Barta Summary

[BTH284]

Got to the boat Thurs afternoon met the owner and the Salesman from 70 West that would be fishing with us (friend of mine). Got on the boat and saw single rigged riggers with no teaser placements and 4 rod holders in the gunnels and a few up on the hard top. I knew then I was going to have my work cut out for me. Plus, Friday morning was going to be the maidend voyage for this guys boat.

Went to Capt. meeting in Beaufort, met some more of the SFC guys. GottaflyLee, Tuna Taxi, Admin John, Baywolf and Glenn W even though I did not formally meet him until Sat night. Got to speak with Rob White and Lou, Holy Smoke, JMS, BOX and some of the others I had met before.

Went back to the place I was staying and started my bait prep. Got to bed about 11:00 p.m. and slept very lightly. Headed out the door at 3:50 to get the boat ready. Honked the horn as I went by Marty's and saw the light on in the office up stairs. Get to boat and rig up the flat lines, improvise some teaser setup in the riggers and get the bait tray on the ice. The owner gets there and gets his stuff ready, waiting in the salesmen now and get the boat iced down and are under way at a very LATE!! 6:00. I knew that we would not have lines in by the correct time as I wanted to leave the Marina by 5:00 but had to wait on some of the people above. The owners son opted to not go since this was the first time this boat had been offshore ever. This left us with no Jr. Angler.

As we fell in the line of boats on the way out and made our way offshore underneath the clouds, we decided to take a gamble and head way south away from the pack. We were crossing the 100 fathoms at the 375 - 400 line at the time for "lines in". We settled the boat down somewhere in the 375's to 400's in 730 feet of water at 8:30 a.m. and I commenced to get the spread out as we headed out for a little deeper water. I noticed a lil break in front of us and the water temp went down to 79.5 from 82.3 as soon as we crossed the lil pocket of cool water the long line started screaming. 20 minutes later YFT to the boat and the owner did not have his HMS permit. Back to water it went. 1 tuna released. Continued to zig zag from 150 to 100 fathom heading north all day.
The salemen friend of mine gets up and locks himself in the V berth about 9:30 and commences to get sick. This left me with the owner as the angler and also left me to run the boat and the pit at the same time. Shortly after this I see the purple shadow comming into the spread on the left rigger and then the drag starts to sing. He lets go and I drop back like there is no end. It comes tight then slack I drop back three more times with the above repeating itself over and over. The owner says "what was that?" I reluctantly said that was our first shot at a bill. We continue the zig zag out to the deep and back up the 100-150 fathom and start to dodge the rain storms. This went on until 12:45 or so with no knockdowns and me switching out baits every 10 minutes trying. hoping to make something happen. The salemen emerges from the V berth I am relieved to be back in the pit full time. We make our turn to get on course to troll home and cross into some shallower water and WHAMMO!!! long line starts in again. Long story short, 22.92 Weehoo in the box. Get the lines back out again and WHAMMO, then lost fish. Re-set lines and re-rig the long line that just got cut in half behind the hook. We get cut off a few more times and cross back into the inshore side of the 100 fathom line at 1:15 and start to look for some sails and meat in the shallows.
I hear the right rigger zing, as I run over to it and drop back looking for some tell tale sign life I catch a glimpse of something HUGE blowing a hole in the water the size of a grand piano and commences to "smoke" the left long. By the time I get the rod out of the holder and pass off to the angler there is about 3/8 off the spool of the tiagra 30. I get everything cleared and look at the hooked up rod that is now being held parallel to the water by the angler. Once I ask/tell politely to make sure that rod tip stays up I see the rod unload and the huge fish is off and free to bite again. Oh well. it happens. For the next 30 minutes until lines out we are covered up by mahi and my two anglers lose 4 VERY NICE gaffers from pumping the rod to parallel and back over their head. After losing these I am about ready to pull my hair out. I finally get them straight we end put some giggers in the box. It was lines out by this time and I was ready to re-set and troll again. But we had to head to the barn

I congratulated the guys on the fish they did get to the gaff and let them know that we did well missing a shot at a bill offshore this morning and it was probably a bill that blew a hole in the water. The owner turns to me with a BIG GRIN and says this is the best day of fishing he has ever had. We did manage an offshore meat slam even though we released the tuna.

Day two- Get to the boat after sleeping like a rock last night and head out at the proper time this morning and cleared the inlet at 5:45. We make the turn to head to the middle to southern offshore side of the Big Rock and took 3 over the bow. The owner turns to me and says "if it is going to be like this, I not comfortable going". I tell him that is fine that it will probably be worse as the day goes on. So in we went and enjoyed a good breakfast at the Captain's Table in MHC.

My friend and I head over the MHC waterfront and notice we are not the only ones that stayed in as well as some of the boats we saw that were in over in Beafort.

All in all a great day fishing even though my guys lost some fish. If the junior angler would have been with us we would have taken either 7th or 8th in the Jr. Wahoo.

I was very forunate that I got asked to fish in this and look forward to it again next year.

[Foul Hooked]

Awesome recap man. Thanks again for the info. It was good seeing you down there and I'll probably drag the kencraft down the next time I'm in that neck of the woods.