First trip of the year! Here's some raw footage I slapped together. NOTE: I'm having some technical difficulties with the new chumcam. I lost the sound at the end. If you have any other problems, pls let me know. Thanks.
Left the dock around 7PM Wed Jun 11. Everyone was pumped. SSTs showed that we had most of the types of structure one could hope for, temp, current, contour and clarity. We guestimated that the warm core body of water everyone's been watching would push into the NE canyon walls by the weekend.
We stopped and fished off Montauk for bluefish because I forgot to grab some small snappers we picked up the weekend before. Dumb. Five anglers and none could catch a friggen bluefish?! WTF? I did hook up with a slob that straighten the hook. But, I doubt it was a bluefish. Why is it, when your trying to catch choppers, you can't. But when your not, you can't keep 'em off the lines
We steamed S overnite at 10 knots to save fuel. Randy and I picked out some bars that could handle the speed and set out a thin spread which we pulled for a whooping 50-60 miles while dodging the high flyers in the dark I think that's a new record. Beautiful starry night with water temps at 63-64F. We ran along a break. There has GOT to be bluefin in that cooler water. At 10 knots, we could have plowed right over them and never had known. But, we weren’t out there for bluefin. We wanted to see what was along the thermal structure.
Found the break along 1000 fth line. Temps jumped from ~65 to 74F. We started on the cool side heading S and W toward The Dip. Scored 1 small yellowfin, under 50#s. This little bugger was starving. Very little found in the stomach, some small bait and some sort of copepod; probably feeding along the thermocline. Headed into the warm blue water and later had a small marlin (whitey?) jerk us around in the spread but never connected. That was it. Sloooow.
We setup for the night with a drift starting from cooler water into the warm, right down the throat of Block. Chunked some left over butters from last year Andy found mixed with macks to lure in mako. Set up two sword rigs, two shark rigs and 4-5 chunk rigs. Saw lots of "stuff" in the lights but very few squid in the lights. We picked off some flying fish with a net which we tried to live line. Either these fish are very fragile or we're fat fingered and clumsy. Probably a little of both. None survived once hooked. Oh well, over they went. I believe that’s the first time I’ve fished with flying fish.
All was quiet, a beautiful night. But nothing, zip. About 2AM Slam. A mako aired out right in the lights. 3 jumps and it was gone. Damn thing hit the tuna line with the friggen flying fish instead of the bluefish with the shark rig. That was it for the overnight. As we expected, it’s too early for the tuna chunk. That's why we had the mako rigs out
Daybreak: As I was dropping the wwb from the bridge Whammo. That was quick, game on. Another small yellow. Lines out again, circle the boat and a double. Lost one, but another small yft in the box. One more time and BINGO, a triple header. One short and a small and smaller. Bite died off and we headed for the deep, warm blue water. 5 small yellowfin in da box. All the YFT seemed to be smalls.
Temps broke about 74 and had another whitey jerking us around. Finally hooked up on the SB rigger but never stayed connected. Shortly after, another whitey on the wwb. I grabbed the rod and the cat & mouse game began. After a few minutes, it finally attacked. Got some video of that one. Had one last white come thru the spread and hooked up, but disconnected. It was now a bit after noon and time to steam back to port. Not a bad first trip.
BTW, Andy's "green experiment" saved 75 gals of fuel just by steaming out overnite at 10 knots. That will be part of his routine now. 75 X $5/gal, that's...ummm.... I like it!
Vin, they're here. Spoke to one of the crew on the dock aboard Gambler who hooked up to an est. 10' JFL blue marlin in the block, deep. 2 1/2 hours! Time to load up that big blue boat.
Always love the vid's..........Heard all kinds of talk on the radion Sat. about Block Canyon, The Dip, The Tails, Yellowfin, White Marlin, Capt. Terry,....It's all greek to me Neat to see what it's all about through your video's
We saw two CCs out there. One was J&B's 24 or 26' I hear they truck out there in the CC all the time. Terry may have been the other. Had I known his contender was out there, I would have given him a call.
