West Atlantis on Sunday report

[City Hands]

A veteran team of Andy Salem, Sandy Ballou, Chris Ramsden and I met second time Canyon runner Mack Ramsden and first timer Bob Vetromile at midnight on Saturday for a long day trip to the edge. Boat loaded with 4000 pounds of bait, gear, ice, glutten free food (for Vet), but no tonic or water (last time we give Vet the drinks job...Barton, we missed you) we headed out at 12:30 into the very dark evening. No moon at all so stars were incredible but lack of light and no spotlight made spotting the markers coming out of the harbor a bit tricky. 2-3 footers all the way out, but not angry 2-3 footers. I drove and Sandy rigged the 4 rods that were still set up for live baiting on Friday...Josh, Sandy broke your Penn 80lb tuna rod while testing it...He's excited to buy you another new one. By 4:15 we were approaching the NW wall of West Atlantis Canyon. In short order we had the big eye spread out, in the dark, and everyone was fired up (except for Mack who was curled up dreaming of Exeter women in his dramamine induced coma). The chatter on the radio indicated a slow night for most with several picking up yellows on the jig in the lights. At 6:30 we passed a huge sea turtle on the starboard side and just as she entered the spread one of the rods went off...uh oh, tangled sea turtle or big eye? Penn 70 eventually was spooled with literally 10 or so wraps to go but Andy S spun the boat and turned back just in time to save the line. Another 5 minutes of tugging and the turtle/fish dove hard peeling line again from the 70 and then parted...line came back fully chafed. I'm in the turtle camp with a few others while Salem is in the Fish camp...

at 7:20 our Long middle rigger line got hammered by a big fish and we were off to the races. Thankfully again the hit came on a 70 but we nearly were spooled again. Andy S settled into the fight while the rest of us cleared lines. As we excitedly prepared for a large Big Eye to come over the rail and readied the 3 gaffs at the 25 minute mark, the fish surged and the rod danced as it shook it's head violently...and then nothing. Hook pull. Arghh! Though no fault of Andy's, we blamed him the rest of the day for this failure.

We pounded the same area for an hour with no joy and then continued heading south into 2000 feet of water where we found whales, mantas, porpoise and finning sharks but no tuna. 4 hours later we were still trolling in the blue and had nothing to show for it. Slowly we made our way back north, heading back to the spot we originally head the big eye hit and the area came to life. a 30-35' Whale shark swam right underneath our boat, we saw literally hundreds and hundreds of giant mantas crashing on the surface and gliding effortlessly in the gin-clear water below us. Sharks finned on the water and sea turtles bobbed by periodically. Finally at noon the fishing lit up and we were covered and 6 rods screamed. Small yellows but at least we were see action. We boated all 6 but released 3 and we turned to set the baits again. not long after that we had a singled knock down, another yellow, and then and eighth fish came over the rail. Rammer sent out a marlin lure on the middle rigger and immediately it got slammed but an angry white marlin. 15 minutes later we pulled her on board, took some video and sent her back swimming to the depths just as John Nadeau aboard a 48' viking trolled by on the starboard side. We re-set the spread adding 2 more Marlin offerings but couldn't repeat the success over the next hour.

Heading north up onto the wall and the flats we found a pot with mahi and we baited them and watched Vetro toss a fly with his 10 weight rod in vain. They were interested...but not enough to eat it. We put a few mahi in the boat and then headed north for what would be one of the nicest return trips ever...flat the whole way.

Final tally: 8 small yellows, 1 white marlin, several mahi and another Big Eye that got away...

[strikezone2]

Matt,
great job on an overall slow day for us.
Had my 2 boys. JK and Jim Thompson, Let out of block at 3:30 for the run down to brick rock and south from there. had a hit immediately in 900 feet of water which took a 50 down pretty low before the hook pulled, bigeye or marlin not sure. Thought the day would be good but it was very slow accept for the mahi we where getting off a log in the water on every pass. Cabo next to us jumped us and tied off to the log ending the action, thanks. Finally got a tuna hit at 11:00am and put a 40lb fish in the boat. Left early which was probably the wrong thing to do and went to the lanes where we saw alot of life on the way out and hit the mahi pretty good for an hour before heading to block island for the night. Fished saturday inshore as the boy, age 12 and 15 wanted to go shark fishing. Had nonstop action at the gulley with bluedogs to 250 for 5-6 hours, great for the kids to pull on. My brother, John ,overnighted in the tails on his friends boat for no action accept for a blue marlin hit, not good for a 2 day trip.
Joey
strikezone