American Angler Long Range Trip

The 2009 Accurate sponsored American Angler trip left Point Loma at 6 PM on Jan 5 for 10.5 days of the most beautiful weather that I have ever experienced on a long range fishing trip. By leaving in the evening the logistic of the traveling time works out that we get to fish 6 days at the lower banks above Cabo San Lucas, in search of the large Yellowfin tuna. Accurate Fishing Products supplied 40 ATD and Boss two speed reels along with Cal Star and Seeker rods for all passengers to use during the trip. All reels have either Izorline, Blackwater or JB spectra so the passengers are only responsible for the top shot on the outfit(s) that they borrow.

With generous prizes provided by Accurate, Izorline, Pelagic, Smitty Belts, Baja Fish Gear, Yo’s Custom Rods, Salas Lures and Fishing Videos, I started giving away prizes to all passengers from the very first night. These included 6X Jr Salas Jigs for all, 2009 Calenders from Fishing Videos for all, Accurate T-shirts for all and gift cards from Baja Fish Gear for all. Izorline provided a 2KG spool of 135# blue First String mono for all the passengers to use and is the perfect mono to make top shots for the 2-speed Accurate reels. This is the line you want to be using for the best chance of successfully landing the 200# plus yellowfin tuna. In addition, we held drawings for Pelagic hats and shirts, Izorline spectra and XXX line, Accurate upgrade reel handles, and some very special mono/spectra rigging tools.

I usually have a Daily Derby prize for the biggest fish, but I wanted the passengers to be able to use some of the prizes on this trip so I awarded some Daily Derby prizes before the fishing began. Jim Stein won a set of hollow splicing needles donated by Smitty Belts. Dr. Corey, Burak, Feliz Weaver, Jim Hart, Joe Gigliotti and Ted Williams were the lucky winners of Pelagic gloves.

On the morning of the 3rd day, we arrive at the upper end of the 300# bank. It didn’t take long for the crew to spot “blackies” that were holding big tuna. Skipper Brian Kiohara put the boat in position and the rest was up to us. The big fish results for the first day was Ted Windham 232#, Jeff Price 240#, Jim Hart 196# on a Accurate 30, Harvey Rosen 124# on a Accurate 50, and Jim Stein 185#. We also boated two wahoo (one with a pink Salas 6X jr).

On the 2nd day of fishing, we woke up with fish under the boat. Randy Rich landed the first tuna before sunup. Dr. Corey Burak landed the big fish for the day, which was 267#. Corey also landed a 182# YFT using a Blue/White Salas 6X jig and 60# Izorline mono. Thanks to crew member Bobby (aka Bubbles) for giving Corey a hand with the less than minimum standard equipment on that fish. Ray Coombs landed a 137# kite tuna and Fred Best had a 140# kite fish.

The next day skipper Brian put us on a lot of fish but it was real tough to get a bite. Dan Spiegel landed the biggest fish of the day (126#) and won the Daily Derby prize of a Accurate Boss reel. Fred Best landed a 114# for second best of the day.

On the 4th fishing day, we anchored up on the Morgan Bank to try for some of the more nominal size tuna. We all hooked and landed several of the 30# to 100# tunas and had a great time. Jeff Price had the big fish for the day (100# YFT) and won the Daily Derby of a $50 certificate towads a custom rod from Yo’s. Dan Speigle used a dropper loop to land several Tan Grouper and a outstanding 43# yellowtail.

On the 5th fishing day, it was back to Lucitania bank looking for the giants. Now we were fishing with the Royal Star. Together both boats were able to get on schools of Cows that were blowing completely out of the water. Unfortunately they were chasing schools of squid and did not pay much attention to our choice sardines or mackeral. We did manage to get a few Cows to make a mistake. Joe Gigliotti 180#, Joe El-Deiry 227#, Joe Cribben 174#, (at this point I was going to change my name to Joe) Dan Spiegle 208# and Felix Weaver 279 (the largest fish of the trip). Since you can only win on Daily Derby prize for the trip, Joe El-Deiry was the winner of a 2-speed Boss reel. Boy was Joe a happy camper.

On the last day of fishing, we decide to spend one more day trying to catch a fish of a lifetime. We saw Cows jumping out of the water all over the place. Even as close as 10 ft from the boat. At one stop, we all dropped in as Captain Brian slid the boat to a stop with a big heard of Cows jumping out of the water on the port side and crossing right over our baits. The two lucky anglers were Ron Volmer and Randy Rich. Scott Wolf hook the last fish after the smoke cleared. Large fish for the day went to Scott Wolf where he won Pelagic wear for the Daily Derby.

In summary, we landed 6 Cows and 9 big fish between 100# and 196#. The biggest fish for the trip was landed by Felix Weaver using a ATD-50W that was one of the loaner gear provided free on this trip. Everyone learned something new about fishing for the big tuna and the cooperation between the passengers was phenomenal. Many passengers that signed up by themselves had new friends when they walked off the American Angler 10.5 days later. We all had a great vacation and caught some big fish. I have to commend the American Angler staff for the fantastic job they did on; finding fish, line untangling, individualized big fish mentoring and delicious meals/snacks. Hope to see many of this years passengers next year as well as new passengers looking for a good time and a chance to use Accurate fishing products to land a fish of a lifetime.

Gary Teraoka
Accurate Pro-Staff