First Major Albacore Catch of Season Reported : Persistence and a Vote Pay Off for 26 Fishermen 220 Miles From Point Loma

The summer’s first major catch of albacore was brought into San Diego Tuesday by 26 sport fishermen on the Royal Polaris, a 113-foot charter boat.

Skipper Frank LoPreste’s fishermen, on a four-day trip, caught 314 albacore between 12:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. Monday, 190 degrees and 220 miles from Point Loma. The fish ranged from 12 to 24 pounds and averaged between 16 and 17 pounds, LoPreste said.

By late Monday, other San Diego sport boats were streaming to the five-mile-wide area where LoPreste found albacore Monday. Skippers on the Polaris Supreme, Royal Star and Qualifier 105--all San Diego based boats--radioed that each had more than 100 albacore aboard at mid-morning Tuesday.

Scattered catches of the northward-migrating tuna, the favored species of Southern California summer saltwater fishermen, had been reported for several weeks. But the Royal Polaris’ catch was the summer’s first encounter with dense numbers of albacore.

And in this case, democracy saved the day for the 26 fishermen, all employees of Motors, Inc., a Los Angeles auto parts firm.

“We looked for albacore the first day, and didn’t find a one,” LoPreste said. “On the second day, we fished Guadalupe Island and got into some yellowtail to 30 pounds, got a couple of big giant sea bass that went to 175 pounds, but no albacore.

“At that point, some of the fishermen still wanted us to try to find albacore, but I told them their chances were poor, based on what I knew about the fishing in recent days. They decided to vote, and it was 14-12 to look for albacore.”

LoPreste steered the Royal Polaris away from Guadalupe at 8:30 p.m. Sunday, running the boat all night to where he thought chances to find albacore would be at least fair.

“We found fish at 12:15 p.m. Monday afternoon,” he said. “We got a blind jig strike, stopped, and got seven more fish. Then Steve Loomis, my second skipper, saw fish breaking the water a half-mile away. We headed there and started metering albacore directly under the boat 200 yards from where they were breaking water, which was a good sign.

“We threw out some anchovies, and it was instant fire drill. We got 49 albacore at that stop and lost at least that many more. In a five-mile area, we moved around and kept catching fish until 8:30 p.m. When we shut down to come home, we had 314 fish.”

The Royal Polaris had the spot all to itself, until early Monday evening.

“The Cortez made radio contact with us and got there at 7:30 p.m.,” LoPreste said. “Dean Adams (Cortez skipper) had run his fishermen 50 miles to get 20 albacore in 30 minutes.”

To LoPreste, the season shapes up as a normal one.

“The first big catch has occurred between July 2 and July 17 for the past 25 years,” he said. “And on the year it started July 17, we caught albacore until Christmas. I look for a good season.”