7/31-8/1 RipDog Father/Son Canyon Report

[Albatross32]

After about a month or so of trying to put a trip to the Edge together we finally got the "4 W's" to all align together - Weather, Water, Wives and Work.....On Thursday, Scotty and I put together an All-star cast of characters for this trip....

The 7 man Team consisted of.....1. Capt. Scott Clay, 2. Scott's 11 year old son - Tommy Tuna, 3. Dr. David Sloan from "On the Hook TV" http://www.onthehook.com/
4. Dave's 10 year old son Dave "Dusky Shark" Sloan Jr. aka DJ 5. Brian Kelly aka - Pickles 6. Up from the Island of Staten - The Miami SwordKing Greg Haronitas 7. Yours Truly

So we all met up at around 0700 hrs. in Falmouth Harbor on Saturday morning to load the gear, food, ice and all of the other various provisions needed for a 2 day Canyon Adventure. By 0800 we were ready to shove off under calm winds and clear skies. We took a nice leisurely ride through Vineyard Sound, then down through Muskeget Channel before setting a course of 153 degrees aiming right for the tip of Hydrographer Canyon.

Once we got South of the Shoals, the water came alive and we started seeing Sharks, Porpoise, whales and Birds everywhere......After passing about 5 busting pods of BlueFins we finally gave in and out came the spinning gear......Dave and I sprinted up to the bow to make a few casts and he hucked a big popper dead into the center of the madness which immediately enticed a strike just after two twitches.....In the same
motion the fish puked the oversized lure right back out at the boat....Dave took one more crank, and another hungry BlueFin smashed it and this time we were Tight!.....Dave slid down the side of the Dog and passed the rod over to young DJ who was all belted in and ready to do battle with his first ever BFT.....DJ worked this fish like a little madman possessed with fury. After about 25 minutes he had the fish to leader and the call was made by him to take it. Greg smacked it in the face with a precision gaff shot, and we boated a nice slot sized fish about 70lbs or so......Great way to start the trip - and to say the little guy was fired up would be the understatement of the year....haha...

After that we pressed on towards our destination continuing to pass by some insane BlueFin feeds along the way......We finally arrived at the tip of Hydro at roughly 1300 hrs and deployed the spread on the hot side of an 8 degree temp break that went from 67-76 right on the Canyon tip. It wasn't long before we had 3 rods go down and stayed tight with 2 fish. Tommy Tuna and DJ made short work of these fish and we kept one and released the other for Karma purposes.....After that we decided to run the temp break along the 80 fathom curve heading East towards the Titty Canyon and then to
Welker.....We spent the afternoon catching and releasing Tuna in the 20-60lb
class.....some rats around and a few nice fish mixed in...

At 1700 hrs we headed back to the hump at the tip of Hydro where the radio chatter was indicating a solid bite.....SkipJack and another buddy boat were there and having their way with the YFT and some Marlin too.....We trolled around the area for about 90 minutes without any bites......and then it happened - The right middle clip Daisy Chain got absolutely crushed and the Accurate 50 was being dumped at super warp
speed..... Pickles pounced on the rod as the rest of us cleared the spread......At first we were just thinking Big YFT....but after about 45 minutes into the tussle, and 5 or 6 more blistering run offs Greg flashed Scotty the "Thunnas Obesus" secret hand signal. We all got our
game faces on and got ready to land hopefully RipDog's first ever EyeBall.....(A fish that has successfully eluded us for over 50 Canyon trips spanning 10 years)......Day turned into night, and finally at the 90 minute mark in the pitch black Pickles had the fish to leader. I horsed the fish up the last 10 feet and Greg hit the fire hydrant looking animal in its back while it was still down about 5 feet......I grabbed the gaff with him and the two of us hoisted the Pig right up over the gunnel and smashed it onto the deck. Hugs, High Fives and Screams roared out into the Canyon night as we celebrated like Vikings
for the next 30 minutes or so. There was no mistaking this fish’s ethnicity - BIG EYE TUNA Baby!!!!

What a way to end the evening troll. We finally got refocused and moved the boat to the east wall of the Canyon to set up for the night. With the 1.5 knot current, we were able to make two 4 mile drifts each time crossing the Canyon throat. Greg and I worked our balls off trying to get a Sword but it just wasn't meant to be. We did land one 45lb YFT
and had a mystery runoff on a live squid that we missed. We also landed a pissed off Dusky Shark at around 0330 that the kids had some fun with.




