Had a fantastic trip aboard the Cortez out of Seaforth Sportfishing. Although the weather was foul we had eager anglers and excellent fishing prospects. San Diego was experiencing a low pressure system that was bringing down light to medium showers, however the crew was hopeful that the morning would bring a break to the nagging rain. Captain Jim Hughs prepared the group, who were ripe with excitement, with a run down of our overall strategy for the following day. We would be heading down the coast approximately 90 miles from San Diego to look for kelps and hopefully troller knock downs. The following morning we awoke to clear skies which was a fantastic relief. As most of the anglers were getting up and at 'em we had all four trollers go off; I heard the deckhands yelling "hook up", and everyone started to scramble. I was watching the corner troller and landed a beautiful 12lb er. All the fish hooked managed to hit the deck and we started off the morning with four nice yellowfin. With such a fantastic start I knew that the trip was really going to be a great time. After I finished up breakfast which was top of the line, I managed to go outside just as we slide up on the first kelp. I watched the yellows charged the boat as the deck hands threw scoops of bait into the water. I had never seen so many yellowtail in one area!

As soon as most of the guys got bait in the water they were hooked up, "Fresh One, Hook Up!" I heard everyone yelling. The crew did a great job keeping people untangled and tagged and stowed the fish so the passengers could get right back into the water. Just as quickly as the fish got on our chum line the seemed to vanish. Luckily most everyone had hooked and were very anxious to chat about the chaos that had just unfolded! With the fish box very full I was very happy to see the crew loading the fish into the RSW.

The Cortez has a RSW fish hold which is premium technology and kept all of our fish sashimi grade! The rest of the day continued with great yellowtail fishing. We had the crew on the look out and found every piece of kelp in the area. I was very impressed with the overall level of expertise displayed by the entire crew and especially the Captain. We picked up fish at most of the kelps the rest of the morning. We didn't find another wide open bite like the first stop but we managed to pick away at very good numbers and put fish on the boat for all the passengers. After we had near limits we made the turn toward home. We had a great dinner we kicked back and watched a couple movies on the flat screen. We arrived back at Seaforth around 9:30 pm as the Cortez had gone the extra distance to put the fish on board. Thanks again to the entire Cortez outfit, they are truly first class and will put you on the fish.