Paying Dues: Kayak Fishing for La Jolla Yellowtail

It's not hard to see why so many fishermen are superstitious. So many different factors contribute to the successful capture of a fish, and even more can lead to a day or night ending in heartbreak or disappointment. These include tangible factors seemingly entirely within our immediately control, like making sure knots are properly tied, fresh line/leaders are put on reels, and batteries in any piece of asinine fishing technology are charged and ready to go. Then there's the conditional factors, subject to change on a daily basis; these may range from current, tidal movement, weather, bait abundance, water clarity, etc., the list goes on. Some guys can make do with just about any hand they're dealt, while most of us have to cross our fingers and hope that enough of the right variables line up to make things happen. Finally, there's that last, intangible factor that can't be explained, quantified, or predicted. Its only universal constant is a lack of constancy. It's what keeps us up at night, drives innovation in tackle and techniques, keeps us going for "one last cast" no matter the circumstances, and braces every trip with the anticipation and suspense that anything could happen. I'm not going to call it the "X factor."

This is what makes many of the most science-based, confident fishermen I've known the slightest bit superstitious. I call it "kinda stitious." As much as humans want to determine some underlying cause to explain everything that occurs in the world -including in a fishing context- there's always the creeping feeling that there may be no rhyme or reason to it whatsoever. I'm not trying to get existential, but anyone who's spent enough time on the water has seen things that seem to have no reliable explanation other than some half-baked analogy. Huge, once-in-a-lifetime fish (or at the very least, nice fish) materializing at the most unexpected times, ridiculous strokes of bad luck that incite suspicions of some ancient curse directed one's way, poetic justice and irony given to those who deserved it the most and those who did the least, and poorly chosen words coming back to haunt. Even in my limited time and experience, I've seen it from each one of those tenuous angles.

Yes, this is about trying to catch my first Yellowtail from a kayak in the summer of 2020. One of the most (if not the most) frustrating and rewarding experiences I've had thus far in fishing. To those who haven't viewed the fishery from my perspective, it doesn't seem like a particularly grand accomplishment. In some ways, it would have been nice if it wasn't. I definitely experienced my fair share of ribbing this past summmer, even after finally corking my first Yellow. Most of it came from people that either hadn't ever put time into the fishery, or hadn't since "back in the day." La Jolla is well known for being one of the only areas along the Southern California mainland coastline where kayak anglers have a consistent chance of hooking California Yellowtail. It almost feels like an anomaly, one of the world's most productive fisheries located alongside one of America's biggest cities. Many might argue that this led to its downfall; looking back through old kayak fishing archives "back in the day" (I'm probably going to use this term a lot, but I'll try my best not to), it looked like a completely different fishery. It was still a relatively secret spot back then, known for consistenly producing large numbers of trophy California sportfish such as Yellows, White Sea Bass, Halibut, and Thresher Sharks. This was back before high-tech fishing kayaks like the Hobie line were even around, and guys strapped with creatively rigged diving and touring kayaks took to the open sea to do battle with these powerful and beautiful fish.

From most accounts, it's a different fishery nowadays. The advent of the kayak fishing revolution turned "the jewel" of the San Diego coastline from a local secret to "everyone and their mom out there with a new jigstick and Tady 45 they wanna catch a yellow on," in the words of a friend of mine who's been fishing it since long before the latter. A veritable fleet of Hobie kayaks, fueled by online articles, YouTube videos, and social media, came on the scene. Soon, it became common for over 50 boats and kayaks to be on the water at any given moment on a summer weekend. I wasn't around, so I can't speak for myself, but this was the common story I heard from those who had participated in the fishery for awhile. During this time, I was cutting my kayak fishing teeth in the cold, muddy rivers of Oregon, soaking large dead baits on Dacron leaders for Sturgeon. However, I can attest to the popularity and pressure of the fishery. I've had days out there where I couldn't go 25 yards in any direction without running into someone. I once ran into a guy on a not particularly crowded Sunday (about 20-30 kayakers during the pre-dawn bait making rush) that asked if a tournament was going on. I told him no, and he said he hadn't been out in three years and had never seen it that crowded. The Yellowtail in La Jolla are most well-known for responding to live bait on fluorocarbon leaders and specific, reaction-bite oriented artificials -universal indicators of pressured fish. I also gained the impression that by 2020, conditions hadn't been as conducive for large numbers of Yellowtail to accumulate for periods of time sufficient enough to create consistent fishing as in previous years. All of this weighed heavily on me as I gradually became more and more obsessed with catching my first kayak Yellowtail. At the time I started in late June, I thought I was pretty decent at kayak fishing. I had done fairly well on many of the smaller desirable California sportfishes, such as the clade of saltwater basses, Corvina, Sheephead, and a few decent legal Halibut from the bay. However, catching a Yellow was a rite of passage for hardcore kayak fishermen, and I longed to feel one at the end of my line and have one laying along the deck of my yak.

