reel_crazy

Made a last minute decision on friday to fish the rigs based on recent reports of clean water and tuna... crew was myself , my fishin partner jim , jeremy , and jeremys friend sam and.. (help me out jeremy im terrible with names)..

Got loaded up with 36 extra gallons of fuel and what seemed like a couple thousand lbs of gear, ice etc.. left island cove at 8pm friday nite.. plan was to limp on out for an hour or 2 then run for an hour, then limp some more to save fuel.. we got good news from litecatch before we left, which was go to the petronious, we had planned on going to the marlin ... thanks scott... had a nice full moon on the way there and flat seas once we got past the sea buoys.. stopped about 12 miles from the rig and fueled up.. several boats were already there at 2:30 am or so.. talked to midnight run jeff who was there on his boss's "little boat".. lots of hard tail andblack fin action, but mostly just killin time waiting for sunrise... by the time daylight rolled around it was like a parking lot out there.. we managed 1 30 lb or so yellowfin on a chunk.. and several more blackfin, and a few small yellowfins.. jim started throwing a small rapala lure and had almost instant success. and finally hooked up a nice fish.. jeremy did the honors with the gaff and we had nice 50 lber in the boat.. after that jim gets back up on the bow to try for another and next thing i know he has managed to hook himself in the back with the treble ..and has it buried in pretty good , after a couple lame attempts to yank it out i just cut the treble off and we leave it for the doctor to deal with..

We decided to troll for a while after the bite slowed down.. fed some bonitas with ballyhoo, and got a couple more short yellowfins.. had a good knockdown but no hookup on a moldcraft chugger

final tally was 2 keeper yellowfin, several black fin, and 5 exhausted anglers... got back in to island cove about 5pm sat... figured we burned 136 gallons of diesel, 60 bucks in bait, and 15-20 in ice..

rich

DISANTO

Hey, from where I stand...you did great! You have 100#'s of tuna, and only used 140 gallons of fuel. We used 300 gallons, and can't even get a piece of sushi!

Congrats on the fish! Hope your friend's back heals up.

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mpmorr

Great report Rich sounds like you guys had a good time and any YFT is a good one. :bowdown

401 Cay

My thinking is that 1 yellowfin makes the trip worth while! Great job..

Ultralite

good job out there rich and company...thanks for the report and hope your partner heals up...

BLKFLYZ

Good job Rich!!! Congrats on the tuners!!!!!!!!!

D.Woodley

Good to hear you got out there and got ya a couple Rich!

duckhuntinsailor

Rich

Thanks for the invite. Sorry so slow to respond, dealing with getting my window fixed and redoing my strip charts got me behind. I've barely had time to poop. My friends name was Matt and Paul was our fifth,.....Sam ???? I had an awesome time, my first time to the rigs, even if we hadn't caught fish just getting to see that was worth it.

I learned a few things on this trip:

1. When gaffing a big fish make sure your feet are set and get ready to get shook silly.

2.When bringing that fish (with trebels hanging out of it's mouth) over the gunnel, dropping him on the deck between your feet, andtrapping yourself in the corner isn't a good idea. My legs were a bit sore Sunday from the tail whipping.

3.Don't stick a trebel in your back. That looked painful. Jim was a trooper, though.

4. When going on long fishing trip always put on sunscreen.

5. Don't leave a flight bag in your truck, which someone might mistake for a purse. (broken window and12 hours of redoing charts really sucked).

Deeplines

Great job Rich and thanks for the post.