[fullwidth background_color=”” background_image=”” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_webm=”” video_mp4=”” video_ogv=”” video_preview_image=”” overlay_color=”” overlay_opacity=”0.5″ video_mute=”yes” video_loop=”yes” fade=”no” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding_top=”20″ padding_bottom=”20″ padding_left=”0″ padding_right=”0″ hundred_percent=”no” equal_height_columns=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” menu_anchor=”” class=”” id=””][fusion_text]In the fall fishing is hot like our weather usually is and yet angler demand drops, just as folks erroneously think our temps should be. Despite the best and most exotic opportunities of the year, angler’s focus seems to shift. Some are busy with family, getting kids off to school. Others are thinking about big game and waterfowl and wing shooting.
Whatever the reasons are, the boat crews are left with open days and awesome fishing. In years past, some charter boats would make the pilgrimage northward to the Central Coast, following the fish and fishing to fill the hold with albacore for market.
Others, might run a crew trip here and there. The boat’s crew, and a few good friends from other boats get together and go. Perhaps a few calls go out to the good guys that helped them prepare for and make it through the season; the electronics guy that came down at 8 P.M. to fix the radar, investors and silent partners, the mechanic who in-framed the gen-set between trips, the window guy who got them the good-guy deal on new glass, or the carpenter who rebuilt the galley countertops.
Sometimes it’s fishing unsuitable for a boatful of weekend warriors, ops that had to be passed on such as a shot at bill-fish or big-eye. Perhaps it’s a new school of yellowfin, so vast and so hungry they bite anything thrown. Usually there is a story, because this is when the crazy stuff happens.
A few of the best will endure the years, attaining the quality of legend. The most extraordinary become sublime. Gaining grandeur and loosing detail in the many retellings, the tale attains a mythical aura. But most simply fade with time, as stories do.
This is a story not likely to fade.
Capt. Chuck Taft has been fishing, captaining charter boats since 1959. He is the brother of Bobby Taft of the Top Gun 80, and they are the sons of Capt. Spike Taft, who built and ran the speedy triple-screw charter boat Patrician, before becoming one of the most well respected marine surveyors in the industry.
Chuck has a son, Steven, a licensed captain too now. Chuck owns a small fleet of charter boats, the Legend, Sea Adventure II, Alicia, Jig Strike and Seeker, all of which run from H&M Landing in San Diego. But in all his years, he had never had the opportunity to catch a wahoo. Although extensive, his vast time at sea was almost exclusively inside of 4-day range. Son Steve hadn’t had a shot at one yet either.
This fall wahoo showed in numbers locally, first time he’s ever seen it. Although last fall brought the first few wahoo to the area, this season’s abundance is unprecedented. With the Legend having an open day, Chuck decided to take a shot at putting his son on his first ‘hoo, and perhaps get his first ever too.
October 15th, the plan was to head south to the Coronado Islands, he, son Steve, and a few good guys and crew, a total of 10 aboard, would go. The hope was to put a couple or three skinnies on deck for the day.
What they encountered was unbelievable. The story Chuck told sounded like Alijos Rocks in bite-mode, much more than ¾-day at The Islands. At 6:30 there were fish on the sonar. Turning on them and throwing bait brought the skinnies up charging through the wake. They got one on the wahoo bomb and one on a Raider jig. It got better from there. Taft said they had a couple of stops where they had 8 or 9 going at once. That’s everybody, but the man on the tank!
Oh, by the way, usually if you call for a gaff on a crew trip during full-speed fishing, nobodies coming; somebody’s handing you a gaff with their free hand. But in this case, no one’s one-handing a wahoo. Perhaps it was a good thing that half of all wahoo bites end up quickly escaping. They grab the iron hard with teeth so sharp they sink into metal. A ‘hoo will “dog-bone” a jig, and a few seconds and 30 yards of line later, simply let go.
One stop they started with 4 fish and only one stuck. Dragging the “Cow Bell” (Ballyhood’s 32-ounce Banchee A-Salt Weapon) and marauders they had 3 triple-jig-strikes, trolling into sonar marks, and a total of 9 stops for the morning. The fish came rocketing out of the wake and charging the corner. At one point Steve Taft had a fish eat the bomb just 5 feet from the boat.
By the end of the bite, the ten of them had boated 29 WAHOO from 40 to 75 pounds, AT THE CORONADOS! Many more had escaped, perhaps half, said Capt. Chuck. “There hasn’t been anything like this on a 1-day boat in all the years” he said. With an estimated 55-pound average weight, that’s better quality than most of the best of long-range razor-lip bites.
Most of the fish were caught on just 30- and 40-pound gear said Chuck. Live sardines fly-lined on wire, wahoo bombs and Raider jigs accounted for the bulk of them. Not only did Steve and Chuck Taft each catch their first wahoo ever, but Steve got his first full limit of ‘hoos.
That evening they were back out on a lobster hooping twilight trip and got 14 legal bugs, not bad day of local fishing!
Merit McCrea is saltwater editor for Western Outdoor News. A veteran Southern California partyboat captain, he also works as a marine research scientist with the Love Lab at the University of California at Santa Barbara’s Marine Science Institute. He can be reached at: [email protected].
CAPTIANS Rick Scott, (Ocean Odyssey) Chuck Taft and Steve Taft (Legend, Sea Adventure Sportfishing) with local wahoo, on a Legend ¾-day goof-off that hauled in 29 skinnies for 10 aboard.
LOCAL ‘hoo heros show what happens when anglers stay home and leave boat crews to go ¾-day fishing on their own.[/fusion_text][/fullwidth]