Chris V

I fished with customers of mine on their 30' pursuit. We hit Petronius first along with what seemed like every other boat in the tournament. Moved on to the marlin only to find dirty water and no action. Stayed and fished there for a few minutes before eventually moving from there to Ram Powell and then out to Horn Mountain. We found good numbers of blackfin and skipjack but no YFT. Headed back to petronius at daybreak but got there a little late, doesn't sound like we missed anything anyway. Got pounded by wind for alittle whileand hid behind the rig to stay out of the wind. About 8:30we moved northeast to the rip that had been there for a few days and as soon as I dropped the first bait in the water we had a white on. Got a few jumps out of him before he threw the hook. Shook off the aggravation and put lines back in only to pick up a few schoolie dolphin over the next few hours. Headed in at about 4:00 to the unwelcome sight of black clouds ahead. From 40 miles to home was the worst ride I've had in a long time but we made it. Ended up taking third tuna with a Blackfin! Needless to say the bite was not on fire. Sorry no pics. diidn't have anything worth wasting film on.

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David Ridenour

Good report and thanks for posting. At least you stuck with it.

Midnight Run

it was a monster black fin too what was it 9.2 or something like that. congrats i fished it also we snaped off our center rigger lost all nav lights and every speaker on the the boat broke out of there hole on the way in. we were about 15m to the east of the spur when we decided to come back in we didnt clear perdio pass till 1130 last night. it took us 6 hours to go 80 miles

spiderjohn

We were out Saturdaysouth of the Spur about 60 nm off. Spent the morning trolling a weed line around the Spur. Water was green but at least clean. Went 10 miles south of there to look for bluer water and maybe another weedline since the first two (actually they were more like floating islands of weed with birds and bait all over them) gave up only a medium size barracuda. Found that the water 60nm off was actually dirtier and greener than that in a little closer so we ran back in and trolled the grass mats and caught nada. Finally decided to come back to the edge and drop some live pinfish down to at least catch some dinner. About the time we got two lines down, a swell went under the boat that was as tall as me (6'2"). Decided we better come on in. It was miserable ride in drizzle and salt spray for 3 hours. Got back at 8 pm just as the gulf was laying back down. Did at least get to troll the high speeds in the storm though since we were running about 12 mph.

MSYellowfin

Looks like everyone had similar events with the weather. I pulled up the archived radar loop from weather underground and it clearly showed what we all went thru. There was really no way you could have missed it other than having left offshore mid afternoon and at that point the line of storms were just forming north of the coast. I guess this is the reason you don't go offshore in a boat that can't handle foul weather cause you can't always predict it. It was a good feeling knowing that I had a ditch bag with two epirbs and two handheld VHFs and a Iridium Sat phone in a Pelican Box next to the life raft when we were coming in. Some of my friends think I am a little too anal on safety equip, but I dont think you can be too safe in small boats that far offshore.

MScontender

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MSyellowfin
2008 54C Viking "Jacquelyn"
2010 36 Yellowfin "Forgiven"
2010 24 Hurricane Deck Boat
2001 Contender 25 (sold)

Midnight Run

oh yea and we had a live well pump come lose and start filling the bilge with water

activegas

I was also one of the 18 boats on the Marlin at sunrise. We left Dauphin Island around 0230 Saturday morning. First stop was petronious with no luck besides some small blackfin. Headed towards the Marlin and arrived around 0630 to seeif we could find a place to fish in the midst of all the boats. We found a spot and we started chunking. The YFT were jumping but I figured with all the boats there, we were wasting our time. My friends son procedes to drop down a glow in the dark butterfly jig with his calcutta baitcaster. The next thing I know, he's bowed up. It's taking line pretty good and long enough to where I knew it was a YFT. 30min. later we get him in the boat and it's43# YFT. Very surprised and impressed with the performance of that small reel. Hung out the rest of the morning with no luck and then around 0800 the whether started looking terrible, so we headed west to run from whether in 3-5ft seas with 6ft rollers. The rest of the day was just storms. Stopped at some deep water rigs on the way homefor AJ but no luck on catching hardtails and more bad whether so we headedback to Dauphin Island with our YFT andcouple small Blackfin. Didn't see to many other boats that were hooked up so I guess we did ok.

26' Regulator