By Arnie Seko

The Let’s Talk Hookup Gamakatsu 2 Day Trip on the Liberty had been sold
out for months. The series of trips on the Liberty have
very popular and successful. When the landing called all the passengers the
morning of the trip, we all knew Captain Taro Takeuchi
had something planned for all of us. We were all
fired up and ready to go out, some of us really fired
up, with a few showing up as early as 9am! Capt
Taro moved up the departure time to 7pm, so that
made us feel he wanted to go a long distance on that
first night. Capt Taro and the crew had the boat
fueled and loaded with bait before we even boarded.
Once aboard, Taro made the announcement that our
destination was the Cortez Bank. We prepared our
tackle for yellowtail and bluefin before turning in for
the night with anticipation of the next day.
We made it to the Cortez at first light. We had
several stops with mostly bonito and rockfish, good
things to get the anglers into the swing of things. We
started to hit spots with good grade yellowtail which
really got everyone excited. After lunch, we started
to make our move to the bluefin ground, the Tanner
Bank. We continue to fish for bluefin on the surface
until dinner with not a lot of luck.
After dinner, Capt Taro gave us the game plan for the
evening, nighttime deep drop bluefin fishing. The
crew helped us tie on knife jigs and the like. Taro put
us on a spot around 9pm and we started to drop our
jigs down to the depths that he saw the fish on the
meter. We hadn’t slept very much and honestly, I
was getting pretty tired. I heard Nano the deckhand
yell for me, he had managed to hook one. He gave
me the rod and the fight was on. The fish pulled
really hard, took me from the port rail up and around
the starboard corner. Nano told me to put the rod in

low as we rounded the rail. Up the starboard side we
went to the bow. Nano helped me traverse the
anchor and the fish settled and we had it pinwheeling
on the bow. After awhile, the fish was at deep color
as I had a peek over the rail. Man that fish was the
size of hood of my F-250! A few more cranks and the
boys got the gaffs in him and over the rail he came.
Taro was cheering from the wheelhouse. Everyone
was giving me high fives and congratulating me. I was
astounded when the boys told me how big the fish
was, 130lbs! It was my personal best bluefin. On that
same stop, Randy Takeshita, a LTH and Liberty
regular, landed a 100lb, and CCA SD Chapter Member
Mike Uyeda landed the best one of the trip, a 150
pounder!! Well it was safe to say I was no longer
sleepy and continued to fish to try and get another
one, but I finally ran out of gas around 2am. I woke
up at 4:30am to see the last bluefin come over the
rail. A total of 28 bluefin came over the rail that
night. We started to travel to our next area and all of
the anglers got some very much needed sleep.
The target of day two was dorado. We had traveled
south east of Catalina Island. We found a very large
kelp that metered a ton of fish, it was dorado. The
fish didn’t respond to our bait at first. After the third
pass, we started to hook up. Two, then 5, then 8, it
was on! We saw unusual things too, like a mola mola
swimming right up to the stern. We noticed the bite
had slowed, then a juvenile marlin jumped out of the
water. That
all gave us a “what?” moment. The marlin left and
the bite resumed. We had to have been on this kelp
for quite some time. We had caught all the dorado
we wanted, so what do you do, hand the spot off to
another boat! The Mustang, also a Fishermans
Landing boat was in the area so Taro did the good guy

thing, called them in. As we drove away, it was very
satisfying to see the Mustang continue the bite. We
called it a trip and started the ride back home.
Everyone was very happy with their catch, as well as
the trip. Another successful LTH Gamakatsu Liberty 2
day trip!
One of the things about this trip that made it great
was the passengers. Everyone fished well together,
making polite corrections when necessary and helped
and cheered each other on. Around half of the
passengers were on previous LTH Liberty trips. It was
awesome to see so many familiar faces. There are
not enough accolades for Capt. Taro and his
outstanding crew; Ryan, Anthony, Paul, Nano, Corey
and of course Sara. Sara kept us well fed and was out
there helping at the rail. A big thanks goes out to all
the sponsors who provided all the giveaways,
Shimano, Aftco, Gamakatsu, Seguar, and others I may
have forgotten. The passengers really appreciated
everything. I also want to thank Pete Gray for letting
me host this trip. Pete was leaving on the Islander 1
½ day kayak trip as we arrived and he came out to see
that we had such a successful trip.
Until next time, tight lines anglers!