By Pete Gray

Our 6-day Shogun trip was pitched a curve ball this year by the denial of the Guadalupe Island permits by the Mexican government. In past years, it’s an easy decision. Leave Fishermans Landing, stop in Ensenada to clear customs and immigration, then off to Guadalupe.  This year, Captain Conor was in charge of a great crew as we headed south to fish yellowtail along the baja coast.  The weather was up and our long ride had most of the choppy ocean behind us.  We arrived at our destination in the evening and started looking around.  We found a few biting yellowtail as the sun set, but the real action started the next morning.  Fantastic fishing for 10-to-30-pound yellowtail.  They ate almost anything!  Live sardine, yo-yo and surface iron accounted for most of the bites.  Super fun fishing and in just a few hours we had limits and headed north to a zone of small yellowfin off Colonette.  The weather was challenging but the 90 foot all steel Shogun is a beast and handles the weather better than most.  We arrived the next morning in the zone, and it wasn’t long before the jigs went of the sound “hookup” stopped the boat.    The fish were small (5 to 10 pounds) but the action was hot and again they ate live bait, yo-yo and surface iron.  Fun action again for a few hours.  We were not far from the famous Colonette rock cod grounds, so I convinced Captain Conner to do a few drifts.  He found some spots and we caught a bunch of tasty reds.  Then we continued our trek north to the back side of San Clemente Island where the bluefin tuna had been biting.  The weather was progressively getting worse and the next morning we arrived at the grounds and were met by huge swells and lots of wind. There were 3 fish caught, Ron Lane caught a 120, Greg from Idaho caught a 150 and another passenger caught a nice one too until the decision was made the weather was getting too dangerous to fish, so we worked east to better weather and a report of some schools of “foamers” which we never found. Reports said the weather was starting to come down so that evening we worked our way back to “the zone”. We had a “plunker” bite on a nice grade of bluefin tuna most of the day and managed to land 26 for the 25 passengers.  It was not easy to get a bite, but some anglers who stuck with 40-to-50-pound test were rewarded with bluefin from 40 to 110 pounds.  Some had better success getting a bite on 30, but the casualties were high. Such a great group of people on this trip, most are regulars that work well together and get along well.  Most are anxious to share and help, which is part of what makes this trip so fun.

The end result after a lot of sea miles and tons of effort by the crew was a great load of fish.  My fish went to Fishermans Processing and was in fine shape.  The crew monitored the RSW fish hold well, and it paid great dividends in the quality at the dock.  If you ride the Shogun and several other boats and use Fishermans Processing as your processor, you never need to touch your fish at the dock.  The Fishermans Processing crew does it all for you.  Others are not so lucky and had to spend a lot of time in the early morning darkness sorting and hauling around fish.

We are already looking forward to our 6-day Shogun trip next year, and by all indications we will return to Guadalupe Island.  The trip is already sold out, but if you would like to get on a wait list call Jen at the LoPreste Sportfishing office at 619-226-8030. Jen does an amazing job of keeping everything organized and is a huge part of the success of the operation.