#2 For Those Who Serve

3/6/26

The original plan was to fish Saturday with my buddy who was in town visiting home, but the weather report looked windy. We used to fish together back when we were just kids, but he joined the Military and now the chance to fish with him is hard to come by. The decision was clear, play hooky and go on a Friday. We got ourselves a nice Yellowtail the week before, so we decided to try to find them again. It was a calm morning in La Jolla. The ocean seemed quiet and water temp was 62 in the morning. We hit the usual spots and did not see the same life we have been seeing lately. We picked away and released about a half a dozen bonito, but we were looking for more. Despite quiet surface activity all morning, around noon mackerel started popping. We had been seeing good marks on our sonar as we were trolling around. I snapped a quick picture of my buddy with a bonito, threw it back, and thought maybe this is the best we can get today. Other boats started to leave, and La Jolla became even quieter than before.

Then just after slack high tide we got the opportunity we were hoping for. Shortly after we deployed our Pink Rapala, the reel starts screaming. Hook up! After a quick fight, we gaffed a nice White Sea Bass. Now we were really smiling. We decided to do another lap around the edge we were working, and after working really hard to keep the rapalas clean we were rewarded with another fish. This time the fight was a bit more exciting, with the fish turning at the boat full speed. The head shakes reminded us of the week before, and we knew it was a yellowtail. We got it to the boat quick and gaffed it. Our smiles were even bigger! This yellowtail was pushing 30 lbs. At this point we were pretty stoked on how the day was going, and being one of the only boats out there we thought why not try another lap? As if the day couldn’t get any better, we find ourselves with another nice yellow on the line, gaff it, put it on some ice.

I haven’t seen my buddy in almost 10 years. I have some of the best memories fishing with him. I thank him for his service. Today La Jolla thanked him and gifted him with 3 nice fish, all being his new personal bests.