Mid Winter Meat Run....
Thought this story might warm your guys up as we sit through this freakin azz cold Arizona New Years Eve....
Seven years ago to the day tomorrow I was rigged and ready to prove to myself and and anyone else that fish can be caught on any day in the Gulf of California.
I'm sure that everyone has read about "chummin" and the chum buckets that the guys on the east coast rig up. I've used the blood and guts trails off of San Diego to bring in Mako's but it has never worked out of RP. So I came up with a plan that took six months to mastermind. I started saving every bit of leftover marine animal body parts that I could get hold of. This included fish heads and guts, the left over inedibles from Pearl Oysters, Giant Pen Shells, smelly old squid etc. By December I had two of those five gallon plastic "Homer" buckets full and frozen with the stinking mess. Earlier in the year I found one of those old timey hand operated meat grinders and bolted it to one of those gunnel rod holder fish cleaning tables.
That 2007 New Years Day was just like today, cold and dreary. We forced ourselves outa bed, launched the boat at the ramp in the Old Port and took off for Isla San Jorge. The Sea was flat and we made it there in record time. There is a long rocky reef that runs South from the island and we anchored on it. I tossed a few bits of iron down with no success. So now was the time for "Mr. Chum Grinder". It was slack tide and I was grindin away and through the greasy brown cloud I could see fish commin up from the depths. We got out some lightweight spinning outfits and just dropped em below the boat. Instant action! Every drop got a trigger, cabrilla or lizard fish. Pretty soon we started seeing some big boys cruzin in for the action. I upgraded our gear to heavier spinnin outfits and midsized chrome spoons and on the first drop got a five pound Yellowtail. Within a few minutes we had a dozen Yellowtail on the deck and my wife starts yelling about something that was too big for her to handle. I take over and haul in the biggest Sierra that I had ever seen. It was about forty inches long, about twelve pounds and had no gold spots on the sides. As it turns out, after a consult late with Gene Kira we determine that the fish and ten more just like it were the Monterrey Sierra.
That day we brought in over one hundred fish in a matter of a few hours. Also, the trip home was one on the coldest and wettest ever. We had to stop a few miles north of the Island and put on wetsuits to make it back through eight foot swells to the harbor.
JJ
