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September 2003

Sept.3 2003
Good evening folks. This morning things started out as planned. We got on a school of bluefin and albacore and picked away until after breakfast. With expectations of the reports from the day before we thought we were on our way to a good day.

Well, we had a good day but not all that great of fishing . After our morning bite it was like the ocean died.
We did get on one other school of bluefin but they did not stay with us. It was very frustrating for all of us.
We finished our day with 22 bluefin and 28 albacore. The afternoon went with almost no fish for our efforts.

We decided to throw in the towel on the offshore scene and head to Guadalupe .Hopefully they want to bite tomorrow. We will report again then. Andy Cates

Sept 4 2003
Good evening folks. Another slow day and poor weather tells the story of our day. We had a few fish in the morning then it backed off and with the exception of this nice wahoo we got it was pretty poor. The day ended with 22 tuna and the one wahoo. We have one day left to fish and with the reports from the other boats it is going to take a miracle to pull this one off. We are going inside off the beach to look for school size yellowfin on kelps. We will have plenty of company with the other  boats so hopefully we get something nailed down. Not only to save this trip but also for the next one. We will report again tomorrow
Andy Cates

Sept 5 2003
Good evening folks. We spent the morning offshore looking for school size yellowfin. We had very nice conditions, 71 degree water and blue. Unfortunately there were no fish in the area we looked in. We caught a couple of tuna on a school of porpoise and that was it. We decided to run in to San Martin and a good thing we did. We missed the morning bite but had a decent afternoon and then another  hit in the evening. Ending the day with 150 nice size yellows.. The offshore fishing still sounds slow so we might be doing some more yellowtail fishing. We will report again tomorrow Andy Cates

Sept 7 2003
Good evening folks.
We left yesterday on a 4 day trip with Benitos island in mind. Reports from the last couple of days sounded like yellowtail fishing was good. First thing in the morning we saw a kelp paddy and it had a pretty good school of 14 to 25 pound tuna on it. There has been a lot of coverage down in this area and outside of here in hopes of our first wave of school size yellowfin. I'm not exactly saying this is the first wave but it was a fair sign of things to come. We ended up with 100 yellowfin 17 dorado and 1 Big eye only about 30 pounds. The grade is a little smaller than we would hope for but its a good start. We saw another school on porpoise and occasional jumper on our way to Benitos but no other fish on kelps.
 

Benitos was every bit of what we were hoping for. Nice size fish 18 to 22 pounds with some bigger ones mixed in and they bit good right up until dark. We are going to fish here again tomorrow and hopefully conditions stay the same and we have another nice day.

P.S the guys from Minnesota wanted to say hi and that they were having a great time.
We will report again tomorrow, Andy Cates

Sept. 8 2003
Good evening folks. We had another nice day of yellowtail fishing. Things slowed way down in the afternoon and conditions seem to be going down hill. Good thing we got in on it while it lasted . The yellows were nice size and I posted a picture of Peter Kelsch holding a nice yellow with the island in the back ground.
So far things have gone well for us and we are going to push it by going to Guadalupe. It has been very hit and miss but we have enough fish aboard and we are hoping to settle the jackpot. We will be there first thing in the morning. We will report again tomorrow. Andy Cates

Sept 9 2003
Good evening folks. We spent the morning at the south end of Guadalupe. We scratched 15 tuna mostly the smaller fish and then moved up the Island. We saw a school of better size fish and picked off of that until it was time to go home. We left at 2:00 in the afternoon with 40 tuna for our efforts. We were fortunate enough to get a few nicer size fish for the jack pot. I posted some pictures of some of the nicer size fish. We are not making very good speed and it looks like we are going to get in late. We will report again tomorrow when we leave on a 3 day trip. Andy Cates
 

Sept 11 2003
Good evening folks. The first day of a 3 day trip started out a little slow. We got on a school of blue fin just before lunch and picked 50 bluefin and 35 albacore. It dried up and we went looking for another school. We got on a great school and it bit all the way into dark. Right now the fish are still around the boat. The 25 to 45 pound bluefin were biting wide open. Every bait was a bite. They were so aggressive it was similar to albacore on the corner. Guys were breaking out the heavier gear and still getting bit right away. The weather is flat calm and hopefully this sustains. It seems to have an impact on the fish biting or not. I posted a picture of Mike and Arnie with a couple of Bluefin . Smiles all around today. We will fish here again tomorrow hopefully we see the same results. Andy Cates

