George Van Zant on Outdoors: More cardinal rules of fishing

This week we’re going down a few more thoughtful avenues with the continuation of my 10 Cardinal Rules of Fishing.

No. 6: Never leave a hot bite

That’s right, not even while all the big ones are tripping and flopping at your feet. I say that tongue in cheek because it just happened to me on a white sea bass fishing story after I slid and fell from the boat in a full-swan dive position. There were at least 12 30-pound fish boiling and skidding around the 25-foot boat. Then, just like someone switched the light switch, pow! They were gone! So was I.

I fell off the ste and chased the school away. It was the last we ever saw of them.

We fished as hard as possible but didn’t see hide-nor-hair of that school for the remaining three days. After that incident, we tried like crazy to get that school back but never did. The four of us anglers hooked three or four WSB each but not another was landed after several attempts on the hot spot. But I had recorded the GPS numbers and every time in the future I head for the east end, I’ll cover the bases.

When we get into position over large underwater obstacles, depth finders take over and record the GPS position of the bait schools, while the currents drift baits from outside the area and down into the bait schools for at least one drift through the mass. The GPS position is then recorded in the joual for future reference. Each time we uncover that easte current, we spend plenty of time fishing all the structures along the current, especially if the seawater is near 60 degrees.

Which brings up a point of clarification and vocabulary that all West Coast skippers need to know. Many times your Marine Radio band will sound off to some listeners and say, ”How’s the fishing?” The reaction will be, “We are picking away,” which means fishing could be better. Or ”We are having a wide-open bite,” meaning get over here, there is room for all. Or, be patient, they will start biting soon. Patience is a virtue that all anglers need to have. In the end, it always pays off. That old rule finds its way to the top when you notice anglers like my son Cal fishing the same trout. It’s in the stream for an hour because he knows lurking in the riffle is a massive fish waiting for that magic bait to drift down to him.

When you have a spot that you believe holds a big one, don’t get ants in your pants. Remember your goal is to release the big ones because the Almighty meant them to be caught by more than one angler.

No. 7: Hooks matter

Nothing can be more important than a sharp hook and the proper size of a hook. The hooks are now manufactured so sharp it’s scary. Tying them to your leaders and ruing line is an experience that’s downright dangerous. The mission should be done in calm conditions. If you ever get stuck, hopefully you pass the barb of the hook under the skin and out the other side.

Advertisement

Catching the fish and the battle that follows the hook-up brings forth important techniques that need to be deployed or risk immediate loss of a beautiful catch or at least one you can photograph and brag about the rest of your living years. When we talk about hook-up, that means after you get a fish to grab your bait, usually you let the fish run off some line while the reel is in free spool, then you throw the reel to in-gear and rear back as hard as you can and set the hook.

From that point in the battle, you never ease up on the pressure and pump so that the rod never allows your ruing line to slack off at any part of the pumping process. That means you never let the line back down off the reel, so that the pressure on the reel is lost.

Using circle hooks calls for a different technique on the pick-up. After the target fish picks up the bait, it runs off smoothly while the reel is out of gear. After a short run, you throw the reel in gear but don’t jerk the reel back down, slowly wind back until strong resistance is felt and then start the pumping process. Circle hooks slide around and lock in the coer of the target fish’s mouth, where it is almost impossible to back out of a hook-up.

Reel drags are meant to adjust reel pressure while the target fish is pulling hard against the reel pressure, thus creating a tiring pressure against the target fish. An example is that sometimes 6-8 hours is what it takes to wear out a swordfish. That kind of wear and tear becomes brutal on the reel drags. After some of these tuna fights, a new reel becomes necessary to change the reel drags no matter the size of the reel.

Bluefin tuna

It looks like the offshore tuna are making headlines. Last week, the Top Gun 80 out of H&M Landing ran into schools of bluefin tuna and they very quickly limited out. Unprepared, they could handle only fish from 16-30 pound grade. Yes the San Diego 3/4 day sport boat also got into the wild action. By now, every available fishing boat in San Diego should be near to filling its hold with tuna. Also, the yellowtail got into the action up and down the SoCal coastline, especially for those that practice good yo-yo fishing techniques.