FINALLY!

[Red Headed Stranger]

16 Years ago I came to Cape Cod with my then girlfriend and decided the beach was not for me. I loved fishing, had a Coleman Crawdad and scored pretty good with largemouth bass over the years and I knew striped bass and bluefish were around although I didn't think you could catch them from shore. I asked around and a few people told me you could indeed catch them from shore so when I was home I took a trip to Spag's and bought an 8ft Ugly Stick and a Penn 6500 with braided line. Next I got a few lures and headed on down to West Dennis Beach one morning to see what I could find. After casting for a few hours I thought this is useless I am not going to catch anything and let out a few last casts when all of a sudden something tugged at the other end of the line. This got my heart racing and told me ok there is more to this than I know just keep trying.

A few years later I was an accomplished shore fisherman and as much as I loved it I would always look at the boats coming and going and wonder what if.... Then I caught a break and a friend was selling an 18ft Nauset at a great price so I bought it and proceeded to screw up everything possible. After a few years I upgraded to a 20 ft Maycraft, kept working hard running a boat, and caught lots of great bass and bluefish. Of course I kept hearing about tunas being just a little further out. I decided a charter would be a good way to start so I got a hold of Capt. Eric Stewart and went out on his boat to see what this tuna thing was all about. After a few annual trips with Eric I decided I needed to figure this out for myself. I will never forget Eric telling me, "it is just fishing" because tuna had me intimidated and thinking I just can't do that.

In the meantime I have gotten my Captains License from MMA, got a 24 ft Whaler Outrage that I love, and started chartering for bass and blues.

Anyway to make a long story short after 3 years of trying and a couple of lost tunas today was my day. We left at 5am out of Sesuit and went out to Ptown, had guys hooking up left and right but not us, and then at 11:45 am we finally got our bite and landed a fine 50 inch fish at Peaked Hill Bar. The best part was I was 10 minutes from pulling the plug when this fish hit out of nowhere, we had no birds, and no marks, just BANG and fish on!

Thanks to Eric Stewart for all his good advice and it was on his white bar that we got this fish. Thanks to the Offshore Angler out of Dennis for answering a lot of questions from me about where the fish are and everything else. Thanks to all the guys who contribute to this site because it is fun to find out and read what is going on.....

Lastly thanks to my sponsors from the Sea Dog Brew Pub who got our boat floating.

From a Crawdad in a pond to landing tuna off Ptown- Wow.

As far as a fishing report goes I can say there are lots of fish at Peaked Hill just get there early and stick to it....

I'd post pictures but no one is impressed with a 50 inch fish and I can't figure out how to get them on my computer.

[Sageboy]

Nice job! Thanks for sharing.

[riggedandready]

Congratulations! You got the skunk off the boat.

Now keep going and enjoy

[CaptainCJ35]

Congrats! Great report!

[offshoreangler]

Congrats! I'm sure you're "hooked" now!!! And BTW, anyone not impressed with a 50" fish this year should sink their boat! Great work!

[Gadaluvit]

Congratulations Captain, keep at it in life, and you can enjoy things other people only dream about! Great story felt like you were re telling me bout my own childhood!

[simonsez1]

Great Job Paul! Now you broke the ice, the rest is EASY.....(kidding)! Wish you the best out there this season! Awesome story too!
Kevin

[Animal 1]

Good for you, Bud!

[Fortunate One]

"I'd post pictures but no one is impressed with a 50 inch fish and I can't figure out how to get them on my computer."

Post the picture. It's not always about the size of the fish, in this case it's about persistence and it's your first bft. Post up.

It's not only the giants that get posted to the board.

I'll walk you through it.

All you need to do it copy a file of the picture to your desk top on the computer if you don't want to search for it in a bunch of photo files where you keep your other photos. Save a picture to the desk top and name it First BFT or something easy to find.

There's a little box of icons at the top of the reply box where you type your reply on this site. It's the third box from the right.

Click on it. But make sure when you stop typing your words that the blinking curser on the screen is below your last sentence.

Just click on that the third icon from the right which indicated insert picture. Once it opens that screen, just under the words "insert Image" it says "From Computer" and "From Url" which is the default position.

Click on "From Computer". That will change the look of the box. Go to the bottom of the box and find the "Select File" icon. Click on that. That will bring up a screen that will default to files on your desk top.

Scroll down the file list until you find the file that you created with the picture, click on the file highlighting it, click OK and it will be insured in your reply.

It's simple.

[Red Headed Stranger]

I am on the far left with my son, father in law, and long time friend Mike who was on the reel, back out Wednesday and Sunday for tunas and on bass trips for the rest of the week