Took another solo trip, this time for deep water rock cod in Mexican waters (the season is closed in US waters). Fished the South 9 Mile Bank, in 350 feet of water, using Shimano Butterfly jigs and River2Sea Rock Jigs.

The cod were thick, and active. We could see big clouds of fish on the meter, and the bigger fish were hitting the jigs about 60 - 80 feet off the bottom.

The bigger fish were all in the 6lb+ range on our Boga grip, and were a lot of fun to catch on the Trevala rods, even with the 50lb Spectra. The hot jig was the 200 gram long Butterfly jig, in a mackerel color, next best seemed to be the River2Sea Rock jig in 200gr.

The boat was hard to start again, even with the new battery. We're hoping this is not an engine problem, but we tried switching to the second battery with no luck, which would normally indicate a problem with the engine. Once again, once the motor started, it was fine the rest of the day.

No false oil alarms, but the water was, once again, pretty flat, so we didn't get a good test.

Took the boat out on a solo trip to the Coronados North Island. Put in a Chrome Green/gold Yozuri Hydro-mag about a mile north of the point and got a hit almost immediately from a 6.5lb bonito. That pretty much set the tone for the day, although the rest of the fish were not nearly as large: 1 - 2 pound fish were thick, we averaged a fish every third or fourth cast on a small gold mushmouth fly. No yellowtail, although we did see the sport boats get a couple on jigs by using their side-scanning sonar.

We had a hard time starting the boat in the morning...the motor acted like the battery was almost dead, even though the Guest charger indicated they were fully charged. We put the boat back on the trailer and drove over to West Marine, where we purchased a house brand AGM battery. Put the boat in the water, and it still acted like the batteries were down, but at least this time it started after a few cranks. After it started, the engine started fine the rest of the day. This could be a hard one to figure out.

The good news is that we went the entire day without a false low oil alarm. The water was fairly flat, however, so it wasn't really a good test. Encouraging, but not conclusive.

Noticed the left tail-light and the red left marker light were out. The tail-light was the original incandescent light, the marker light was one of the ones we had replaced with a new incandescent light. All of the LED lights we have added are still working, so we'll probably bite the bullet and replace all of the lights with LEDs.

After some conversations with BRP Tech support, we were convinced that we needed to take TB2 back to a dealer to have them take a look again at the false low oil alarm.

We dropped the boat off at Boat Depot in San Diego this time, and Head Mechanic Bryan Sturn bit the bullet and replaced the entire oil pump assembly, which contains the low oil sensor. He reported to us that he had taken the boat out into San Diego Bay and tried his best to get the low oil alarm to go off by driving over wakes and getting the boat to pound, to no avail.

He also reported that there was no indication of the software upgrade that we were told had been applied earlier, and there was no record of a false low oil alarm report in BRP's system. So...apparently the other dealer who had worked on this had not actually done any work. We know where we're taking our business from now on...

We'll keep our fingers crossed, but now that someone has actually done something, we're feeling more confident the problem is fixed...

We took Captain Scott Leon out for a local trip today. Scott is the former editor of Fly Fishing in Salt Waters magazine. He was working as a guide in South Florida, but recently moved his business to Southern California.

Fishing was pretty slow, with only 4 bonito to show for the day. One was pretty decent size - around 5 lbs. That fish hit a small (size 2 hook) blue/white half-and-half.

The false "Low Oil" alarm came on once, even though the water was pretty flat. Again, it went off when we were coming over a swell at an angle. So...it's off to Boat Depot to have them take a look.

The Standard Horizon fuel flow meter continues to work well, now that we've rerouted the fuel hose. Accuracy was 3% on this trip.

Trolling Spread References

Following are some of the links or references on trolling spreads that have appeared this season...

Trolling Spreads
Media Type	Publication, Title, Author	Date
Article	Salt Water Sportsman magazine, "Headhunting for Big Dolphin", by George Poveromo	June, 2005
Article	Sport Fishing magazine, "Strategic Spreads", by Andy Hahn	June, 2005
Article	Salt Water Sportsman magazine, Tactics + Tackle Column, by George Poveromo: "How to catch big fish with a big spread from a small boat"	July, 2005
Article	Marlin magazine, "Out of the Park", by Capt. Damon Sacco	July, 2005
Article	Pacific Coast Sportfishing, "Getting Jiggy With It (Part II) - Matching the Hatch", by Bob Hoose	July, 2004
Article	Pacific Coast Sportfishing, "Getting Jiggy With It (Part I) - The Franko Method", by Bob Franko	June, 2004

Teasers
Media Type	Publication, Title, Author	Date
Article	Blue Water Boats & Sportfishing Magazine, "Strip Tease", by Alistair McGlashan	April/May, 2005
Article	Pacific Coast Sportfishing magazine, "How to Be a Tease", by Gary Graham	December, 2004

The October, 2006 issue of Pacific Coast Fishing had a couple of interesting articles:

"Tracking Pelagics: Understanding Pacific Currents & Migration Paths" by Todd Mansur discussed some of techniques that can be used to help locate offshore fish. Some great points:

courtesy NOAA The author recommends the services offered by Ocean Imaging. Ocean Imaging offers a complete suite of temperature and chlorophyll maps, weather and current services, all tied together by the company's software. Their software makes overlays and comparison of data much easier. It is a bit pricey, however - a year's worth of service will set you back around $1,400.

When offshore, look for salps. These invertebrates look a bit like jellyfish, but are not. They signal an upwelling from deep water, always a good place to look

Petrels (left) feed on the plankton pushed up  from deep water, and are also good indicators of an upwelling area. Terns (right) indicate feeding fish, and should always be checked out.

The article mentioned something we had heard about before, and seems to be true, generally speaking: When you see terms working an area, the height the birds fly above the water is roughly equal to the depth the fish are beneath the surface. Keep in mind that this is not always true, but is a good general rule.

"Betting on Blacks and Blues" by Bob Hoose.
The article covers some of the latest trends in fishing for black and blue marlin of Cabo San Lucas. There were a number of points made, some points worth thinking about:

• More people are moving to stiff single-hook rigs, rather than double-hook rigs. Favorite hook models are the traditional Mustad 7691, and the newer Owner Jobu hook 
  
  
• About 50% of the boats fishing the famous Bisbee's Black and Blue tournament are using hi-visibility mono lines
  
  
• When there are a lot of boats in the area, the more successful crew drop down in leader size - going to 400lb test vs. 500lb.