Cedros Island

Nico and I had the morning run with Tim as our driver. Ten minutes in to the day Travis' skiff radios that they have a triple on yellows. We run in his direction and stop on birds about 400 yards short. What followed was the stuff of yellowtail dreams with GIANT yellowtail crashing around the boat devouring our baits. We hooked 16 on our skiff, landing 10. They ate Big Hammers and iron indiscriminately. Tim hooked the first one on a Big Hammer and it wasn't long before there was a huge swirl on my Tady 45 40' from the side of the boat.  I started winding down on the fish and by the time I caught up the fish was 50' to the right of where it hit. What power and speed these fish have.

Nico's first fish ate a Tady 45 so close to the boat I think we all jumped. None of us were watching because Tim and I had a double hookup going, but the fish threw water 6' in to the air - turned and smoked 200' of 40lb off Nico's Trinidad with horrifying speed. There was some debate about whether a seal had eaten his iron, but pretty soon it was apparent that it was a huge mossback yellow. Unfortunately that one got in to the kelp stringers and broke off.

We had incredible action for at least an hour hooking these powerful yellows.  Tim battled a big one for at least 15 minutes, finally boating a monster 53lber on a Shad colored 5" Big Hammer.  He was using freshwater gear like us with 65 braid and had to lock the drag and drive the boat away from a kelp to get the fish out.  It was amazing that he got it in.  What a fish. 

During the melee, one of the 35 pounders Nico was reeling in had a huge fish with it free swimming - easily 50 pounds. I have no doubt that some of the fish we lost were in that range. You just couldn't stop them in the first 200 feet of the run, and by then they all found kelp stringers.  I put five on the boat on Big Hammer and iron to 38lbs and Nico got two with both fish in the mid-30's. None of the fish were under 30lbs. That skiff was barely moving on the way in from all the weight!

Having never experienced anything like this before, we had a few things to learn about fighting the fish - but overall I felt like we did OK to get what we got. The skiff drivers and crew knew how to get these big ones but we were more in the 'holding on for dear life' mode.

A fun side-story about Tim's 53 pounder; He had borrowed the bait from me in the morning after seeing some silvery colored baitfish in the water and asking if I had anything like that. The bait I gave him came from the same 30 pack of baits that I caught my 18lb largemouth on back in 2003. The color used to be called Prizm Shad, but is just called Shad now. What a testament to the power of the Big Hammer that the same bait could catch a 53lb yellow and an 18lb bass.

That afternoon we ran out to some offshore reefs in the big boat and picked three 15-20lb class yellows. I got two of them on the 5" shad Big Hammer. They had been chewing well in the AM, but were picky in the PM. They didn't want iron but a good cast with a 5" Big Hammer was enough to entice them.

Later in the afternoon we did another skiff run with Travis and had fantastic calico fishing starting on some boiler rocks where Nico boated an obese 6lb 9oz bass.  We followed that up with some long drifts for numbers of bass including my best fish of the trip right at 7lbs.  As the sun set behind the island the current picked up and Travis took us out to a rocky point where the 4-6lb calicos were chewing iron.  That was a blast.  So was the 35lb class yellow that Nico hung on a Tady 45 to end the run.  The crew on the Q fishes hard and we got back to the big boat in the near-dark. 

Pete had a lifetime day this day, fishing the Hammer for a 45lb yellow on a boiler rock and a 9lb calico in the kelp - both personal bests. There were smiles all around the dinner table this night. If the trip had ended right here I would have been 100% happy but there was much more to come.

Tim fighting his 53lber

53lb Cedros Tail

Yellow on Iron

38lber back on the big boat after the run

Smaller grade big boat yellow

Nico with a 6lb 9oz bass

Nico with a big one on the Hammer

Pete with his 45lb boiler rock yellow