Sept 12 2003
Good evening folks. Today started early with a morning drift on albacore. We scratched up 28 albacore and then another 25 trolling around. We got on three different schools of bluefin after that. 3 out of the first one at lunch time and then 35 out of an afternoon bite. Then the sundown bite. Wide open. Every bait was a bite right into the dark . The bite lasted about an hour and a half. Bluefin doing back flips on the sardines. Just going crazy on the stern. I sure hope that our luck and the fishing continues . It sure has been good. We are leaving on a 4 day trip tomorrow and we are anticipating good reports from the guys. We will report again tomorrow. Andy Cates

Sept 14 2003
Good evening folks. We got to the Island at about 930 this morning. The anchor went down and we started to pick a few yellowtail and yellowfin. After lunch the fish started to show better and we were steady keeping 2 or 3 going and getting flurries occasionally for more. We put the kite up and they were all over it. At times it would get bit right after you got the bait out. And then it would back off.  In the evening they started to bite and the anchor drug from the wind picking up.
 

While we were drifting we picked a few more fish and Beth Sarachman picked up this trophy fish out in the deep water, We are going to fish here again tomorrow. We ended up with a nice day 132 yellowfin and 10 yellowtail. The fish average from 20 to 4o pounds with just a couple bigger ones. We will report again tomorrow Andy Cates

Sept 15 2003
Good evening folks. We had another nice day here at the island. We scratched throughout the day and had more sign of the better size yellowtail. We ended up with 36 yellows from 25 to 40 pounds and 113 yellowfin 20 to 35 pounds with a few bigger fish up to 80 pounds mixed in. I posted some pictures of some of the bigger fish caught today. Hopefully we can finish off with a bang tomorrow. We will report then, Andy Cates
 

Sept 16 2003
Good evening folks. We ended up staying our last day at the Island. Our other options were just to far away. The albacore area at about 170 miles and San Martin at 159 miles. With the fishing we had the last 2 days we figured we would give it another try. Things looked poor up until 100 in the morning.  After a tour of the North end of the Island for nothing we got the anchor down and started hooking fish right away. We had good action until 130 and then picked up the anchor and left for home. We ended up with 50 tuna and 17 very nice size yellowtail in that flurry. It was a nice way to end the trip. We will report again tomorrow. Andy Cates

Sept. 17 2003
Good afternoon folks. The boat is leaving on the first of two five day trips. I will be off the boat for the first one. Capt. John Grabowski will be running the trip leaving today. Good luck. Andy Cates

Sept. 18th
Good morning folks, we departed Lee Palm at, 13:30 and took on a good load of sardines. Cleared Point Loma at 15:00,we have very nice weather. We are currently on the Izorline 5 day trip and  headed for San Benitos Island and possibly some kelps. We will report tomorrow hopefully with some good news. John Grabowski and crew.

Sept 19th
Good morning folks, here is our report for the day. We looked for kelp paddies all morning above San Benitos Island and found a tremendous amount of kelp's all void of life. We did get a single Yellowfin tuna on the troll and nothing more for our searching efforts. At 1530 we got to San Benitos and dropped the anchor at 1600, we had fair action on good grade yellowtail until dark. Here is a picture of Gary Tergoka, with a 45# yellowtail. The average size was 15 to 25 LBS. We will be staying here tonight and fishing for this nice quality  Yellowtail tomorrow before moving on to finish our trip at Guadalupe Island. John Grabowski and crew...

Sept. 19th
Well folks, today was a very enjoyable day of good Yellowtail fishing at San Benitos Island. Weather was perfect and conditions were optimum for what turned out to be a all day pick on beautiful grade Yellowtail. We landed many fish in the 25 to 35 pound  range with a few 40 lb. yellow's and one pushing 50 pounds. So that concludes our fishing day here are some pics. of, Steve Ichinokuchi our sponsor for Izorline and his pro staff member, Norm Fujimoto. Also we have Monique Hunter and Al Jackson and myself so that was our day. At 1630 we left San Benitos and are headed to Guadalupe Island in hope's of some Yellowfin tuna.

John Grabowski and crew
 

Sept. 20th
Good evening everyone, today we arrived at Guadalupe Island at 0700, and got the anchor down almost immediately on scattered sign of tuna. We had fairly steady action most of the day on 18 to 40 pound tuna and two fish will go close to 100 pounds, the fish were caught by Matt Bruce and Bill Stewart. The weather in the lee of the Island was absolutely perfect and a welcome to our trip. We have decided to optimize our fishing time for
our last day of the trip and left Guadalupe Island for points north in hopes of Albacore and Bluefin tuna. We have one of our code boats running up with us. There were very encouraging reports from local boats, so we are in anticipation of a good finish to our 5 day trip. We will report our final day's results at dark, and also we want to wish a  Happy 7th birthday to Danielle Jackson from, DAD!!!!!  John Grabowski and crew
 

