Some things in life are perfect.  It just does not get any better.  Things like watching your child’s first steps, the way a dog loves his master, a 1969 Z-28 Camaro, Reba McEntire singing a tearjerker, a P-51 Mustang fighter or Mark McGwire hitting a home run.  These are just a few that come to my mind.  If you are long-range fishing, you can find perfect moments too.

                I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to take advantage of one these moments on our recent 5-day trip.  The Red Rooster III was on the anchor at Guadalupe Island fishing for Yellowfin Tuna.  The YFTs were eating live sardines, which is the normal for the “lupe”, when Charles Tanaka spotted boiling fish of the starboard corner.  Well, Charles was soaking bait, so he could not switch over to a jig.  But Charles knows how much I love tossing jigs.  He pointed out the crashing fish and I quickly brought out the iron.  I checked to see which way the crashing fish were moving, then I let fly with my jig.

                As I was following the flight of my jig there was a boil to the left of my cast, then another to the right.  Now this is the point that many long-range anglers get nervous, not Mr. Ono, I get cocky.  As my jig lands between the two boils and 10 feet past, I let Steve, one of the crew know that I am hooked.  Mind you I have not even started my retrieve.  I put the reel in gear, take 5 cranks and I am hooked solid.  Steve looks at me and says  “You the man!”  Then we have a big laugh.  Now that’s a perfect moment in time.

                These moments do not, always, conclude in a landed fish though.  Several years back on a summer trip on the Polaris Supreme I hooked something on what else, a jig.  We had been hooking 30 to 80 lb. Bluefin Tuna.  We would drift over a meter mark and wait to see if the fish would come up.  Sometimes the BFTs would sometimes not.  On our last day of fishing we stopped on a meter mark and I tossed out chrome 6XJr, with a treble hook.  I let it sink down for a 100 count and start my retrieve.  After about 30 cranks the jig stopped completely.  Usually you will get a short run of “head shakes” when you got a fish, but not this one.  Just a solid, heavy, dense weight like when you hook a shark.  So I start trying to break it off.  Should not be difficult I am fishing straight mono.  After 5 minutes my shark comes alive and starts fighting like a tuna.  The fish drags me to the bow and proceeds to try to spool me.  After 300 yards the fish stops and turns right back around and heads towards the boat at a slow steady speed.  By now the crew and I have no idea what this “tuna” is up to.

                For the next 90 minutes I am being pulled around the Polaris Supreme. Three tours of the boat and we finally see a little glimpse of the fish, it is a tuna of some kind.  But I feel one of the hooks slip and the fish is off again.  This time it does spool me.  The crew attaches my rod and reel to a back-up outfit and I continue the fight.  Then after 5 minutes on the back-up outfit the line goes slack.  I crank as fast as I can but I know the fish is gone.  I get my rod and reel back, crank on 350 yd. and get everything back, including my jig.  What happened?  The treble hook failed.  It is just one of those times that the fish won battle.  The fish and I went one on one and the fish was the winner.  All I could say after the battle was, “that was fun”.

                While on my trips, I try to enjoy my surrounds too.  I have made several good friends on these trips.  I really relish sitting down for a meal and having a laugh with my buddies.   Everything that happens on a long range trip is “fair game”.  No one ever comes away untouched by our “humor”.

Besides good friends, there are the beautiful natural wonders of the ocean and Baja California.  Seeing a dorado jumping and trying to throw the hook, a light up wahoo chasing a jig, or a yellowfin crashing on bait are nature’s perfect moments.  The sunrises on the “Revilla-gigeddos” or the sunsets at the “Rocks” are breathe taking and also mark the beginning and the end of a day of fishing.

The next time you are long-range fishing and you see one of these perfect moments, take a second and store it in your mind.  These images can hold you over until your next trip.