June began the grind. My first few trips in June and July were extremely unsuccessful. My old white diving kayak wasn't very well equipped for big-game fishing. I know that they used to be the standby "back in the day," but I didn't have the time and money to equip it with many of the tools deemed essential by long-time La Jolla fishermen. I tried to make it work. It didn't work. Gear failures, problems making bait, and just bad luck seemed to plague me. This is where that unexplainable factor I was referencing earlier really came to "bite." In any kind of fishery where you're after that one big bite, the difference between a slow day and an unforgettable one can happen at any instant. Despite the wariness of educated La Jolla Yellowtail, the fish by nature aren't particularly discriminating feeders. Although live baits such as mackerel and sardines are the usual go-to's, they really can eat just about anything. While I was seemingly unable to get a bite using the "right" techniques, I watched friends, acquaintances, and strangers catch them on a variety of methods, many on their first or second tries. I think the one that was the biggest slap in the face at the time was a large Yellow caught by a friend of a friend on a dead anchovy, a bait usually more associated with bottom-feeding critters than pelagic predators. Meanwhile, I was dealing with unlucky circumstances such as flipping my yak and losing expensive gear (I had one rod unleashed and the other leashed to a rod holder that also went down), having a paddle randomly break in half and having to limp back canoe-style as the sun gradually set, and putting a $1500 dent in someone's car when my kayak slid off the roof of mine on an especially crowded afternoon back at the launch (thank god for insurance.) All the while, I hadn't even gotten one bite from the right kind. The exception was when I was tossing a small swimbait on a light spinning rod in the kelp after spending all morning fishing big baits on heavy gear with no luck. Something huge grabbed the swimbait and sent me into the rocks within seconds. It seemed like I just couldn't get lucky.

Hooking a large Yellow on a rod suited for Calico Bass is a bad combo. By late September, I still hadn't gotten one. I was lucky enough to catch a decent grade one earlier in the month on a live sardine from my friend Connor's fully-equipped boat, which I thought would keep me satisfied. It didn't. Within a couple weeks, I was back to trying to get one from my kayak. At this point, my fishing turned into Yellowtail-or-bust. Earlier in the summer, I'd give it a few tries before getting frustrated and going after some more consistent targets like Bonito, Corvina, Barracuda, and Bonefish. However, I knew at this point that I needed to get a Yellow in my kayak or "die" (annoy everyone else) trying. My attitude was starting to get worse. It even reached the point where I was becoming visibly butthurt each time I'd see one caught on a line that wasn't mine, even if it was on a friend's. I knew something needed to change about what I was doing out there, for both my sake and the sake of those fishing with me. I then finally brought my Hobie down from Portland. I figured that at the very least, the Hobie would be easier and more practical to fish out of, not to mention a lot more comfortable.

First time out in my Oregon-seasoned Hobie and I got one. It shouldn't have worked out like that; I should've learned a valuable life lesson about how it isn't about gear and continued to struggle for awhile. Instead, I caught the fish I'd spent all summer intermittently trying for on my first try in my old kayak. Like many other first kayak Yellows, it definitely felt like the stars aligned and that unexplainable factor of luck kicked in gear. After oversleeping a couple hours, I went to join my buddies Tyler and Eric who had already been on the water since sunup. I caught a few Bonito trolling Luckycrafts on the way to the deeper water. By the time I caught up to them, they were getting continually harassed by bait-stealing sea lions and I decided to fish for bass with a tube bait until the dogs gave us a break. I caught a few bass on the tubes while the furbags were busy helping themselves to some free meals.

Say what you will about this lure company, but they work. After a little while of doing that, we saw some birds circling the surface and heard some four-letter words out in the distance. One of the boaters had hooked a Yellow, but a large sea lion found his fish before his gaff did and was busy ripping apart the guy's hard work on the surface. The sea lion headed off in one direction with the fish and the boater headed off in the other while we paddled into the area they left behind. I asked Tyler for one of the baits, and pinned the bait on a reverse dropper loop to hopefully keep it down below the diving range of the dogs. I sent it down and went back to the tube bait. Then, in an unexpected stroke of luck, the tube bait got caught on my livebait line. I freed it and decided to reel my bait up to make sure it didn't get tangled up with the sinker in the process. I had reeled the bait about halfway to the surface when something intercepted it and went on a hard run down to the bottom. I immediately knew what I had hooked.

I was lucky to have hooked it; normally when fishing those big livebaits you need to give the fish several seconds with the reel in freespool to fully swallow the bait. However, this Yellow was clearly hungry and engulfed the bait past the hook on the first bite. It was barely hooked at the edge of the mouth, and something as minor as a slightly harder pull on the line or a slightly tighter drag could've easily ripped the hook from its mouth. After a long summer of unsuccessful tries and bad luck, it felt like the clouds had parted. My drive to endure more skunks in the pursuit of another was reinstated and my attitude changed in the single moment the gaffed Yellowtail hit the deck. From there I knew things had changed. I had finally caught a La Jolla kayak Yellowtail, but I knew in that moment it had really caught me.