Waterpup

Archive for April 21st, 2009

Kelp Paddy Fishing

Kelp Paddy Pic by Mo Betta From Bloody Decks Fish Boiling on Kelp Paddy

With summer approaching here in Southern California, fishermen are beginning to prepare their boats for the fishing season. During the summer and fall seasons many Southern California fishermen participate in what we call “Paddy Hopping”. Basically, anglers go out and look for kelp paddies floating in the ocean. The reason for looking for the paddies is they hold bait,? where there is bait, there is fish. Well…….Hopefully.

Among the most commonly targeted fish are typically Tuna, Yellowtail and Dorado (AKA Mahi Mahi). In Southern California and Baja Mexico, these are very highly sought after game fish. When the word gets out that they’re biting every yahoo that owns a boat heads out for the hunt and paddy hopping is easy to do.

With that said, I thought I’d post up some “Do’s” and “Don’ts” or Paddy Etiquette. No one person owns the ocean, or the paddy you see, but yes there is etiquette that should be followed.

Approaching a Kelp Paddy

Say you’re out and it’s been a long day of burning fuel looking but finding nothing, then you see a boat that appears to be stopped on a “Barn Door”. You could just run right up to it and drop a line but that would be bad. Very bad. If there are fish there, the sound of the engine and splash from the boat will cause the fish to dive out and the bite to shut down. If the boat that was there before you was catching fish you effectively kill the bite for them. This in turn makes them angry and you make no friends and even worse, you catch no fish.

The first thing you should do is keep your distance and observe through binoculars if any fish are being caught by the other boat. Also look for signs of life such as fish boiling on bait around the kelp paddy. If tuna or yellowtail are biting you will see them splashing around, You may even want to look outside of the paddy. Many times dorado are well off the kelp paddy and beacuse of their speed grabbing a meal is not hard for them .

Next try to hail the other vessel on the radio, or try to get someone’s attention in all likelihood they will motion

Yellowtail Boil by MikeyLikesIt

you on in. I’ve never had anyone flag me away after showing an act of courtesy such as this on the water. If you can’t get anyone’s attention make a decision based upon your observation of life around the paddy, not based on “”it’s a paddy, I’m going in”.

If you do decide to slide in, do so slowly, throttled down at near idle and upwind of the kelp paddy. Set up? so you drift near that kelp paddy at a good casting distance from it. This way if you were hook up, the fish won’t instantly wrap your line around the kelp and break you off. Also if you drift directly over the kelp you may scare the fish off. It may be a good idea to fish the other side of the paddy opposite the other vessel. Just common courtesy.

If you pull up to a paddy and there are boats sitting right on top of the paddy, try fishing well outside of it. Again not runing and gunning around it. Slowly idle around it or better yet drift. If there are any boats sitting right on or very close to it the fish will likely be outside of the kelp paddy or deep below it. Typically fish are never right under the paddy anyway. They’ll be all around and many times deep below it. If nothing is bting on the surface, tie a sinker on and try down deeper. Even tie a jig on and try to “Yoyo” the fish on. I’ve done and seen it happen more times than I can count. Boats on kelp paddies getting nothing and we’re outside hook’n up.

Here’s to a good 2009 fishing season in Southern California!

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