Got out on Monday 14th in 2-4 ft seas with a W wind chop& slap
Having a crew of three, one a first-timer and the second a tuna novice~ the goal was to hopefully see a lot of fish and maybe find something on the troll or with a big lucky cast or (300x)
Headed NE toward Boon Island and a few marks beyond didn't quite make it to Boon and we were on top of a nice pile of busting fish before the sun had broken the horizon~ got a few quick casts with metal....and the fish were down
Powered back up~ and BAM.....hit something.....crap....whip my head around to see a 6 ft log tracking back off starbd side of the engine....spin the boat around....inspect the damage on the log....looks like only one prop mark or possibly from the ducer fairing block that protrudes about 2-3"
Run the bilge pump, pop the bilge cover forward of the o/b peer in....everything looks dry....
Power up again.....tracking back on course- another pod of busting fish....few casts...no joy.....
We're on a mission for bait before we venture and invest time in these top water feeding frenzies.....we find some good bait on top of Boon Ledge...super high tide- we get on top of the big stone....15 fow, hopefully no sudden swell is gonna leave my boat sitting on the hard.....its hairy on top of that ledge! Nice bait...but its hard to find a good mess of macks...lots of pollock though
Load up both live wells and head out to the Fingers and beyond into and beyond the shipping lanes...a few busting fish - single jumpers a few whales- now we're in 600 fow and the seas bumped up to 4+ and we're surfing with the following sea...
Still want to venture E-NE...in search of but that little voice is telling me to turn tail in my little (and feeling smaller every wave) 22' center. Sure we have a few safety items onboard, raft, EPIRB, ditch bag & stuff....but lets not push this adventure too far ~ there's nobody else out here
Spin the boat around and what was an easy 22 knots with the wind became 8 knots into 4 ft ++ ~ we got wet and it took a long time to find our way back to the Fingers.....
Started to see fish around 11am and they stayed up all day~ the first time in 3 yrs that I've seen soooo many footballs, last time was Fall 2006, but there were hundreds of fish over a 4 hr period. Guessing these fish were upper 20"-mid 40" mostly~~ Free jumping solo fish and full frenzy busting with the occasional 200# class fish mixed in. Once we drove up on 2 giants running on the surface....
After some close but unsuccessful run & gun & cast 'like a bastahd' attempts, we decided to deploy a spread. The surface was riddled with grass and cabbage and every weed that "Bill" and all the other storms could pile up. And, of course, the best concentration of surface crap was in the same 400 acre arena in which these tuna were doing their dance.
Fish were everywhere, and for 2 hrs you could hear comments from my team that my boat was managing to be SMACK in the middle of everything yet.....no luck.....(oh, if you were looking for a happy ending with a cool deck shot of blood and a mid 60" fish....I'm sorry, I disappoint.....)
My dad had a saying that you just need to put more time on the deer stand.....well, that's what we managed to do, 12 hrs dock to dock.
Lessons learned- (1) don't run out early in a heavy chop just to get on the fish by first light (2) don't waste time fishing for bait if you're not going to use it (3) simplify your spread if the fish and weeds are thick (4) relax, enjoy the time spent fishing~ don't stress about NOT catching... (5) maybe I just suck at this tuna thing.....
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