I’ll start off with the obvious, it was a great day on the water. Ron, Mike, Jack, Dave and I meet at the Schooner Hotel Sunday afternoon. We went over to the Rudee Inlet outdoor restaurant, ate, and watched for Capt Ryan Rogers come in on the Midnight Sun. When he finally got there, which was late, 18:00 we meet him at the dock. He had a good haul of Yellow fin and a few black fin. We talked with him and decided to meet at 3:00 because we needed 4 hours to haul to the fishing grounds.
Meet up with the gang at 2:30 on Monday morning and on the boat at 3:00. Ryan and Doug joined at 3:00 and we were off. Four long hours we were on the grounds which were ruffly at coordinates N 35 49 by W 74 51. The water and weather were just about as perfect as you could draw up so no complaint there.
The Baits: Fishing was cool which I had not done. We had two long plastic squid teasers on the sides just behind the boat maybe just at the transom, no more. The main bait was Ballyhoos, I would say they were from anywhere between 50 and 250 feet behind the boat. We also had a few teaser combos close to the baits nearest the boat. A rainbow of colors and combos of teasers. I am not convince that made the difference, most of the strikes were the back baits.
The Gear: Most if not all of the reels were 50s with mono (I would estimate 60#). There were Penns and Shimanos in the mix. Drag was set to strike which Doug told us it was about 17 – 20 lbs of dragforce.
The Catching: On initial strike the fish just took off, there was no stopping him at Full drag which was a little surprising to me for such a big reel. They were a “screama” and you just had to wait them out. This was true for both yellow and blackfin. The blackfin of course slowed down the quickest and was the easiest to get back to the boat. The yellow fin would take line multiple times during the fight. The fight was very full on, you better eat your breakfast and lift weights before you get on.
Sharks: The sharks were ridiculous. I think we only landed 3 whole yellow fins, 2 partials, and 10 got completely taken by sharks. The sharks were more numerous than the tuna at some points. They are supposed to be an endangered species, anyone who thinks that should go fishing for a day and their minds should be completely changed forever. There was one time during the trip that we had 4 sharks on at one time. Completely a 30 min window of crazy happening. I pulled in one with no belt (because we had only 3).
Missing Joe: Our good friend Joe could not make it, he is scheduled to visit his father and did not feel it was worth the chance to pass on any thing to his father. I am in complete agreement with him but was very sorry to miss him. And more importantly, without question I know Joe would have caught the biggest fish.
The biggest fish: Ron pulled in the biggest full fish and the biggest partial fish. So he took the honors
Things I saw:
- Yellow fin tuna
- Black fin tuna
- Spinner sharks (very cool seeing them fly out of the water and spinning)
- Hammerhead sharks (5)
- Sea turtles (2)
- Man-of-War (3)
- Porpoise (many, one pod swam beside the boat)
- 4 crazy friends (Ron, Jack, Dave, and Mike)
- 2 good Captains and mates (Ryan and Doug)
- 4 High speed Navy boats with massive guns
- A mylar ballon
- One thing I did not see is all of the sharks that took the tuna
Photos and videos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/DphEggCGF6vHaRRDA
Weather:
- Pressure 30.04 in
- Visibility 10 miles
- Clouds Partly Cloudy
- Dew Point 69 F
- Humidity 67 %
- Temp 81
- Wind 6 NE
- Water Temp 74 and clear
Charters: midnightsun