Sunfish

[dsafety]

It seems like every time I go out, I see something that I have not seen before. Saturday was no exception. Several times during the day I saw a bunch of fins sticking out of the water, gently moving back and forth. Sometimes there were only three or four fins. Other times there were many more.

Now I have been told the YT sometimes do this. I can't say that I have ever seen the behavior but thinking that what I was seeing might be some puddling YT, I grabbed my jig stick and let the iron fly. The cast was perfect and the retrieve went right through the school of fish. No response. I tried again, several times and eventually spooked the fish.

A little while later, I came up on one of the larger collections of fins. They had surfaced less than 20 feet from my yak. As I slowly peddled up on the school, I realized that these were not Yellowtail. They were small Pacific Sunfish, sometimes known as Mola Mola. Similar to these guys.

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Mola Mola can get to be as big as a door. These were small, less than two feet across. Very cool to see. Later I noticed that some of these fish were jumping out of the water. In the distance they looked like the mullet you often see jumping in the bays. When one jumped right next to me, I was able to confirm it was a sunfish.

I still don't know what a school of puddling YT looks like but at least now I know what it doesn't look like. Live and learn. I wonder what new experience I will be treated to on the next trip?

Bob