Mass Load: Blood in the Water

I'm going to start off here by sailing right off into the sunset..

about 115 miles off into the sunset anyway. After a long week of selling bushes there is almost nothing I enjoy more than heading out to sea on an adventure of unknown proportions...or long romantic walks on the beach. But on this particular weekend it was the former, and we left Point Loma heading southwest at 197 degrees, dragging trolling lures behind the boat the whole way. The plan was to catch a bunch of tuna on the way out, and hang the carcasses over the side, while we drifted in the night with the wind and current, in hopes of attracting some mako sharks well offshore. Catch tuna we did...

We kept our eyes open for kelp paddies(kelp stringers that have broken off from the bottom and floated out to sea) which may have recently attracted some fish with the allure of some shade and structure, an oasis in a liquid desert if you will. Here is one we happened to drift up on in the darkness.

We spotted several of these kelp paddies during the day and managed to capture an unusually wide array of pelagic fish species: yellowfin tuna(above), bluefin tuna, albacore tuna, skipjack tuna, and yellowtail. So we filleted our catch for the day, saved the carcasses, and shut off the engines. As the others helped prepare dinner I strung our fish parts and hung them over the side. After dinner we chummed a little by tossing bits of skipjack over the side, and then went to bed. It wasn't until 5am that my dad had got up to pee and spotted something under the lights. He woke me up and said there was a shark on the bait and that 2 of the 3 baits were gone! I hoppedup, rigged a slab of skipjack, and tossed it in the water. Awhile later, this was in the boat...