KEN-DAN - 2006 - 2pm Bite

The the sighting of "Back to School" sales it is frightening to think that summer is already slipping away. But in spots the very warm water is cooling off and people are talking about "cooler" 71 degree water. Normally, we would be hoping that the mercury would rise to 68 or 9.

First off - if you sleep with your head in the sand you probably don't know that the marlin fishing off the East End of Catalina is going full bore. Lots of jig bites making it easy for those who don't have bait or know how to use it. More stripers are scattered down below and steadily moving up hill. Rumor has it that "they" have already reached the Channel Islands which is to be expected with the very warm water.

Dodging the seiners down Mexico way the Yellowfin Tuna are steadily moving north. It would seem that most of the survivors are miniature footballs and probably slip through the net openings. But there is the occasional larger Tuna/BigEye and this speaks well for the forth-coming Tuna Challenge (Sept. 30).

Wednesday: Harry Okuda, Geoff Halpern and myself went out in search of those elusive "convict" fish, dragging and washing off those shiny lures for naught. But, once again, we did make bait quite rapidly just off the Mission Bay jetty.

Nice weather, nice water, no marlin. Actually, did manage to snag two "dodos" and 2 yellowtails, but none had bills. The only bill we saw was from the fuel dock.

Thursday was a special day - on a cattle boat no less. Michael Folkes of "Inside Sportfishing" lined up the Western Pride out of Davey's Locker in Newport Harbor for a trip with a group of Make-A-Wish youngsters. We had a nice representation of members of our Tuna Challenge committee present including Carolyn, Ken, Dan and YT, Jim Walsh, John Arrieta, Kevin Beddoe, Tom Gruber, Harry Okuda, as well as our "Ken-Dan" team member, Geoff Halpern. Several members of the MAW San Diego Chapter office were also along. And Phil Friedman (976Tuna.com) was along for more filming as well as local sports writers. The trip was also sponsored by Shimano who provided the tackle as well as hats and gift tackle for all the kids. The ocean was flat, the fishing not that great, but a good time was had by all. The "Inside Sportfishing" film is scheduled to be on national TV in the Spring. Stay tuned.

Saturday was, hopefully, the last of the kelp hopping (and hoping) trips. This time it was Ken's brother, Daniel (he of Ken-Dan notoriety), and Harry Okuda along with Dennis Albert and a newcomer to our adventures, Wayne Kotow (from BumbleBee Tuna). With the usual "hot dope" we headed down towards the 213 and had two open water Dorado (aka dodo) bites boating one. From there to the 1010, down the trench, across it, up to the upper 500 and up to the "Hidden Reef" we couldn't find a single fishable paddy. Above the "Reef" we finally found 2 nice looking paddies. The first was dry, but the second was the "cherry patch." With several drifts (blowing 15) we limited out on the Dorado and scored at least 6 nice YellowTail with a couple in the 14-15 pd range. That made our day. Continuing north with 2 Marlin lures, two feathers, 2 cedar plugs and 1 YoZuri We had the offerings out there for no avail. There was one bit of excitement with a possible Marlin hard follow on one of the lures, but no go on the drop back.

Up around the 371 the "Key to the Sea" boated a Short Billed Spearfish and a marlin was hooked off Pukey Pt. There were other reports of tailers in the 302 area, suggesting more fish moving north. Ah, for the good old days at Smugglers Cove. Please sign the two petitions: 1. Keep the marlin in local waters and 2: Lots of BigEye in September.