Exploratory Tuna Trip - Tuna or Die

5-19-2007
Edgar Ylanan
Our mission was to get the first tuna of the year. We left the dock at 9pm, and shortly after I began the SFR raffle in which almost everyone won something. Captain James McDaniels, his crew, & all of the anglers got their minds set to accomplish our task at hand---TUNA! We traveled south to Mexico, on the outside 118 line, about 90 miles out. At daybreak we wasted no time and got the troll rods out. We got all the right indications on this trip - Albacore black birds, purple blue water, 62 degree water & Albatross birds. Thank God for the beautiful weather. We stopped at the first kelp paddy and Frank Lee of Woodland Hills landed the first Yellow which turned out to be the jackpot of the day. We proceeded to hit a few more paddies and got one more Yellow and a few Bonito. Everybody worked so hard. We fished the 483/500 bank, the eastern end of the dumping ground, and all the offshore grounds around us. Captain James tried all the possible areas. For the day we encountered at least 30 or more kelp paddies. We fished until about 8 o'clock that night for no Tuna - nada. Captain James asked us what we wanted to do the next day - we decided to stick it out and stay on course. We anchored up close to the beach off Ensenada for the night, and that's when Forrester Mike Poepke of Ojai told me he was going try some squidding. Low & behold we got invaded by Giant Squid all night long! We had at least about 300 lbs of squid onboard. Needless to say that woke everybody up. Second Capt Mike started filleting them till 3 am. Next day comes and off we go. The first kelp had good signs of life and produced a few Yellows. We moved on and trolled by every paddy we could find which gave up more Yellows but unfortunately no Tuna. We hit the Finger Bank, tried just outside 117 line and fished a variety of other undisclosed areas. We trolled at least 30 miles non-stop. Water still 62 degrees and beautiful weather. For the trip we ended up with 38 Yellowtail(up to 20 lbs), 20 Bonito and truckload of Giant Squid. Overall this trip was still a success in my book. I would like to thank Captain James and the entire Grande Crew for an incredible effort! I would also like to thank Chef Nick who served us all scrumptious cuisines-he's the best. I've never seen a crew work so hard! Between the fishing, catching, and crew this trip is second to none. Hey, guys if you need a copy of your picture just email me at "sfredgar@sportfishingreport.com'