Back up on the troll at 0500, and we decided to initially pound the area where we ended the previous evening. Within 5 minutes we had our first bite and landed a small YFT that was released. For the next 2 hours I worked the area zigging and zagging down the west wall humps. We released a few more rat YFT before Scotty decided to again push to the East towards Welkers. The wind had stiffened up to about 15 knots coming from 90 degrees which made trolling that direction a little uncomfortable. The Skippa then decided about mid way over to turn the boat around and finish the day where we got the Big Eye.....

On a side note - The crew was under strict orders to catch and land a Big Blue Marlin from Tommy Clay before the trip was over. We adjusted the spread to meet his demands and committed ourselves to dragging an assortment of some of the sexiest Black Bart and Pakula Marlin lures for the remainder of the day......

We arrived back at the "spot" and quickly had a White Marlin up on the left long lure.....Very strange hit as I saw the shadow behind it and gave it one crank which did solicit another slash/swirl gay window shopping type of hit before taking off for good.........Little Tommy was fed up at this point and a little annoyed with the men onboard....he barked out again - "Dad when are we gonnnnnnnnnnaaaaaa catch a Big Blue Marlin?!?!?" .........haha........

Even without any sleep the crew remained focused hoping for one chance at a Big Blue Girl for little T-Man........Then at 0830 all hell broke loose......We rounded a high flyer and watched in amazement as a Big Blue Marlin raced up our spread and clobbered the right short rigger just outside the prop wash.....I grabbed the rod and hammered the hook
home about 5 or 6 times......in literally 3 seconds flat the fish came up somewhere behind the left long lure and started grey-hounding to the right and jumping with little regard for anything other than its own freedom.....Complete chaos ensued in the pit as the rest of the guys cleared the spread and Scotty slammed the big Yanmars in reverse as this fish was on the large side and looked to be heading for the Azores........during the aerial show the fish somehow managed to run into our Center Rigger bait and snagged itself on that lure.......Both 50's were simultaneously being vaporized as this fish headed for the horizon with two of our lures connected to itself...... [Both reels were being dumped together if that makes any sense].......It took us a minute or so to realize that we were both connected to the same fish but once we did, Greg and I talked through the situation and decided that it would be best to get this fish to the boat as quickly as possible as we feared it being possibly tail wrapped by the center rigger line. Working two rods together we muscled the fish up from the Canyon depths and in about 30 minutes we had a tail wrapped 400lb class Blue Marlin next to the boat.

We tagged and unwrapped the fish and immediately went into revival mode.....we spent the next 20 minutes with one motor in gear holding the bill just swimming her along....The fish responded nicely to this therapy and by the time we released her she had most of her color back swimming and kicking hard and actually biting Dave a few times...haha......

After that, we decided to end on a high note with the standard canyon dip for everyone.........even the little guys jumped in this time.....I learned my lesson (tiger shark) from last years canyon swim and decided that the raw water hose was good enough for me......

What a sick trip Scotty. Thanks for everything dude. Awesome trip, Awesome crew and Awesome fish. Not sure what you’re supposed to do with your kids for fun after that experience?? Maybe take them scup fishing or something.....lol....

Final Tally - 1 70lb BFT, 14 YFT from 20-60lbs (2 kept), 1 225 lb BET, 1 Dusky Shark and 1 Big Pissed off Blue Marlin for Tommy Clay....

Pics below.....we have video footage of most of the action complete with underwater camera angles. I will try and post some of it if Dr. Sloan shares it with me before the show.

-Brian Droney
Albatross on the RipDOG

[Hoopa Drives The Boat]

Great report Brian and Capt Scotty. Congrats on the Big Eye. Oops i just spilled drool all over my my keyboard.

[amarshall]

My wife just asked me what I was laughing about.

[backman]

Fantastic trip guys. I'm really glad for you. You earned those fish, especially the eyeball. As I trolled by you 1/4 mile away I could hear you yelling up in the tower as well as on the radio!

[Bill_N]

You spoiled the kids! But that's a slob of an eyeball - Congrats!

[stew]

The Ripdog get's it done~!!!!!!!!!!!!! Capt. Eric

[Thynnus]

Great work guys, what an all star crew.Congrats on the eyeball and the blue, that is a great trip!

[SaltyDog]

The Dock Standard has been set. JSeas and Salty Dog have some work to do...

[Sea Draggin]

Those boys are champions. Nice job on the tunas and marlin.

[scottclay]

Hydro is the greatest canyon, love going there!!! Great report, what a great trip dude hope we get another one real soon. I agree T-man and DJ are spoiled kids now for ever more.

RIPDOG