Veatch Canyon Salty Dog

[SaltyDog]

Due to crew work schedules we couldnt leave until 1030p. We left FH and had a moonlit often bumpy ride to Veatch. Got 3 quick vineyard sound squids out at 330am for a shot in the dark sword. Nothing but 3 mahi in the sword lights for 2 hours, although we boated the entire family of them. First light bite had a multiple albie bite go off in the middle of the canyon. Worked that area for an hour and then it just got dead. Went to the deep 76.7 degree water and couldnt get out of the weed. All day it was weed, weed, weed. It sucked. Glad I had 4 people on the boat bc we didnt stop pulling weed off for more than 30min. All of our bites came with at least half the spread covered in weeds so you just had to keep clearing lines and hoping you had a few clean when the bite went off. We heard the same reports from Hydro so decided to slog it out at Veatch--all alone once Stadevarius left us. We worked the canyon and flats hard and just had a slow day except for mahi everywhere. Went through 3 packages of 12 ballyhoo----almost all from mahi. Finally hit the flats north of Veatch for the slow troll home. 72 degree water. NightBite puts out a ballyhoo mid long with pink skirt I had rigged as a backup--our 11th line in the water. I ask him if we really need an 11th line with all the weed?? Short while later its the pink ballyhoo that goes off and my cousin Pete, Reel Pursuit, boat a nice wahoo! I'm wrong and glad for it. Just like all day, the one bite goes off and it shut down. Overall a slow weedy tough trip but we gutted out a some nice fish for the table. At one point we were missing the days of 30 rat YFT at West Atlantis...Waiting to hear some reports from Hydro as we almost went there. Wahoo ceviche rocks!

[tunaddiction]

great report guys hopefully this water holds for a bit, and a wahoo always makes for a great trip

[Reel Pursuit]

Little Pinky gets it done again! Grilled some of that wahoo last night and it was great. Gave a piece to Wayne also. He was happy as a clam!
I hope there's a couple more shots at the bluewater before it's tautog time again.

[backman]

Pinky is the new Green Machine

[johnnywalker]

Way to keep at it and put some meat on the boat
Try Circle hooks on your bars next time the weeds are out of control, the weeds roll of them pretty well and you will be very surprised on your hook up ratio; looks strange but it does work,

Pink baits has been hot this year, I concur on that one

Ono = Yum!

[Parapapam]

Pete is a wahoo magnet.....

I still remember the pics of that big one.

Mike

[Fortunate One]

Salty Dog,

I didn't know you had Pete on board. Was he resting when I reached you by radio?

We left the marina Monday at first light. Slugged it out to Hydro in some in close stiff seas. Arrived on site near noon. Talked to the Capt of the Helen H who was on his way back in. Bill Brown knew the capt and as professional courtesy he gave us the low down. They had worked the area for a couple of days. He said that they had a steady night bite, but it wasn't in the cards for us.

We eventually went between Hydro and Veatch on the flats before getting a couple of albies. This spot was info shared by the Helen H.

We dropped one close to the transom. Picked up a couple of yellows, one more albie on a "gentleman's jig". Rod in the holder and jig off of the rigger. We ended up with 3 albies, 2 yellows and 28 mahi.

We had a very large school of mahi in the lights all night. Just kept picking them off. We set up drifting from the southeast corner of Veatch and ended up with a perfect drift that brought us across the canyon and up the west wall. But other than the mahi and one tuna at night it was dead.

At dawn we trolled the area like you guys did, but Bill wanted to head to the cooler water off to the East of Hydro so we went there and picked up some more mahi.

We should have saved the fuel and just stayed at Veatch or ran further into the deep and set a marlin spread.

I talked to your buddy boat "J Seas" He was trying to reach you to tell you he wasn't doing any better. I tried to relay the call to you but you apparently didn't hear us. How did he do?

All and all it wasn't a bust. God knows we tried.

My friend Capt. Bill Brown, being the driven hardcore fisherman that he is, left the Strad late Monday evening and had to run a charter yesterday.

His efforts paid off, Big as in 428lbs big.

Check this out.








Needless to say, I made a trip to Westerly to get some meat.

[Reel Pursuit]

Mike-
I tried to raise you later in the day but you were probably out of range at that point.
BTW-
nice mako!

[Albatross32]

Hey Fortunate One....I was on the JSEAS and heard you talking with our captain Jim O'Brien. We did a day trip out there and ended up with 10YFT and 3 Mahi. It took us a while to find the bite but once we did we put a nice little catch together. All of the action was just north of the tip of Hydro. Weeds were terrible! Nice job with that Hoo Mark! Good luck the rest of the season...

-Brian