Bank in the morning in
hopes of some bigger tuna. We will report again tomorrow, Andy Cates
Nov. 19 2003
Good evening folks. We spent the day looking for porpoise and floating
objects in hopes of some tuna and wahoo. We spent the morning on the
anchor at the Finger bank. We hooked one fish there and saw very little
sign of tuna. To the east we got on some porpoise that had some nice
fish but did not want to bite. Most of the fish was smaller with just a
little bit of bigger ones mixed in.
We hooked three fish after several different attempts and landed one
fish a little better than 100 pounds.
We lost another that was bigger than that. We kept heading south and
found a nice log and picked up few nice size dorado and found a couple
more logs with nothing. We did make a day of it but we were sure hoping
for better. I posted one pictures of the guys with the tuna and dorado.
We will report again tomorrow, Andy Cates
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Nov. 20 2003
Good evening folks. The highlight of our day was this nice dorado that
Calvin got off a log outside the Islands. We started offshore and found
only 25 to 40 pound fish at best . A lot of spots with skip jack and
smaller tuna in our travels. We did not spend much time on any one
spot continuing on looking for big fish was our plan. Tomorrow we are
going to start on the Bank and we are all praying that there is a good
school there to work on. If not we will cover more area to the west of
there looking offshore. We will report again tomorrow, Andy Cates
Nov. 21 2003
Good evening folks. We had a great day of action. fishing on the anchor
with steady action on 40 to 60 pound tuna with some bigger with a couple
of fish up close to 100 pounds. Not much action on the kite the fish
were mostly on the sardine and a few on the mackerel. We saw more sign
this afternoon of fish 80 to 100 pounds and we are hoping they are just
moving in for tomorrow. We are now set up trying for Pargo, Dog toothed
snapper. Last night we had some success even a couple of Pargo up to 35
pounds. I have a couple of pictures that I will post later. We will be
able to fish until lunch and then head for Cabo. We ended with a day
limit on the tuna 17 Pargo and 2 dog toothed snapper. We will report
again tomorrow.
Nov. 22 2003
Good evening folks. We had another nice day to finish off the trip. Not
much luck last night on the bottom fish although we had very little
participation after yesterday's fishing. I put a picture of Jonathon
Roldan up with a nice Cubara caught the night before. The tuna fishing
was very similar today although we did seem to have
more of the 60 to 80 pound fish mixed in but for the most part it was 40
to 60 . Once again very few fish on the mackerel most were on the
sardine. We did get a chance to soak some skip jack on heavy gear last
evening but we never got any bites.
The guys from Accurate reels gave away a brand new reel each day for daily jackpots which was a lot of fun. There was a reel given away every day.
We are on our way up and will be in Cabo tomorrow. It sounds like the
weather is still nice above. Hopefully It sustains. There are a lot of
pictures and video taken on the trip and i will be posting more as we
go. We will report again tomorrow, Andy Cates
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Nov. 23 2003
Good afternoon folks We arrived in Cabo this morning. The guys that are
flying home are on there way safely and so is the boat. The weather
sounds spotty up above and we may run into some rough conditions. We
have secured everything and are on our way.
Tonight we will enjoy a nice jumbo shrimp dinner and Margaritas as we
work our way up. I have some pictures of the trip I will be posting and
you can see more in the days to come. We will report again tomorrow,
Andy Cates
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Nov. 24 2003
Good evening folks. We had a nice day of travel. Very good weather all
day and sounds like it will continue through the rest of the voyage.
The guys all had a nice relaxing day . Myself and the crew had a chance
to do some maintenance around the boat and keep things ship shape. I
posted a couple more pictures of the trip . We will report again
tomorrow
Andy Cates
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Nov. 29 2003
Good evening folks. Our first day of travel was really nice. The weather
was perfect all day long. We spent the day rigging up for tuna after a
seminar this morning. Most of the guys have been out with us before so
there was a lot of review. There are a handful of new guys which is
great to see and we spent most of our time with them. Filling reels,
making leaders and just getting things together.
Tomorrow we will go over some things about wahoo fishing and then spend
the rest of the day looking for kelps. We are headed for the Hurricane
bank. We are just about ready to stop and try for squid. We will report
again tomorrow, Andy Cates
Nov. 30 2003
Good evening folks. Today we went over a few things about wahoo fishing
and spent the rest of the day rigging. We looked for kelps today and did
not see any fish, although we did get a strike and got a couple of wahoo
for dinner. Tomorrow we will take care of any last minute things and be
at the bank the next morning.
We will report again then, Andy Cates