What a story...
53 Marlin in five days of fishing. An epic voyage from Marina Del Rey to Cabo San Lucas in November 2007. The crew of the Non-Taxing consisted of Carl Lambert, Captain Ken Cohen, Keith Lambert, Rock Gosselin, and David Fine. We left Marina Del Rey at 11 pm on the 8th of November 2007.
Traveling to San Diego we put on 6 scoops of Mackerel and Sardines. We traversed to Ensenada to pick up Jesus Enrique Aguilera our ever diligent, energetic and hardcore fisherman deckhand. We took the fuel dock’s last 1400 gallons of fuel. We were hoping to get closer to 2000.
Anglers David, Carl, Keith and Rock
photo by Capt Ken.
As we were traveling down towards the Theitus Bank, we were so close to Turtle Bay I could not resist the opportunity to take on more fuel “just in case”. We slid in just after daybreak and took on 584 gallons of fuel and changed filters and continued on our way.
We reached the top of the ridge that extends down to the Theitus Bank. We reached the top of the bank at first light. David Fine caught the first Marlin before noon on Monday. I caught another one in the afternoon. We caught about 15 small Tuna during the late afternoon. As the sun went down we watched the green flash. I turned on the underwater lights and continued trolling with our jigs. We were soon rewarded in the pitch blackness as the marauder went off, and Keith caught his first Marlin for the trip.
We anchored at Santa Maria Bay on Monday night, and when we awoke we were surrounded by a mass of bait. We loaded over a hundred pieces of Mackerel in about 30 minutes. We were off for the thousand fathom curve. We went out and then turned left and went down toward Tosca. As we got closer I saw some friends on the horizon, the Donna C and Pacific Pioneer. We were trying to make our way down to where they were, but we got stopped by birds and schools of feeding Marlin. It was total mayhem.
Photo of 4 men hooked up to marlin.
We soon took the jigs out of the water and only tossed 3 or 4 baits at a time. At one time we had five rods bent and we caught three of the five. At one point when we were down to the four they were all going at the four points of the compass, so we were all sitting dead in the water. I pulled hook after twenty minutes, which was just fine. We still got three of the five. When my buddies caught up to us from down below they got in on the action as well. The total count for the day was 17 Marlin. Each of us caught 4 Marlin apiece and Jesus managed to get one in between expertly manning the cockpit and spotting the fish. All our Marlin were within a two square mile patch of water. The birds would come down and crash and the Marlin would come up, it was a sight to behold, three and four fish swirling under the swim step as you cast, unbelievable!
We were tired and went the eight miles down to Tosca to anchor, we re-rigged and went to heavier tackle and larger capacity reels. We picked up 150-200 Mackerel that night in the lights.
David and Rock on a Double hookup on the bow!
Wednesday morning we went back up to the same spot and we picked up 1 or 2 in the morning and then when the tide came up the fish came up to feed and the birds came down. It was even more amazing then the day before. Everyone was determined to work hard and catch as many as we could for the day. Since we had practiced the day before we were able to put a more concentrated effort into catching and releasing these fine fish.
Carl relaxing for a moment. Note the other yachts.
After everyone had caught 4 or 5 I decided to drop down and start using lighter tackle. I caught and released a Marlin on 8 lb Dacron line in about 40 minutes. Rocky managed to release a Marlin from the other end of the boat while I was catching my 8 lb Marlin. I even broke out my 80 lb Dacron Swordfish rig to give it a try from a dead boat. Everything was going well but I broke the 80 lb leader when I tried to horse him in. Oh well!
Capt Ken came down to have a hand at releasing a fish
As we were driving back to Tosca that evening we passed a trailing Marlin and no one even wanted to cast on it anymore. Total count for the day was 25 fish total, a new record for the boat!
hard to read but this is a shot of the GPS chart/map screen.
As we were coming into the Tosca anchorage at night, we discovered it was very crowded with the FUBAR fleet. Big Mama, Unreel, and My Suzy just to name a few.
Keith with a Dorado on Thursday on the way to Lusitanian Bank
Thursday we decided to take a slow day and we left the anchorage around 11am after a fantastic lobster omelet breakfast cooked by our chef Rocky. We decided that we wanted something different for the day and we would go 30 miles outside to the Lusitania Bank, where I had caught a Swordfish on the maiden voyage two years before. We caught a half a dozen Yellowtail close to shore.
Then traveling out before we got to the bank we caught 12 Tuna. An hour before dark I turned on the radar and reached out and found eight marks beyond the reported Lusitania Bank. Traveling there we discovered the San Diego Tuna Fleet drifting on a high spot of 540 feet.
Jusus about to load the fish hold.
Happy to have lots of fine fish to clean!
Drifting in the sloppy water in twenty knots of wind was uncomfortable but we were having fun. We put the cylumes and twelve ounce sinkers and dropped down. We put the underwater lights on as well. Ken wondered why the Tuna boats from San Diego did not have underwater lights. We were soon to find out why. The Humboldt Squid, up to 50 lbs, attacked our baits down deep. The little squids floated for us as well but we did not catch any. During the trip down we had all wondered whether anyone we knew had caught a Marlin at night, we were soon to find out the answer to our question. Rocky was looking in the lights and said “something just went by that was bigger than me”! Thirty-five seconds later as David Fine was dropping the spectra down, it got bit and ripped. With the cylume we could see it going aerial in the dark. After 15 minutes he had a Marlin at the swim step for a release in the dark.
Carl and the Tuna estimated at 60#
We moved back up wind and set up another drift. This time we left the underwater lights off. I caught a 60 lb yellowtail without a cylume or weight. At 11pm we left for the finger bank. The seas were sloppy and coming from the outside we had a quartering sea which was a little uncomfortable. I do not think anyone really slept well that night. I usually took the 4 to 6am watch so that I could pick a spot for fishing. As we trolled across the Finger I metered bait that turned my screen completely red. We have a habit of describing our bait balls as states, countries or continents. This one looked like the lost continent of Tangia!
After a few hours of seeing no fish, the Marlin finally came up to feed. Keith started things off with the first fish, and David and Rocky each got a Marlin. We were at 49, and I said whoever gets the 50th gets to buy drinks. Keith had the fiftieth on but unfortunately got spooled while we had a double Dorado going. In hindsight we should have backed easily up on his fish on one engine and forgot the Dorado. Oh well.
Finally the fiftieth marlin came in on 30 lb test line and almost spooled me before I got him slowed down. The line had been stretched by so many fish and was looking a little white. However, after twenty minutes we finally got him to come up from his sulking position down deep. We released the fiftieth fish for the trip at 1pm. Keith caught three more Marlin that day as we went down the line. When we got to the Golden Gate there were feeders everywhere again and for awhile as we were sliding down it looked a picket fence across the swells.
Rocky was preparing our gourmet meal and was spotting fish from the galley. It is a little harder to catch multiple fish when only using one engine. We ended up with 7 Marlin for the day and 7 Dorado from 25-35 lbs. We dropped anchor in the bay at Cabo at 9pm, tired but happy from a wonderful, epic voyage.
In the three days we actually fished the Marlin Banks we caught 49 Marlin. The other 4 Marlin were caught incidentally on lures while traveling and one at night. I estimate that we caught over seven thousand pounds of Marlin and five hundred pounds of Tuna and Dorado. An epic week by any measure.
Carl Lambert
