Results and Analysis:
2009 TYD Tournament
The 2009 Beyond The Breakwater TYD Tournament was held on August 8, 2009. Twelve contestants from all over the Southland fished the offshore waters surrounding San Diego.
A weather front with 25 mph winds and 8 foot/6 second swells passed through the area just days prior to the event, nearly causing the contest to be cancelled. Conditions settled down by Saturday, but the crazy weather wreaked havoc with the fishing. The fish were scattered, and became skittish and unwilling to bite. In the end, only one fish, a 6lb 10oz yellowtail, was submitted for score, giving the win to Team Pacific 1 from Los Angeles. This article has the final results, and discusses the tackle and techniques used by the contestants.
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Strategery and Tactics | |
Equipment Notes | |
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Weather: Who Can You Trust?
Have you ever wondered why there are independent companies that forecast the weather? After all, with a big goverment agency like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) working on weather forecasting, you'd think that, well, you know, they'd be right most of the time...
Unfortunately, that's not been the case lately here in Southern California. At least, not for the offshore waters where we fish. On the Monday before the tournament, NOAA forecasts called for small swells, and 5-10 mph breezes, but people working the local banks and down into Mexican waters found reality to be far different.
They were met by 20-25 mph winds and 6-8' swells with a 4-6 second interval (Can you say "washing machine"?). One of the party boats from San Diego returned to port after taking a large wave across the stern when they stopped after a jig strike.
With the bad wind and swell conditions continuing into Tuesday, things looked a pretty grim for the tournament on Saturday. If things did not improve by Thursday, it would be necessary to cancel the event due to safety concerns.
The NOAA forecasts, of course, continued to predict small, long-period swells, and light breezes. Clearly not reliable. However, we found a link to Buoyweather.com on the Fishdope fishing report website, and discovered that their reports and forecasts very closely matched the conditions observed by people on the water. Buoyweather.com predicted that Saturday would see 4' 16 second swells, and 10-15 mph winds - much more believable, and fishable, if not ideal, conditions. The decision was made to hold the tournament.
A quick poll of several contestants confirmed that people wanted to give it a shot, despite the likelihood of poor fishing due to unsettled conditions. That was fortunate, because it wouyld have been extremely difficult to rearrange summer schedules on short notice.
And What About the Fishing?
TYD stands for Tuna - Yellowtail - Dorado. All three species had been caught in the days preceding the bad weather, but none in great numbers or with any consistency. At least, not within one-day range of the boats in the tournament.
Yellowfin and bluefin tuna schools had been seen breaking water and chasing bait, but the fish would come up and go down before anglers could reach them. Albacore were being caught occasionally on the troll, but very few fish had been caught on bait, and no schools of breaking fish had been seen.
Yellowtail and dorado were both being seen around kelp paddies, but were not that interested in eating. Sometimes a fish or two would be caught on bait, but many times fish could be seen swiming around the paddy, either ignoring everything thrown at them, or they would sink out after showing some interest.
Most contestants gravitated towards the strategy of trolling through likely areas, looking for a jig strike to locate a school of fish. Once a school was located, live sardines or anchovies would be thrown as chum, in order to draw the fish close enough to be reached with flies. If a kelp paddy was spotted while trolling, the boat would stop and fish it. This is a typical pattern for finding fish offshore in Southern California, when there is a strong likelyhood of encountering free-swimming tuna schools in addition to fish hanging out around floating debris. Contestants using this tactic covered areas as far south as the Hidden Bank, up to the 182 Fathom Bank to the north.
Team Pacific 1, on the other hand, chose a "run and gun" strategy. They basically eschewed trolling for covering more ground at high speed, stopping only for kelp paddies or breaking fish. Vince Saint, who skippered Team Pacific 1's 32' World Cat (checked out through Steve Petit's membership in the Outer Banks Boat Club) relates:
"The strategy early on was to look for kelps (yellowtail and dodo's) around the 230 area first, where there was a nice pocket of cholorphyll built up. There was a strong 1-1.5 degree temp break that started NW of the 230 and ran down to the Hidden Bank. Plan was to check the 230 and then run SE towards the lower Hidden. I figured that was going to take up a majority of our time."
"With the weather forecasted to be up, and time at a premium (read this as forced to "travel more slowly"), I suggested we avoid the West Fly area (even though it looked juicy) due to weather. That area bit pretty good on Saturday."
"I figured if we could get a yellowtail and dodo early, we would have a better chance at some tuna later in the day off troll strikes. That obviously did not pan out, and I wanted to go into Middle Grounds (editor's note: Coronado Islands) to check out the yellowtail bite, but the guys wanted to stay offshore. Turns out the yellows at Middles were hungry. Shoulda, woulda, coulda..."
"Anyhow, we ran back up to the original area that had a lot of really warm, greenish water. Marked lots of un-hungry meter fish before we ran out of time."
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