Banner day! Team Fast Forward BFT report for tues 8/4/09

[DEEP DEFIANCE]

Well we got A late start and didnt get to the end of cape may inlet till about 4:45am we broke the inlet to smooth glassy seas It was time to rock and roll and make up some time! I Kil,Paul,Fred,Fred jr and Brian got on the scene about 6:20 and began to search around,we found massive bait throughout the water columm and agreed that it was time to start jigging!Brian immediatly hooked up and handed the rod off to yours truly I battered the 125pd class fish to the boat in under 10min and lip gaffed it to be released unharmed as the day went on we traveled about one mile towards the fleet but not marking much bait we decided to go back to our starting point and work the area hard it payed off big time and words cannot describe the day so I will post the pics of todays trip and Kil will add to the pics with pics he took with his camera.We left our spot about 12:30 and the slick conditions afforded us A 45-46mph cruise speed home never touching the throttles till we entered CM inlet.

[DEEP DEFIANCE]

some more pics Im sure Kil will post pics of my lamiglass rod taking A beating on the 170pb class fish and seperating and turning into A spiral wrapped rod! long story but these fish can due some damage to your tackle! But the thing is it landed!

[Sea Draggin]

Ohhhhh man. You are killing it this week.

Most excellent job.

[DEEP DEFIANCE]

Ohhhhh man. You are killing it this week.

Most excellent job.

Thanks! we put our best effort into every trip we pull!

[proteus_x3]

DEEP DEFIANCE,
WOW! thanks for sharing.you guys hammer'd them today!

[OCtuna]

You guys are hammering the bluefin

[Van Wildonher]

I think you guys need some belts or harnesses!

[mythosbeer]

They like it southern style, hahaha. No belts, gloves, or harnesses!

[Agitated88]

I'll assume that 2nd pic was NOT the "lip gaffed released" fish!! Excellent report and the pic's were amazing...thanks for sharing!!!!!

[kilsong]

It is tough to go back again after three day bluefin adventure, but I did again with Capt Mike of the Fast Forward out of Cape May, NJ yesterday after one day rest as I knew this kind of bites doesn't last long.

no mono leader
Brian got the first tuna on his diamond jig and we released quickly as it was only 110 - 120 lbs. Funny thing was he tied jig directly to dark green braided line without any mono leader. @( He got another hook-up with the same setup later on. Who said you need mono leader for tuna jigging. I have seen so many crazy things and it doesn't surprise me at all.




Paul got next hookup, but the main line was snapped when tuna made a strong run. I found he used 65 lbs Power Pro. As this was his first ever bluefin jigging trip, he didn't have no idea how powerful tuna are.

PE4 did it again
It has been pure joy to use tiny PE4 reel for tuna jigging as the reel is so light and small, but so powerful.
I intentionally increased drag over 20 lbs this time to test the strength of JE4 reel and Varivas Avani PE5 line.
Though the tuna was about 130 lbs range, the reel didn't show any weakness and I landed it in 10 - 12 minutes.

I was one of guys who introduced Sevenseas 220g Hooker jig for tuna in the US. But I used Hooker 1 most of time and I decided to test slightly longer Hooker 1 Speed Darter jig this time.
The jig worked very well as I had solid two hookups and had another 5 hit with the jig.













Lamigas rod became spiral wrapped while fighting

After Brian hooked up second tuna, Mike fought it to the end.
It was funny the Lamigas guide became upside down like acid wrapped rod due to pressure of the tuna. I think reel seat was moving.













St Croix's performance
I have been trying to test my custom rod of St Croix Tourament blank for long, but Couldn't get any chance. Paul hooked up another tuna with my custom St Croix rod. The blank is super light (6 1/2 oz) and the line rating is upto 80 lbs. My question was whether the thin wall can sustain heavy pressure of big tuna. After I saw Paul fight a decent 110 lbs tuna with the rod, I got confidence with the rod now.
Paul got those two bluefin on famous my 7.5 oz flat hammerd diamond jigs.





When Paul saw the tuna on the surface not far from the boat, he thought fight was almost over not realizing fight just started while making death circle. I explained to him later while driving to maintain pace to fight big tuna as like marathon runners. But he was so happy that he actually hooked two tuna on his jig.









Finally Fred Jr came to help by finishing up.