We hit the deck as soon as the boat stopped, flipped out a bait and were bit quick. 200 yards of 30 pound test line later, the drag washers on John's Penn reel are starting to smoke. Seals, seals and more seals; bloody seals everywhere. You just have to cut your line and take the loss. You can't do anything with them, nor would you want to; they have big teeth.
Out come the seal bombs, (M-80's) and off go the seals for awhile. One of the mates put a seal bomb in a mackerel and tossed it overboard. As Heathcliff swooped down and picked it up, his partner tried to get it away from him - boooomm! Nothing but settling feathers and two gulls swimming feet up. No more bombs stuck in fish - some other anglers took offense. Personally John thought the little flying rats got what they deserved. He had caught about half dozen in the first couple of days of fishing. They would pick up his loose lined mackerel as it swam on the surface. It's a shock when you get a pickup like that. Your line is going out and you set the hook, cranking for your life and all of a sudden your line goes up in the air. You just hooked up with Heathcliff, and he ain't going to be to good about coming down and letting you get the hook out!
John had 14 fish the third day, the best one was a 39.5 pounder. One of the mates asked us if I owned a fish market. We were hooked up a bunch, and lost way more than we caught.
On the morning of the 4th day, we couldn't straighten out our arms when we woke up. Our hands were swollen and our back and legs so sore that walking was almost out of the question.
But we hook up, and with a fish on, the pain begins going away. I watched as John was good for four more fish that morning. We packed up that afternoon for the day and a half run back. Total catch was 633 yellowtail for 30 fishermen, averaging 25 - 30 pounds, with 49.5 the jackpot fish. John and I each had 33 fish, around 1000 pounds total weight.
We had one small pick-up truck in which to carry around 1000#s of rock hard frozen yellowtail. We called the food bank and donated most of the fish.
Yellowtail won't make you pray to the tuna god at the back of the boat, but they will pin you to the rail and you cannot, absolutely cannot raise your rod up enough to get one turn of the reel on them. You pull up, try to get a turn, get slammed down, loose some more line, get rocked, re-tie, do it again.
Long range trips are out of reach for most fishermen, but if you ever get the chance, take it! It is truly the trip of a lifetime!