Sept 21st
Good evening folks, this is our last report for the trip. Things went well on the fishing front. As we caught 92 big Albacore and 3 Yellowfin tuna. The Albacore averaged 35 to 40 pounds it was all beautiful fish. We left at dark for home and our E.T.A. is 0700. This was a very good 5-day Izorline trip with plenty of action and good variety on quality fish. Here are some of the Albacore taken today by Evan Jackson, Frank Agnone and Marion May. John Grabowski and crew
 

Sept 23 2003
Good evening folks.
We had a pretty tough first day at the Island. We started on the North end and saw good sign of tuna. Problem was the wind was to strong for the anchor to hang. After a few attempts to anchor we gave up and started looking around. We made it down to the south end and saw very little. Back up to the middle of the Island for the evening and picked up 20 tuna with some chances at some bigger fish and pulling out three of them. I posted pictures of the better grade fish. Tomorrow we are going to start back up on the North end in hopes of better weather. We will report again then Andy Cates
 

Sept 24 2003
Good evening folks.
We had a much better day here today. We scratches away most of the day with a few flurries here and there.
We always seemed to have something going on. We tried the kite for awhile and got a couple. The bigger fish we got today were on the sardine, nothing of any size on the kite. Conditions were a little tough to fish. Wind going up in the current makes the boat swing around and causes tangles. We dealt with it and scratched 81 tuna from 25 to 40 pounds with the exception of the ones I posted. We had a few problems today with the anchor dragging due to the wind and current. We are hoping tomorrow we don't have any intermissions and
we can stay put and scratch all day. We will report again tomorrow
Andy Cates
 

Sept. 25 2003
Good evening folks. Our visions of a nice day were shattered early as the wind picked up and gave us problems. We had good sign in the morning and things looked like we were going to do well. We had 20 fish and they were boiling around . The wind kicked up and blew us off the spot three different times. We finally got the anchor to hold but the fish slowly went away. We sat there in hopes of a re-bite for an hour and a half with no bites. By this time the wind was about 40 knots and it was very hard to fish. We picked it up and went down into the Bay. We got on another spot of fish and the weather was nice. We got a few fish and had some chances at some bigger ones. But then shark got on us and made the fishing tricky when you got a fish to color and we lost a couple under the boat.

Right when it looked like we might do something the wind got on us and blew us off the spot. By the time we got he anchor to hold it was blowing at least 40 knots and the green water on the beach got on us. We tried a couple more anchor jobs but we kept dragging and the wind was to much to handle. We left the Island at 3:00  and we are heading for the albacore grounds. The weather is up but it sounds like the fishing is getting better. Hopefully we can get a hit and salvage what has been a very frustrating trip. We will report again tomorrow. Andy Cates

Sept 26 2003
Good evening folks. We had a slow morning in the albacore grounds. In the afternoon we started to string together stops. The stops were for 15 to 25 fish for the most part. The awesome thing is the grade of the albacore, 38 pound average. Some even in the mid forties. Very few fish smaller less than 35 pounds. After yesterday at Guadalupe the weather didn't even seem that bad. We had a rough ride up, but it definitely saved the trip.

With the quality from the Island and the 140 big albacore I think we did pretty well for the weather and conditions we had to deal with. Today was definitely the savior. We will be at the dock tomorrow at 8:00 and then in for the night. Our next trip is a 10 day and we are looking forward to fishing in some warmer weather. The reports from down below don't sound all that hot but things change at anytime.

Here are the jackpot winner for this trip:

Sept 29 2003
Good evening folks. Not much to report today. We have had a nice ride downhill today. Spent most of the day getting rigged up. We had a seminar this morning on fishing Alijos Rocks and also some safety aspects of wahoo fishing. Our bait looks good and we have a great supply of squid so we are going to keep rolling down and will be at the Rocks at 8:30 in the morning.. We will report again tomorrow. Andy Cates

Sept 30 2003
Good evening folks. We arrived at the Rocks at 9:30 this morning. We made a few passes around the Rock for wahoo and got a few strikes while looking for a place to anchor. We saw decent sign of what looked like good size fish and dropped the anchor on the best concentration of tuna and wahoo. We scratched the rest of the day on both species and ended up with 27 tuna and 18 wahoo. The numbers are low do to the fact that they are all nice fish. Lots of hooks pulled out and line fatigue.

They bit the kite for a little while which helped out using the heavier line. Each fish seems to be a battle. Using 50 and 60 pound is a must don't think we put a fish on the boat smaller than 80 pounds with fish up over a hundred pounds mixed in. It looks like there is enough fish here to work with. Hopefully it wants to bite for us tomorrow. I posted some pictures of some of the guys and David from West Coast anglers is getting some great still shots for his web site as well. We will report again tomorrow Andy Cates
 

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