Quote:
Originally Posted by CurtyL
I'd have released those two, but thats just me. Not sayin anything. I hope they tasted good. Man it's been a slow summer....
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".....and the Bronze goes to......."
Actually fishing has been fantastic this summer, maybe you just need to get some time on the water.
As to the size, those small ones make terrific sashimi. If it was a slow day and larger fish were not around I might take one or two but I'd be tempted to slice one up on the water.
This debate reminds me of something that happened years ago.
We were fishing a skiff off of Redondo during El Nino~ looking for Dorado near the ship channel and found a paddy loaded with hundreds of tiny Yellows 10 to 18 inches long. By far the smallest yellows I've seen, and I've never seen so many in one place, it was like a huge micro yellowtail baitball.
It was slow day flat calm and we had not found any other fish, so we broke out our bait outfits and started catching them on 4 pound spinning gear. Totally wide open, just catch and release a total blast but we did keep a few that swallowed the hook. Pretty soon we see the Redondo Special a sportboat that was also looking for Dorado coming our way.
We fired up and moved hoping they wouldn't find that paddy but they did anyway, and they just slaughtered them catching more of them then we could of counted. Needless to say it kind of pissed us off.
A few days later we went out again and caught maybe three Dorado in the channel off paddies, and since we ended up near the west end of Catalina we decided to anchor up at Arrowhead point and fish them a second day.
In the morning I woke up, started tossing the dead dines out of the bait tank, when suddenly there was a big splash off the stern. I looked over the side and in the crystal clear Cat water saw a huge school of tails in the 10 to 15 lbs class. Wide open doesn't do it justice. My then girlfriend Jenny who had no idea how to fish caught maybe half a dozen just hooking baits on 40 pound, and dangling them out on three feet of line and watching the yellows smash them right in front of her.
I have no idea how many we kept. After a while my buddy and I just went to Iron and released them. The limit was ten a piece. We filled our ice chests and then the fish hold. Then we just sat around drinking beer tossing dines in the water watching the show as the fish chased them around the boat. On the way back we caught and released several more Dorado, just an amazing trip.
Later I posted a report of our trip online there were some bashers that said stupid things like guys like us were going to ruin Yellowtail fishing forever , others that knew what was going on and had a real concept of just how many fish had come up from Mexico were like: "Yeah Dude!!! Epic fishing!!! Congrats!!!"
The reply I remember most though was from a guy who was obviously stoked and said he'd just had an epic trip too. Turns out he was on the Redondo Special the day they found our paddy, and to him that trip was amazingly epic. They might of been small but to him wide open yellows were wide open yellows, if you get my drift, and all he saw was wide open fishing for good eating fish.
It really made me think. Ultimately though our trip was more respectable since we had better quality fish, those guys on the special taking home sacks of firecracker yellows probably did not do any more damage to the resource then we did, and considering how rarely most of those guys had caught yellows to them their day was probably just as epic if not more so then ours.
Everyone only sees their particular perspective. For me something like seeing guys taking little Threshers under ten feet seems kinda stupid and sick, but to them it's a big deal, and maybe the best fishing they ever had.
Small butts, little yellows, a just legal seabass, may seem like nothing to some but to others they are personal bests or even trophies. Everyone likes to catch big fish, everyone likes to show them off, but not everyone can consistently catch them. The idea here is to encourage others, not give them a hard time or say their fish don't measure up in some ways.
In that light as long as laws are not broken, I'd say lighten up. It's just two fish, no doubt he ate them, and it's just kayak fishing not the some rod and reel Olympics
