OI Report - 17 Mar 11

[Fish Dad]

Rick Wineman's report.

Trailered the boat to OI and fished with Mike Avery, Jody Linthicum, Dave Jenkins and Steve. Ran out of the inlet before sun up and started out trolling around the 580, a little overboard, to the hard edge of the 74 degree water. We spotted some real good marks to jig on around the 620. Mike and I hooked up almost simultaneously. Both fish went in opposite directions. Mine shot to bow and Mike’s line most have gotten some slack in it as his fish was swimming towards the boat, because Mike’s line got wrapped around the port prop and the trim tab. I was a little under gunned with a Stella 8000 / OTI set-up, because once my fish decided to run, even with almost full drag, there was no stopping him and we could not chase the fish with Mike’s line caught in the prop. About the time I lost my fish, the guys got Mike’s line free. Mike did a great job for over an hour keeping pressure on the fish, up to the time that his rod broke. Luckely we still had the fish on, so I held the line to give it some slack and David did an excellent job of quickly splicing the main line to an 80W Tiagra. Mike battled the fish for another 15-20min before we gaffed and boated his all-time best 75-inch bluefin tuna.

We ended up going 1 for 3 on the bluefin and headed back in around 4pm. When we got back in the inlet one of the OI charter fleet boats lost his steering and could not make the hard turn back towards the dock. Jody captained my boat and did an excellent job of pulling the charter back around the corner and into the first slip at the charter docks.

Excellent day of fishing w/ a great crew!

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My comments:

Rick, awesome trip and that was my personal best for BFT by far. That fish should have not been caught after everything that went wrong. Once my 80 lb Jerry Brown braid got into the props I thought it was game over. Then after getting the line out of the props, it hangs on the trim tab. Great...this fish is gone. But got it free then the hard battle begins of over an hour of tug and war. I'm in a harness and putting my serious pressure on this fish with my Torsa 30 on a Daiwa Saltist jigging rod. Got the fish almost to the top and I was thinking I'm going to get it up finally and then snap, the rod goes.
I'm demoralized and tell everyone I'm done, game over. But Rick and David come up with a plan. Rick puts on a glove and hand lines my fish to get some pressure off the line. He knows this is a risky move so he does not wrap the line, just hand lines it and everyone knows Rick may have to let go any second so I back off my drag with my half of a rod left. David puts a surgeon loop on my braid then takes the line from the Tiagra 80 wide and puts a uni knot into the loop. Then once the knot is tight, they cut my main line and hand me the Tiagra for another 20 minute battle. The splice holds great and the boys put the steel into this beauty 75 inch BFT.

The rod was a Diawa Saltist Jigging Rod, STJ59XHF for 55-120 lb line. Bishop's Tackle in Yorktown, VA replaced it instantly with the next heavy rod, the STJ59XXHF for 80-150 lb line. Can't ask for better service than that. I probably high sticked it too much, lesson learned for my memory banks. The only way to gain line was to raise the rod and and crank on the down stroke. The other problem I had was 2 teeth broke on the rod gimble early in the fight so the rod was sloppy in the belt which may have resulted in the rod bend in the wrong direction at times. But the end result is all that matters....fish in the box.

Thanks to Jodi, Steve, David, and especially Capt Rick for keeping me motivated after I lost all my motivation once the rod broke.

Video from the day.












Mike

[chumslicker27]

Way to stay with it and close the deal. Those fish will put your gear to the test for sure. We were out there on thursday too and broke a tld 50 on a fish. Had to tie it another rod as well.. The entire rod mount broke away from the reel housing/frame. Chinese fire drill. But what an awesome day it was out there.

[paul708]

nice report.
good to see some fish in the boat

[Fish Dad]

More video of the trip edited by Rick Wineman.