5/30/10 Close only counts......

[Tuna Meltdown]

In Horse shoes and Hand grenades.

We left the dock a 5:30 and made it to the SWC by 6:45. The plan was to go right to Peaked hill where some friends of mine have been seeing and catching fish for the past 3-4 days consistantly. While crossing the SWC corner I started to notice a few bird piles that looked suspicious and then the tell tale white water beneath them. Tuna eveywhere! All different sizes too. I saw 30-50 pounders up 300 pounders all within the same school. It was really a great sight and good sign for the future. Anyhow we started casting Silver and White Ron-Z's at these fish and they were just not interested. I thought for sure we would hook up. Multiple casts were made right in to the center of feeds and the Ron-Z's were ignored? After about 30 minutes the large school disapated but the fish countinued to pop up here and there but only for a few seconds at a time. We began to troll 4 bars in that area because I thought that would be the best approach and my uncle Ritchie and Gary kept fan casting from the bow with the Ron-Z's. I usually get anoyed by the practice of casting while trolling but today it would pay off. About 7:45 we had just had a fish come up and roll lazily on one of our black bars when Gary says he's hooked up. I look and his rod is bent but he is gaining line quickly and I am thinking Striper. A second later the fish see's the boat and screws. I mean this fish took easily 200+ yards against 22 pounds of drag on my stella in like 30 seconds! Gary hung in there for 30 minutes and we got the fish doing circles straight under the boat. Thats when the hook pulled. We did nothing wrong, Gary had constant pressure on the fish and the fish was close, we never saw color but after the hook pulled my leader connection was visible on the surface. That means the fish was give or take 15-20 feet from the boat when the hook pulled. It was a heart breaker for sure. I have honestly never lost a fish that far into a fight before. That being said the fish was hooked and fought for over 30 minutes on one of my home made wind-ons so I am very happy to know that they are sufficient enough to hold up to these fish. I never saw the fish but if I had to gues by its first run and other later runs during the fight that this was possibly a 70" fish. I don't believe the fish was ready but rather came up to size up it's competition and then started to run again and pulled the hook. That would be our only real chance of the morning. We continued to drag plastic the reminder of the morning into the afternoon and only had another 2 half ass boils on the bars.

[clcharette]

Nice action photos Dan.

Way better to hook up and enjoy the fight even if the fish gets lost, especially if its a clean release, than not having the battle at all. Sometimes it tough to get a solid hookset into these fish and other times a pair of pliers is necessary to remove the hook?

[AlloyToy]

Great report Dan, glad to see the boat is in and you're back at it

[seaworm1]

your just gonna have to go back out there and get his momma......