West Coast Angler - Long Range Fishing Reports

Bill Roecker for FishingVideos.com & the San Diego Sportfishing Council

Net Update

December 10, 2007

Intrepid’s Huge Supercow

“We had another great day down here,” read Intrepid’s report for December 10, “on these beautiful Tuna. Along with a steady pick on the 150 to 190-pound fish, we ended up with two at 205, a 210, 212, 243, 245, 246, 273, 300, and a 337. We have one more day down here and hope fishing like this continues.”

The next day provided even more excitement: “With today being our last day down here it was absolutely a wonderful way to wrap things up. We drifted again all day and picked away at these brutes ending the day with 12 of the 120 to 190-pound grade and eight from 210 to 260 pounds.

“We also picked up another Tuna today that taped out at 381 lbs. Congrats go to Bill Falter for battling this giant Tuna and as you can imagine Bill is a very excited and happy fisherman. Bill hooked this fish on the kite after it exploded on a jumbo live squid pinned to a custom double hook leader using an 18/0 Mustad 39960D circle hook and a 12/0 7691 Stinger attached to a 130-pound Soft Steel leader. Backing that up with 130-pound Jerry Brown hollow spectra on an AVET PRO EXW 50-2 (thanks, Harry, you rock) and a Seeker 6463 XXXH Black Steel Graphite rod this fish really didn’t stand a chance.”

If Bill Falter’s fish comes in at its taped weight, it will go into fourth place on the all-time top ten tuna list, as shown below:

Mark Gasich, 399.6 pounds, Polaris Supreme, Clarion Island, November 15, 1992
Dave Manella, 395.4 pounds, Royal Polaris, Clarion Island, Feb 19, 1993
Curt Wiesenhutter, 388.75 pounds, San Benedicto Island, April 1, 1977
Al Herzog, 380 pounds, Qualifier 105, San Benedicto Island, January 11, 1981

Intrepid will dock at Pt. Loma Sportfishing Friday morning, December 14. A crowd may be expected to view the giant yellowfin at the certified scales there.

Star Whacks Cows

“What a stark contrast between days,” wrote Tim Ekstrom for Royal Star December 11, “as our success ratio on trophy yellowfin was one hundred percent. We landed seven out of seven with the biggest today weighing in at two hundred fifty six pounds. Calm weather is certainly to blame as the incredible stress on the equipment is distributed smoothly in smooth conditions enabling anglers to utilize their gear to the maximum extent of their ability. Overall the day’s catching was a little slower than yesterday but the action was still very good by big fish standards with 22 fish from 150 to 256 pounds caught, with a dozen of those under 180 pounds released.”

Too Much Glory

“Hi Bill:
On your EXCEL trip report, it states that I got a #252 and a 248. I only caught one cow; the 248. Happy Holidays!”
Tim Turis, Atlanta, GA (by email December 12, 2007)

On The Game

“Well its game on here at the Hurricane Bank,” said Shogun’s report for December 10. “We had a great spaghetti dinner and they are still biting…JIGS! Bruce had the Shogun trolling up a dozen wahoo and then we anchored up on the Northeast corner around 2pm. Momentum slowly built and in the last hour fishing for tuna from 80 to 240 pounds was pretty damn good. Fly line sardine, the kite with squid and toward sunset chunk fishing really took off. As I write this there are fish still biting. We hope to double our score tomorrow, as we fine tune techniques. I can hear hoots out on deck, must have boated another one. It’s going to be an interesting night.”