| The counts out of San Diego have had some really incredible scores, but almost lost between the good ones is the fact that there have been some real stinkers. In a nutshell: it's September, the only tuna fishing has been on kelps down 65 plus miles from Point Loma, and it's easy for a trip to miss--maybe even easier than it is to put together a real score?
Some boats and skippers have been really hot and connecting on more trips than not, while having tough ones and less than 20 tuna for an overnight or 1.5-day trip has been the other reality aside from 100 plus mixed bluefin, yellowfin and fatso albacore. In a nutshell, not every trip is living up to the potential and visions of grandeur.
It's easy to chalk it up to "luck" this time of the year, and there is some element of it to the offshore game down past 60 miles where the tuna are to go with the yellowtail and dorado. But there's skill in the mix along with the jig strikes and kelps.
Jody Morgan on the Voyager has been stringing together trip after trip for great bluefin and yellowfin scores this past week (just like he was on the bluefin when they were on and off the pens). And he's the first one to admit it's easy to miss. And finally, after having scores like Friday's overnight for 80 yellowfin and 80 bluefin, Jody was on the bottom end of things on Sunday.
"It's almost all kelp related, and you can have 100 plus bluefin, or yellowfin or a 50/50 mix of bluefin and yellowfin while the boat next to you gets five fish or something" says Morgan.
Everyone says "that's fishing" and it is. But it's also about getting away from the pack and not falling into the 1010 trap right now. There's good fishing everywhere, but the best kelps are the ones that have never been hit.
Maybe that's why the boats getting the biggest hits have been the ones that alter their course by at least 10 degrees from the bank that everyone is heading for?
Look at the counts from Saturday. There were some good ones, even on overnights, but there were some tough ones too. Even Pacific Dawn skipper Pat Cavanaugh had a tough go on the tuna on Saturday's overnight.
Yeah, even the best miss sometimes. But that's the mark of a great fisherman, from rod and reel to fishing (as in running) a boat. You are either on the top or the bottom, with little in between.
Chalk it up to going with the program that involves going against what everyone else is doing and where they are going.
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