Tails to Dip: 8th - 9th

**rirockhound** · 08-10-2009 04:28 PM

Left the dock 1030 Sat headed for the fishtails/middle ground area. Fished with all our friends; my father (Tautog01 who lurks here) and I aboard his 29 blackfin (Valhalla Rising). the rest of our usual crew was tied up and we weren't missing the weather window.

lines in ~2p or so Sat in 55 fathoms north of the fish tails (block canyon). Trolled through the tails, talked to some contacts in the area who reported dead water, and so, we headed west, picked up 2 small yellows, a nice mahI (16LB) and a skippy on the flats in Middle grounds in 400ft of water. Worked the area, made a few more passes, this attracted attention so we continued west and south off the edge.

Fished the night off the edge in 8-900ft of water south east of the dip. Quiet night on the drift, forecasted SE stayed light northerly, took us Southwest, rather than towards the wall. the quiet reports kept us from bothering to move up the wall in the middle of the night.

One take down around 330a (solid) missed that was a good fish, likely decent YFT or big-eye. a few other baits nibbled, we suspect a possible sword as they were both in the the same depth/area, both missed.

Highlight was at 3am, caught and released a est 7.5-8ft 300+lb hammerhead (first 'exotic' shark for the boat) on a shark bait (SKIPJACK FILLET) put out on a boredom whim. got on the big eye troll at 445 in the dark, nada till ~0630 when we got infested with a mix of short and barely legal yellowfin to ~30lbs. Most released, kept 4 total, into the low 30" range; pulled the hook on more than a few. Heard of a few more boats having some action; 2 boats had big eyes and one had a marlin, otherwise the

picked up a few more mahi on the high fliers, dropped a nice bull est 20 on the troll and another on spinning gear. hooked a pissed off 15lb that made a 50yard initial run (between the bout and flier; took some quick maneuvering of the boat) but turned out to just be long and lean.

Sounds like the bite was east of us 30-40 miles. Oh well, can't win them all.

**AT Grimaldi** · 08-10-2009 05:26 PM

Nice outing.

for a moment there, you REALLY got my attention. I thought my RoMarine might be able to make that trip, but then again, I get the SHIAT scared out of me just running a stiff cut off of Nantucket.