Fished 302
After deciding to sit this one (the season) out, I couldn't resist any more. First trip of the season and it was straight out of the 3 stooges playbook. Won't go into detail but my son and I both agree it was the worst trip ever.
Found a good looking area 12 miles out of mission bay for nothing on the way out that had some rissos that stopped to check out the boat as we were soaking some bait. With their big sickle shaped fins those things look ominous when they are just sitting there looking at you.
Ran just short of the high spot and put em in. At 1030 on the high spot picked up the only fish of the trip for us, a fat 20-25 albacore on the small natural cedar plug. Worked out to the 230 and didn't see any thing to keep us there and worked back to between 302 and 224. Stopped and soaked bait in an area that was holding boats. The area had fish, you could tell by the way the birds were behaving and chum was being driven to the surface where they could get it but we couldn't get bit and nobody else did while we were there. Slow trolled deans out of there and put em out and worked towards home. Saw a pod of dolphin about 12 miles from mission bay that just looked like they had been worked all week, felt bad shutting down in front of them and soaking bait and didn't try it a second time after seeing how tired they looked. Ran home in econo mode at 12-15 knots.
Sounded like it was good for some and not for others but the fish were scattered over a wide area - 182, 43, 302, 230, 224 and later in the day 371. Albacore were either peanuts or nice 20+, dodos were doritos. Long drifts on the paddies were paying off for some, bait is now $35, youch!
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