"If at first you don't succeed, don't try skydiving"
Join Date
Dec 2008
Location
RI/MA trailer
Posts
126
Boat
Key Largo 206 CC Four J's ch65
tuna rookie no more
Just back from vacation in NC where all we could catch was flounder, we're jonesin to get back out there. My older son had said in NC he'd go with us. He's never really like fishing much but I figured even if we get a good whale show he'd love it. So mid week ,winds look good for friday, I call him and see if he's still in. Yup he's in. Ok ,sleep over my house we leave at 2:30. OMG, really? damn...., er ok, I'll still go.
Fast forward, Friday wake him up at, he went to bed at 11, typical college kid, he doesn’t need sleep, he’s fine. We trailer over to Ma. Steamed to the bank, didn't see any life so kept going and going till we find some birds start working. Finally started seeing some life so put out the bars. Pods of fish started popping up quick, and then back down. We trolled for an hour all around but no takers.
Decided to start casting at pods popping up. I cast out a white ronz on a small jig head 1 1/2 oz. Got hooked, fish was headed towards boat, right near boat, finally realized he was hook and changed direction. I think the leader chaffed and broke right away with the sudden pull in a different direction. We tried for another hour and no more hookups, seemed to die down so we put out the bars again.
Great whale shows going on. Whales slapping the water, one slapped like 20 times in a row with his tail. Mouths full open feeding on sand eels right near the boat. My son loves this trip anyway without even hooking a fish! While casting we hooked and release 3 shearwaters, he got a kick out of that as well.
Trolled around for awhile thru the slack, no luck. Talked to Curt and he's not doing much either. Every time I think about going somewhere, a pack of birds gets excited and a pod splashes around for 30 secs again.
Finally it happens. We see the rod bend over and reel start screaming. Then we see the bar get exploded on. Have no idea why it happened in this order. Fish peels off a good amount of line while we're clearing the other lines. My son gets in the harness and we put the rod in and belt him up.
He starts working the fish well and then realizes this is totally different than striper fishing! He works the rod and gets the fish to the boat in 15-20mins. My buddy Bill goes to sink the poon, it goes thru the gill plate and isn't buttoned up too well. I grab the gaff and sink the gaff boat side. Fish was a bit nasty slashing around. He calms down after a few minutes so we cut him boat side, tail rope him and bleed him out. High 5's all around!
Fish hit the short right bar, FO orange bar with green stinger. Fish taped out at 65"
We tried for a little while longer but wind kicked up and I said it was time to go. Great day on the water! My camera seemed to crap out. Only got these pics on a cellphone.
Last edited by fish4stripers; 08-02-2009 at 12:02 AM.
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