When the stars align you just can't fight it. Things happen for a reason and sometimes that reason is good. On Friday I got a call from Dan C. Dan has me booked for a canyon trip on a weather permitting basis. He and his crew were the ones that went on the trip where we had to turn back due to foul weather. Dan had another Capt booked for an overnight canyon trip with a FIRST CLASS operation. Unfortunately the other Capt had a minor mechanical issue that was going to cause a day or two of down time for his boat. This was going to bump Dan out of his slot. Dan's luck with getting to the edge has been....well, lets just say poor and leave it at that .
So Dan tells me about the situation and says his new crew is dying to get out to the edge and wantsto know can we go NOW. I had loose plans for the weekend but they could be changed. I decided to call the other Capt who i'm friendly with and run everything by him. He was happy I could get Dan out and gave me some insight on where we might want to look. With that the plan was in motion and the trip was set.
Ruge helped me prep the boat and at 0300 Dan and crew arrived at Falmouth to take another swing of the canyon bat. The ride out was a little lumpy. Although the seas were only runnig around 3'. The wave profile had all the boats falling off the backside making for a bit of a pounding ride. We were able to make 30 kts without beating everyone up so the ride was fast, but not as fast as we would have liked. By 0630 we were lines in at the edge. I set the spread and within 5 minutes we had two rods go off and the game was on! The guys got on the fish and in short order we had a small YFT released and a 40#er in the box.
I re-set the spread and we made another pass on the spot we got bit. This time an est. 300# blue marlin comes accross the spread and just misses the right short rigger chain. Try as we may the big blue girl never showed agin for us. HOWEVER! A buddy boat we know was coming up behind us about 1/16th of a mile to our starboard side. They came in and BAM! They hang the big blue girl and get 15 minutes of air show for their efforts before the leader chafed through.
With thoughts of marlin still fresh in our minds we continue to pound the water. We had a slow steady pick of mahi and small YFT for most of the morning. mid morning a buddy of mine "Geko" rolls in with his 36' Yellowfin CC. Geko and I team up and start searching out a wider area looking for better life. The word on the VHF is that things are slow everywhere. But when Geko and I get together things have a way of happening. I call him over to some skippies on top and we both manage to pull some YFT out from under the skippies. The skips dissapear and I go one way Geko goes another. In short order Geko relocates the skips and says things are looking like its gonna blow up big time. I work the mile or so in his direction and as predicted it GOES OFF!!!! Geko has mortar rounds go off in his spread and its pretty obvious he's got his hands full. They stay tight to one of the beasts and it costs them almost the entire contents of his 50w. They settle in for the fight while we work the perimeter. We get covered up with big YFT from 60-100#.
We keep setting them up and the big YFT keep knocking them down! It's on BIG TIME! Geko and crew are still locked in the EPIC BATTLE! Round and round the big 36' Yellowfin CC goes trying to stay on top of the fish. We keep giving encouragement and doing our own damage to the big school of tuna. Then we get the word "RIPTIDE RIPTIDE SIXTY THREE INCH CFL BIGEYE IN THE BOAT!!!!!" Team Geko IN THE HOUSE!!!!!!! We could hear the cheers from the crew a half mile away! 2 gaffs 3 guys and one bad ass Bigeye in the box!
We call them over closer to us once they got things cleaned up and our two boats proceeded to tag team the big YFT. If we got lit up, we called Geko right in over our wake. They responded in kind. It was like a tuna catching dance watching the two big center consoles on the edge slicing in and out around each other.
At 1800 with full fish boxes and an exhausted crew we called it a day. We started to pull inthe spread when I saw them.....MARLIN MARLIN! Whites on top! two whites just easing along just ahead of the boat. I hada few hoos ready to go and we tossed out a quicky spread of hoo's to try to temp the whites. Unfortunately they wanted nothing to do with us. We made a half dozen passes on them and they just moved out of the way. They never spooked, but they never showed any interest in the spread at all.
It's hard to be depressed after a day like this, but I REALLY wanted to round out the day witha billfish. I guess we would have to SETTLE for a pile of monster yellowfin instead I don't think the crew minded one bit!
Final tally for the trip a pile of YFT. They ranged from 20# to around 100#. We released a bunch so we don't have an exact count. The bite was so fast and furious we just concentrated on getting the spread back out and trying to mend the bars these fish were ripping apart. The lure of choice was bars. My new Offshore Inovations Green and Gold Tinsle bar was running in the right flat position and it accounted for most ofthe mornings fish and it never failed to get crushed durring the afternoon blitz. My regular OI Green Monsta bars preformed as always accounting for some of the most savage strikes you've ever seen. The fish were litteraly ripping rows of teaser squid off the bars. Good thing I had a pile of extra bars ready to go. Chains got bit too, but the bars really drew up the fish. They were all full of 3-5" squid. So with all the bait around the bars must look like a better bang for their buck and thats what they keyed in on. The water was 400-1300' deep and ranged from 77-81 degrees.
Overall just a spectacular day on the edge. We had a FAC ride home which put the icing on an already killer day. In under 3 hours we were on the trailer heading home. It took allot to finally get Dan and crew on the edge but it was well worth it. They acted as their own mates by choice and they did a great job of helping with the spread, clearing lines and teasing up fish. Dan's father "Chief" showed his surgical skills carry over into fishing with the great job he did cleaning and prepping the fish. I gave him a quick "how to" lesson and that was all it took. He had all the fish sliced, diced and iced in no time flat.
It was a great day with a great crew and I'm pretty sure you'll be seeing more Edge reports involving these guys again!
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Huge thanks for getting us into the right neighborhood!
That was a great afternoon. It was awesome watching the bombs go off in everyone's spread. We were 1/2 mile away when that L&H's spread went off it was awesome from there.
you guys are torturing me !!!! I am on a serious mission to get a window and crew and put some of dat meat in the box
got reports from an o-ville boat that had that same type of results o bigeye bt some lge yellows
HAHA THATS AWESOME SETH!!! those slow trips paid back big time. we were out there as well, not sure where you guys were but we were east again. did ok but nothing special. looks like you had a great trip. again, good work
really weird that the big eye bite went off mid day the day you were there and the next AM. Lots of boats hammered that area dusk and dawn with little to show for it but it sounded like a mid PM/mid AM bite.
There was no dusk bite; there was no overnight bite and it sure sounded slow from 5 AM till 8 or so the next morning.
I have no idea where to get a tide chart for out there and there were no fliers to guage by. It seemed like everything settled down around 2-3 though which would be my guess for slack. The bite seemed strongest then too. The short strikes increased as the afternoon wore on.
Pretty work Riptide. You always give us the good, the bad and the ugly. I think yesterday sounds like a good day, where some bad boys got ugly with some tunafish.
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