West Atlantis and Fishtails Report

[keithj]

Made it down to the canyons for the first time Friday to Saturday. Not a great trip but not a terrible trip. Started at west atlantis along the big break that's a little west of the canyon. The story here was not a good one for us, after three hours of trolling we didn't have a single knock down and the life looked pretty much non-existent. We made the decision to pick up and run the 30 miles to Fishtails.

Fishtails had a lot more positive signs. In the middle of the canyon there were some of the biggest slicks I had ever seen with litterally hundreds of thousands of petrols swarming all over the slicks feeding. It was nuts. We picked up five rat yellowfins towards the tip over the canyon, let them all go, and then dragged bigeye lures over the slicks until about 10pm. No luck.

Set up for swordfish in the middle of the canyon and of course our drift was laughable. There was not a single puff of wind and most of the night i stared at the gps SOG begging for it to go from 0.0 knots to 0.1 or 0.2 knots. Over the entire night we drifted maybe a quarter of a mile and spent the better part of it running the rods around the boat as it spun around with no current. Highlight of the night was in the hydroglow, we had a shoal of thousands upon thousands of squid swim through packed thick. On their tails were about a dozen sharks, 6-8 feet long, maybe dusky's? Thought that might be the answer on where the huge tunaless slicks in the canyon were coming from.

In the morning worked the bird slicks for a bit to no avail and then worked southwest. Water on the whole trip was much colder than our temp shots from both oceantemp and OSS had. We never saw better the 71.5 and most of the time we were fishing in 68-69. Found fish on the southwest side of the canyon and boated another 15 or so yellowfin up to 20 pounds. Rats, but we kept some of the ones that broke 30 inches. Could not find anything larger. talk on the radio had occasional fish to 60 pounds mixed in with the rats, but it wasn't our day. Pulled the plug around 9 since I had burned that extra gas running from West Atlantis to the Tails.

On the way home, stopped and picked up a 70 lb bluefin on a popper to cap off the trip. Lots of those guys around. Was a good way to end it.

No marlin, no bigeyes, no big yellows, but not a bad first trip south for the year with lots of bites. Hopefully we will see some fresh water coming in from the east soon.

[tunaddiction]

whered you pick that bluefin up?

[cappyD]

Hmmm...bluefin tuna....south of the vinyard...tuna fest tourney this coming weekend...hmmm

[keithj]

Draw a line from Fishtails to Gay Head, inside the dump.

whered you pick that bluefin up?

[SaltyDog]

Did you run that break down to the 500 or 1000 fathom line at West Atlantis or stay shallow? My bites were all between 1500-3500 feet.

[keithj]

We ran the break to as deep as 2500 feet. Just couldn't find any real life. Running 30 miles to fishtails was about the last thing i wanted to do at that point but it seemed like the best option

[captkev]

Good report, thanks for the detail. I'm looking at making the run next weekend if the weather gods allow, I've got a shark trip scheduled for the following week and I would love to have some of those yellowfin racks for the slick...

[zyg56]

Had to still be good to get out - nice trip and bonus with the bluefin.

[Thynnus]

We were hoping to buddy boat out there with the Offshore Investment but we had to pull the plug on the overnighter due to some unfortunate circumstances. I was able to get out on the Motivator out of Allen Harbor in Harwich with my good friends who graciously extended an offer to jump aboard with them, thanks again Bill, Bob and Ken. Of course Keith made the right call as the break East and South of W. Atlantis was dead. We did not have the range to get to fishtails and back so we pounded the break that went from 68 - 71, not the 73.9 that Oceantemp was showing. We did find life, birds, porpoises and had plenty of marks on the southwest edge of the canyon in 1600 - 1850 feet of water but we were only able to get 1 nice 25lb mahi on the troll. We found a flyer with 100 mahi on it and chunked another 30 chicken to gaffer sized mahi to get some meat for the box but overall it was slow. The water is not great and was devoid of tuna but it was an amazing day to be on the water, FAC conditions. I can't wait to get back out there hopefully to fish a fresh eddy, but for us small boat guys it was a nice trip because of the conditions. Hopefully next trip produces a few YFT, but its still early. Tight Lines!

[desparado]

keith,
good thorough report. hopefully, we can get a fresh eddy in the eastern canyons in the coming weeks. i would have run this week but based on this report and many others, i am not running just to run.
thanks again,
chris
ohana