Fishing Day Two
We started fishing the morning Thetis Bank which is due north where we finished day 1. Captain Norm had moved the Shogun to Thetis Bank before dawn and anchored the boat on the high spot to make sure we were there for the morning bite. Morning brought brisk north winds and 4 to 6 foot seas.
Like the other areas to the south, Thetis Bank held good sign of life. Numerous bait and bird schools were found all over the bank especially along the offshore edges. However, after chasing the 'bird schools' for a while with little success, Captain Norm moved the Shogun to another promising sign of fish the crew had glassed and the sardines were deployed by the crew. Unlike the recent stops on the back this time the fish cooperated. Within a few minutes, three of the anglers in the current rotation were fast into fish. Two of the fish that came over the rail were a bottom fish that they generically refer to as 'whitefish' and the last fish to the boat was a California yellowtail. The fish weight almost 22 lbs which is 7 pounds heavier than the existing 10 kg fly rod world record (15 pounds). These fish are caught with great regularity by conventional anglers, but not by fly anglers on these trips. In fact, this yellowtail was the first caught by fly on any of their fly fishing trips.
At the time of the catch, the angler and crew thought that the yellowtail would qualify for that world record, but it was determined that the leader did not conform to International Game Fish Association (IGFA) rules. Nobody knew it at the time, but that yellowtail was a sign of good things to come.
The yellowtail is a hard fighting fish, related to the greater amberjack that ranges from Baja California, Mexico to Los Angeles, California. According to the 2005 IGFA World Record Game Fishes book the yellowtail is easily recognized by its bright yellow tail and characteristic brass colored stripe that run along the median line of the fish. Coincidently, the All-Tackle World Record yellowtail was caught on November 21, 2003 aboard the Shogun by Tom Lambert and weighed 91 lbs 9 ounces. The fish was caught near Guadalupe Island, Mexico.
Over the next several hours the Shogun would repeatedly motor to the high spot and the boat was allowed to drift with the wind into deeper water. Once the chumming began Captain Norm would come on the radio and ask the anglers begin fishing again. Subsequent drifts yielded two more nice yellowtail, a few trigger fish, and more whitefish. Both of the yellowtail were larger than the current 10 kg world record, but again leader issues prevented the larger of the two from being submitted. The smaller fish, caught by Geoff Clark of Gig Harbor, Washington weighed (at sea) 19 lbs. This fish appeared to qualify to replace the existing record.
Once the fishing slowed and the birds began to raft up on the water and began to show little interest eating, the Shogun was moved off Thetis Bank to the north to 23 Fathoms Bank. The boat was anchored on the high spot for the night.
Fishing Day Three
In the morning after the anchor was pulled and the search for fish began on 23 Fathoms Bank. Almost immediately the lack of life on this bank was noticed. Captain Norm moved the boat off the bank and we headed north trolling tuna feathers and marlin teasers. I could only take so much trolling before sleepiness set-in, so I headed to my cabin to take a nap. There is nothing better than taking a nap at 8 o'clock in the morning. Before heading down to my cabin, I asked fellow passenger to wake me if anything happened.
It didn't take long for something good to happen. I was only asleep for about 20 minutes when I heard the engines idle down from trolling speed and go into neutral. Figuring that some fish were located, I headed up to the stern to see what was going on. Coming up from below deck, I immediately saw five or six anglers with bent rods scurrying around the stern. All fish that were boated were yellowtail between 8 and 12 lbs. Still half asleep, I asked someone where we where and the response was 13 Fathoms Bank! The bite was on!
Over the next 6 hours the yellowtail bite continued to grow to the point where yellowtail could be seen free swimming all around the boat. At any given time there were between 5 and 15 anglers hooked up and fighting yellowtail. With each successive drift off the high spot the quality of the fishing improved. At one point it was so easy to get a bite that I tried experimenting to see if different retrieve rates would make a difference. I tried presenting the fly dead drift, slow retrieve, fast retrieve, and super fast and they all worked! Retrieve rates didn't matter, but it became clear after some additional experimentation that the yellowtail preferred smaller flies of 2/0 size to larger flies in the 4/0 to 6/0 range. Anchovy green, anchovy blue, or white knight color patterns worked best, but fish were taken on many different patterns, colors, and sizes during the bite. Leaders didn't make much difference either. I caught fish on 20 lb, 30 lb and even on straight 50 lb. All my leaders were less than 5 feet in length. It seemed best to keep leaders simple especially because I wasn't trying to catch a record fish. I believe that this significantly increased my hookup to landing ratio.
The constant chumming of live sardines being coaxed yellow fin tuna to with casting distance of our flies. The yellow fin were small (8 to 20 lbs), but were a blast on a 10 weight rod. Despite their size they still pulled up to 150 yards of backing off my Ross Big Game Reel with ease. After having some fun on my sinking shooting head set-up I switched to my rod equipped with floating line and a mylar covered popper. This worked great too and it was exciting to see the tuna blast the fly and take off in a blur. Occasionally, I would hook a large tuna or a large yellowtail that would take me 200 to 250 yards deep into my backing. Unfortunately, my 10 weight was no match for these large fish. The tuna would initially run straight out away from the boat before eventually getting vertically below the angler. The large yellowtail would run straight down to the bottom a wrap the fly line or leader around some kelp or a rock and it was game over.
The bite slowed late in the afternoon and then Captain Norm steamed the Shogun to the top of the 13 Fathoms Bank where he anchored boat for the night. After that good bite, all the passenger and crew were in a great mood. Good fishing has a way of relaxing people. That night Phyllis Kvinsland from Washington State had the best reason to be happy with three (6 kg, 8 kg, and 10 kg) potential women's fly rod world record yellowtail caught that day.
In addition to the record fish, most anglers opted to keep a few caught to bring home. This was made easy as all anglers aboard the Shogun because all anglers were assigned a tag number that corresponded with their rotation number. Once a fish that was to be kept was landed all you had to do was tell the mate what your tag number and they would staple it to the gill plate of the fish. The fish then went directly into the 12 ton hold which was equipped with an ultra fast spray brine freezer system which ensured that the catch remained in 'just caught' condition.