SENIOR ANGLERS FISH OFF ENSENADA ABOARD THE BOAT PACIFIC ANGLER

Sept. 16, 2005, Lee Wood, Oceanside Senior Anglers, Pacific Voyager, Baja California, Mexico:

There were 18 Oceanside Senior Anglers who left Sunday Sept. 11th at 11 p.m. from Seaforth on the Pacific Voyager for a two day fishing trip.

We opted to go look for kelp paddies the next morning to see what they were holding.

We started the troll about 80 miles out from Seaforth at 6 a.m. and by 7 a.m., we had a stop for a couple of skipjack, and the bait fishermen got about eight yellowfin tuna. We continued trolling and except for a few more stops for skippies, we only caught one small dorado, and 10 yellowtail.

At 4:15 p.m., we came up to a paddy which was holding and we wound up the day with 127 yellowfin tuna from 20 to 37 pounds.

The fishing weather was brutal, wind and waves with large swells, maybe up to 15 feet at times. There were not too many fish lost to tangles, maybe 8 to 10 in the almost three hour frenzy.

We stopped fishing due to darkness at 7:20 p.m., and the fact that we are senior fishermen and we were pretty tired from fighting all the tuna and the waves.

The crew of the Pacific Voyager with owner Mark Oronoz as captain did a great job of untangling lines and gaffing the fish. We opted to fish the coast of Mexico for our second day, as the weather did not let up and our catch the second day was, White Fish: 9, Salmon Grouper: 26, Vermillion: 35, Lingcod: 30, Bankperch: 17, Misc Rockfish: 40. This was one of the best catching trips we have had all year long. The first day's jackpot was won by Jerry Lambert with a 37 pound yellowfin and the second day's jackpot was won by Billy Mathews with a very nice lingcod. Linda's ling was bigger, but was not eligible for the jackpot. We were 76 miles from port when the bite started.