At 8:14 p.m. we were able to see the International Space Station fly over head.  We continued to fish around the rig until about 11:00 and moved away from the rig and put out some sword baits and settled in for the night.  The night sky was amazing.  My nephew enjoyed playing with all of the glowing critters in the water.  We caught one small shark but that was it for the night.  At 4:30 a.m. we went back to the rig and fished until daylight without much luck.  We are somewhat new to the blue water stuff so we are learning every time we go.  We put out a spread and trolled for a while again without much luck. 

We saw a few hookups on other boats but not that many.  We did see one boat catch a nice yft.  After reading his post I think it was JMS.  I guess we should have stopped and chunked like they were doing.  After trolling for a while we decided to leave Petronius and head for the Marlin. 

We got to the Marlin and there were small very fast moving schools of tuna busting the surface. 

We tried trolling, casting poppers, jigging, live hard tails, and chunking and could not get a hookup.  Like I said they were in small schools moving fast, and we could not stay with them very long.  After trying everything we knew to do we put out some high speed trolling lures, made a few laps around the rig and headed for the Ram.  After just a few minutes of trolling I saw a fine column of mist on the surface off in the distance.  Then we saw another one.  It was a WHALE.  And there were more.  We ended up seeing at least 3 whales, I think sperm whales.  Here is a link to a bad video of the experience. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvr3Gt-Kt-I  

And a picture. 

We headed to the Beer Can and then back to Fort Morgan.  We ended up with a bft, some small AJ's, a nice triple tail, and some other small stuff in the cooler.

We had a great time and I am looking forward to doing it again.  With this experience and reading posts from the folks on this forum maybe nextime we can put more in the cooler.  If anyone has any suggestions on what we can do differently please feel free to offer them.  Thanks in advance.

By the way, my 12 year old nephew put more fish in the boat than any of us.  Congrats Jake. 

1801 Century/Yamaha F115

Jeff

Those rigs start about 72 miles from Fort Morgan.  It's a long ride but a lot of fun.  "Top Dawg", now that sounds like a good nickname for Jake.  Maybe it will stick. 

Thanks

2101DC Seaswirl

F225 Yamaha

"If you only remember one thing that I say, remember this... don't fish where there aint no fish"

Capt. Fred Morrow

I meant to ask about the whales. Did you try casting to them? What kind of line do you prefer to use when whale fishing? What about bait...will a 60lb Tuna work? Also, what does whale taste like...chicken???

Jeff

Misn 1 - We made a couple of cast to the whales but had no takers.  We typically use 60 lb mono for the main line with about 15 ft of 120 lb florocarbon leader and a large circle hook bridled to about a 4 lb cricket.  This usually gets them.