Time to go chase bluefin while the canyons continue to set up
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Nice work there gang nice indeed
Big Blue is just about ready... just waiting for somethng else to show up and give that first shot a bit more life
You guys did it proud nice work on the chumcam
First trip and a billfish....now that's leading the way
I'm not certain the guys will take a 10 knt troll but oh yeah it conserves fuel big time when those turbo's aren't gettin wound up. One hydraulic issue to clear up and the tanks are full, chairs in place and Cappy Say is bringing home some sweet product from the BBQ of BBQ's.
Lot's more new stuff to hit the water with this year
you might want to google "hull speed" and read up on optimum displacement speed. 10 knots is a bit fast for a 40-something boat.
Simply speaking your best economy is going to be less than 1.3 * square root of waterline length.
Certainly 10 knots is more efficient than cruise speed but you might want to drop down a knot or so to squeeze out a little better milage.
W/ 29' LOWL I night troll at 6 knots and get 2+ nmiles/gallon; bumping up to 7 knots drops me to 1.7 nmiles/gallon, still better than my 1.25 at cruise.
FWIW - I usually make 1-2 evening trips out where I run to the lanes and then troll 30-40 miles at 6 knots.
Over the years I'd say I'm at least 5:1 single small straight 7" lures to either bars, chuggers or any other noise making things in the spread. Of course that doesn't stop me from pinning 2 11" lumo bars right off the transom each time I do it.
Backman, your right. We could save more by turning it down a notch. We were running just under 10 kts (ground speed) with a tail wind Now that BACKMAN formula - 1.3 X SQRT (LOWL) - has me scratching my head. Interesting. Seems counter-intuitive. A smaller hull is less efficient at a given speed than a larger hull? Why is that? PS We clipped some blue light sticks inside some squid shells. Looked cool as hell to me. We'll have to refine that spread/troll over the season. Would you mind expanding on what your trolling with at night?
You want to be at a sweet spot either below hull speed or at your most efficient planing speed for maximum fuel efficiency - for me its 6 knots or 25 knots; everything in between is a compromise in some way. I actually am less fuel efficient at 10-14 knots than I am at 20-25 knots as i'm neither sliding below deplacement speed or planing above the water.
I've trolled everything - 4 bar spreads; lumo, nornal bar w/ lightstick and w/out light stick - w./ squid + light stick also.
KISS in the dark; 5 rods max; long ago I trolled from Veatch to Hydro in the dark and had a triple or quad hookup of 40 pound yellows in an 8 or 9 rod spread - what a fiasco that was.
I usually run a couple 11" bars in real close; 2 simple dark jetheads off the riggers and either a purple plug flat lined inside one of the bars or something moderately noisy but straight (funnnel jetsmall wide range or softhead chugger) down the middle but close enough to see in the spreaders.
I want to be able to check the spread for weed easy - only 1 line per rigger as well as keep it close enough to see. I've tried WWB w/ and w/out bird and never had luck.
It is a complete cluster when your at the helm, someone sleeping below and someone else semi dozing on a passenger seat when a rod goes off. Believe it or not a couple times we've seen a good 200 yard run before either person on the helm or on watch responds. Whats that funny noise? Check gauges, look around for warning lights; check radar - oh S**t we're ON! WAKE UP!
We also got hit once at 20+ knots IN THE DARK!! when we forgot a jethead on a troll out of the Lanes in the dusk, picked up and run and had something that was not obviously a wahoo dump half a spool before coming off when I slowed down.
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I think that's a new record. Beautiful starry night with water temps at 63-64F. We ran along a break. There has GOT to be bluefin in that cooler water. At 10 knots, we could have plowed right over them and never had known. But, we weren’t out there for bluefin. We wanted to see what was along the thermal structure.
That was it for the overnight. As we expected, it’s too early for the tuna chunk. That's why we had the mako rigs out
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Neat to see what it's all about through your video's
