7/31-81 - Hydro

[backman]

Had an awesome yellowfin packed trip to Hydro this weekend under less ideal conditions than we had expected. There was a NE/E chill wind as well as an annoying NE fetch all right, nothing horrible but not the FAC expected.

We did get a FAC ride down, and ignored the breaking bluefin up on the shoals; arriving 5 miles off the west wall of Hydro about noon. We trolled down and into the canyon, finding a wagon train of boats from the night before circling a hump off the west wall. A slow pick was going on; while we did not immediately hook up the spot was loaded with birds and slicks. The hill was in 75-76 degree water; 1/2 mile north thr water was 70 degrees; fantastic break right across the west wall!

I kept saying "someone is going to pull a bigeye off this hill" all afternoon. By mid afternoon we had our 1st 40-50# yellowfin in the boat; we continued a steady pick of the same class fish all afternoon. Over the 2 days and ~20 knockdowns - only one bar was touched, nothing pink was hit and ballyhoo outproduced lures about 3:1. After listening to the radio I gave in and even put out a green machine as opposed to a marlin lure long; in retrospect possibly a bad idea.

We were one of 1/2 dozen boats circling the hill; each of us getting the same steady slow pick. Annoyance on the radio "Presto Over" suggested there were 7 bangers of rats to be had elsewhere but we stayed w/ what we had.

At 5 or so the bite picked up to a fish per circle; we pretty much had onesies all day which was far preferable to 7 rod madness. On one circle we missed a white; on the next we got hammered by a bigger class yellowfin which began the process of smoking the lone TLD I had in the spread.

Next circle we miss a yellowfin and as we were resetting the spread Christian started screaming above "holy shit - blue marlin". We had missed the wagon train lottery by 200 yards and the downeast behind us was tight with a leaping blue they really didn't want as they couldn't sell it. What a waste!

Side note - who invited Montauk far east this weekend?

Next circle Scott went tight near us - this turned into a story for Droney to tell. By 6 we had 3 in the box; were full and were into release mode on each circle, probably releasing 5 or 6 fish the rest of the evening.

One more pass and what Christian thought was a blue came in, hammered a ballyhoo short and then whacked at a couple long marlin lures before fading. We got another yellow, while another buddy boat doubled up on a blue and a white.

At this point I was swordfish focused; w/ a NE wind went across the canyon to set up on the east wall to drift across the depths. We got the baits out and were hit immediately on the deep; tap, tap, wait, bzzzz...

I had high hopes till the 1st of 4 or 5 dusky sharks came to the boat to be released with an 11/0 lip ring. The drift was rocket like; 1.5+ knots/hr and we reset 4 times that night which sucked. As has become my style in the past couple years I aimed my sleep at the midnight -3 shift; resetting after a 3 AM shark and sending Christian and Jackson below to rest. At 4 AM, 1st light hinting in the east I pulled the Hydroglow and went into dawn yellowfin power chunk mode, using 1/4 of the chunk bucket in 40 minutes to get the fish in. It worked, I had 3 runoffs, including one which cut me off in the gear before I accomplished my goal, rod pinned to the gunwale with me grunting "help - fish on get a belt on" as the crew stumbled out of bed. We got this to the boat, and I made the executive decision and decided to keep it and gaffed it aboard.

With it thumping between our legs I saw fish 30' down on the fishfinder; dropped a jig and immediately was whacked and tight. I cleverly dropped the fish, handed the rod to Christian and laughed my ass off as he got thr jig down maybe 20' before a yellowfin waxed him by taking him under the boat and making off with my Shimano jig and 20' of braid.

No worries - down came the TLD, on went a cheap clone jig and 30 seconds later Christian was tight again. Jackson was smart enough not to ask for the jig rod; I dropped again and had 2-3 whacks before we ran out of chunks and the fish moved off.

With Scott's bigeye on our minds we switched into troll mode before sunrise and continued the onesie pick of 50# yellowfin. The hot water had moved up to the tip, as had every whining weekend commercial fisherman out trying to harvest yellowfin to sell. Brian and I did have some radio fun about the bigeye they were not selling at 5$/pound so they could cut it up at the dock

East wind made trolling eastwards no fun and with my fuel budget in mind we worked west a few miles along the break; we found a patch of rats and the Montauk wagon train 5 miles east, made a couple circles, talked to Scott to tell him we would be lines up at 9:30 and were working NW to help w/ my fuel concerns. He was staying in the tip - smart move but that's someone else's report.

Lines up at 9:30 - by my calculations I was going to come back with 25-30 gallons in the tank of which 15 was unusable. We had both ACK and Edgartown as fall backs but I wanted to make the run without a stop.

I told Christian not to run and gun, but to stop on breaking bluefin in front of him and went down below for a nap. I woke an hour later to Christian pulling back to cast at leaping 80 pounders. It was somewhat futile with me not allowing us to waste fuel but we got 3 good stop and pops with no hookup before I pulled the plug and headed for the barn, math of time, distance and fuel burn in my head.

Skipjack runs like a deer on 1/3 of a tank and w/ a following wind and sea I found myself at 18-19GPH, 24-25 knots, now the only concern was the coming off plane in the harbor fuel starvation worry.

We pulled up 1/2 mile short just in case, no problem, idled into the dock. I bet 184 gallons (210 gallon tank); Cristian took 192 and Jackson took 197.

To my surprise it gurgled at 175 - we had 35 gallons left and an easy hours additional range for next time !

Despite not winning the exotic lottery this time around another killer canyon trip with excellent fishing and steady action. What a pleasure to see the canyon's alive again after the past few dry years!

And - I have Hydro+ range to boot!!!

[SaltyDog]

nice run Larry, long way for the little guys like us, any swordfish caught out there on that nice break?

[Bill_N]

Congrats on another great trip! You should be grateful you only see the NY boys once in a while out east. There was no shortage at the Tails Sat night.....

[Albatross32]

Awesome report Larry......It was great fishing along side the SkipJack and crew......

I'm trying to get my thoughts together and find some time on this Monday morning for our report...stand by.

[keithj]

Nice trip. I'm waiting on the next weather window!

[jamesytuna]

Larry saw you out there. We had a similar trip. 6 nice yellows and a couple of big duskys at night. We did manage a really nice 190 - 215 bigeye too. That slop at night with the chill was brutal. We had to try hard to ignore the bluefin on the way home too.

[Thynnus]

We were saying the same thing Larry, there have to be bigeye here, this water, break and structure are too perfect. We never got an eyeball but we had all the YFT you could ever want and stopped fishing for them at 7am. I think the final tally was 7 for 10 with 6 fish kept and 5 decent mahi. We also got bit chunking and jigging at night and released a dusky on the deep sword bait. Overall it was an awesome trip with lock and load action. What did the eyeballs eat? Thanks.

[backman]

were you the center console tied up to a pot w/ a green Hydroglow?

I woke up to a "shit we're close but we'll get by" and found us drifting down waaaayyyyy to close to a CC. If so sorry; we should have handled that situation entirely differently.

[Thynnus]

No we drifted Friday night into Saturday morning and never tied up to a high flyer. It was our first attempt drifting and jigging and we didn't have a hydroglow or any lights other than the spreader lights. We were in a dark blue Southport 28.

[backman]

if its any consolation 4 of the 5 swordfish on my boat over the years have come without light or Hydroglow and I regularly get the 1st light bite going at 0-dark a half an hour before 0-dark-thirty by turning off the Hydroglow which seems to turn on the tuna.