82 degree water, do ya fish in it or take a bath? We fished

[Free Spirit]

For the last 13 years, every Friday from May through Labor Day, Howard Weiss and I have gone fishing together. Yesterday was no different. We decided to troll and at midnight we boarded his new 33 Rampage and ran off to the Wilmington. The reports that we had were a couple days old but said, 50 fathoms, water 80+ degrees, early bite, small tuna. We set up and during the false dawn and on his E120 l could see bait and tuna that were mostly down below the thermocline but there were a couple marks up a bit. Then, as I was getting ready to set the 9th and last line, the splash bar rod screamed and the game was on. As I said, we have been friends and fished together for 13 years and Howie grabbed the rod while I started clearing lines. 2 guys, 8 rods, and a nice fish on may seem to be a bit difficult but we seldom have a problem. I grabbed a harness since the fish had dumped aout 1/3 of our 50 wide, and we settled in. The fish acted wierd since most tuna tend to sound. This one stayed more up on top after the first run. anyway, as I leadered the fish we discovered why he acted so strange. He was hooked in the side halfway back from his pectoral fin. As Howie said," Another reaso wemake sure the hooks are sharp." Here is the fish as the sun came up.
We fished until 2:00 and had a couple of skippie swarms but no more tuna. I heard no other tuna caught but up and down the line I heard of 3 blue marlin caught. More blues than tuna- different. Water was as warm as 82 degrees. By the way,I figured out why we call them skippies. When they hit an 80, they skip right into the boat when you turn the handle.

[matey8941]

i would have atleast jumped in...haha nice fish capt