10/11 - tough day all around

[backman]

Sox choked, Pat's choked, we choked out east.

yet another one of those days when the run and gunners seemingly outfished the trollers by a good margin and we were on the wrong side of the ball.

Lots of small fish up and down the backside; racing here and there, almost impossible to line up at 4 knots, even when no one was nearby.

Two lazy half ass hits on bars, nothing on ballyhoo, skirted or naked; long or short or on a planer. Fish in the spread a couple times but just not committing.


And to make matters worse it was not the 22 knot ride home I hoped for, the 18 knot ride home I expected, but 15 knots from Hankerchief to Bishop's. That was with wind and tide going in the same direction, ugh.

[Tyke]

don't feel to bad i also came home empty handed but it probably didn't help that i was fishing the same water as you were. ran all over the place out there finally for the last try we came in tight to land and found some fish under the birds but they were up and down and they had lock jaw. always nice to get on the water though especially mid october.

[parmentj]

What was the 5 am decision? Did the Skipjack take the channel or hang in tight today?

[Bearboat]

Thanks for the report Larry.
I didn't go out today ( traditonal Whiting at Napi's on Columbus Day weekend trip with family ) but did stop at the cliffs to watch the activity with the binocs.
Amazing to see so many boats off the backside this time of year.
Could see the bigger trolling guys mixed in with the chasers and was wondering how all that worked out.

[Captain Greg Sears]

Thanks for the report Larry.
I didn't go out today ( traditonal Whiting at Napi's on Columbus Day weekend trip with family ) but did stop at the cliffs to watch the activity with the binocs.
Amazing to see so many boats off the backside this time of year.
Could see the bigger trolling guys mixed in with the chasers and was wondering how all that worked out.

It did not work!!! Some of you runner and gunner guys have no respect. especialy when you run down a guys spread and then cut in front of him. I am sorry but it only takes one stupid jerk to make everyone look bad.

[Riptide Charters]

True Greg. But that goes both ways. Nothing like setting up on breaking fish only to have a guy troll right through them and put them down and he never gets a touch. Remember the troll guys can do well in the blind around feeds. A caster needs to pretty much be in the feed. Watching some of those clueless trollers wander around aimlessly while we were hooked up and Jeff Smith had a double going all on ocean lures was worth the pounding ride we took on the way home!!!!

[backman]

what Greg says is correct as what Terry says is correct.

The catch for me when driving (can't speak for others who may be driving my boat) is that if i see a caster or jigger on a pile I go find another pile or if its the only one in sight, will troll off the pile looking for the blind strike. Neither you or Jeffie saw me nearby today even though I saw you less than a mile away on birds and presumably on fish.

The fish were moving so fast we couldn't get on the piles and unfortunately as Greg said; when you would start to recognize the direction the fish under the piles were going and set up what would be a careful 10 minute lineup to eventually troll through them invariably someone would buzz through at 25 knots and blow the setup. Its a free ocean and by no means can anyone assume they own a 1/2 mile curving line in the ocean, so while it frustrating, its life on the water.

Understand that while it seems a troller is killing a pile for a caster, the troller more often than not has spent a good amount of time setting up an approach and is equally frustrated by a run and gunner's ability to move the critical 1/2 mile in a minute or less while we inch along at 4 knots. Also; with a spread out we can't turn in less than 2-300 yards so each pass is by necessity as tight as we can make it. You on the other hand can always adjust a drift up wind by 100 yards in the blink of an eye.

Two sides to the game. Good for you on getting it done yesterday... what pounding? I thought the contender could run at 30 over the tops of those short steep 3-4 footers.

[Parapapam]

Well add me to the list of chokers, I went North on my buddies brand new Everglades 29. He hasn't rigged his electronics or out riggers yet. But we were still able to easily run an 8 rod spread with very little chance of tangles. Sweet boat!!!

We arrived on site at about 7:15 since I was not running anywhere before first light without radar. Found some birds and two whales. That lasted about 10 minutes. That was the last concentration of life we saw all day.

Without a GPS it was sort of hard to work depth lines and with no birds or other visable signs of life we just troll around general areas aimlessly.

There were not a lot of boats around the PH or SWC area surprisingly. I thought I saw Eastwind hook up. I don't know who bought her from Mike so I can't ask... Other than that we saw three other boats back at the dock who we trolled around with out there. They were all skunked as welll.

Strange how the fish disapeared all at once...

The ride back was impressive. The boat ate up the 3 footers at 20 knots. It was so smooth that my youngest fell asleep... Impressive display. I think I am going to like this boat next year.

Mike

[tuna101]

I went out to PH, after a pretty rough CCB. I trolled ballyhoo for a while, and then switched over to bars.

There were a few concentrated tuna feeds that each lasted about a minute, and I was able to put one cast into the middle of a feed before 5 other boats showed up and put the fish down. I must have seen at least ten whales, with my depthfinder almost covered in red at one point, but the tuna seemed to have lockjaw.

There was also an all white whale that surfaced that looked like a pilot whale, does anyone know what that is? (albino?)

At about 9:30, everything went dead. I trolled another 2 hours through nothing to wait for slack. My friend hooked a 58 incher with pogies at slack, and he was heading for the barn, and gave me 4 pogies.

Now this is the interesting part. My son had his pogie about 10 feet under the boat and was preparing to put a balloon on the line when a tuna hit. 10 feet under the boat! His reel was in free spool, and he instinctively pushed it halfway up to strike. The tuna took a parallel to the boat and snapped the line after being on for about five seconds. The line looked to have been eaten by bluefish like it was a kabob. Bummed, we put the pogies back out for another hour without anything and headed in through an even rougher CCB.

[JSeas]

Larry:

Went down to the docks yesterday. Stopped at the RipDog ClubHouse for a cup of coffee and then to the boats. You were gone. Jared and I pulled the SLAPSHOT out of the water. Looking to go fishing in the next 7-10 days before my trip to Tokyo.

JSeas...