Report #2 7/16, Scalawag Geezers

[Bert Rodgers]

OK I'm not THAT old but I feel confident that with an average age of
60 we were the oldest team off shore Sat. At 49 I was the youngest. My brother Harry is 50, my father Big Harry is 79 and long time friend Dave "Fish" Fisher is 63.

Our course from OC was 172 towards NSSS and we settled in for a decent
ride over what seemed to me odd sea and sky conditions. The wind was changing and the current running south creating a chop on the surface that
had little effect on our ride. And the sky changed from haze to clear to fog,
which is what we had when we arrived at NSSS. Boats on the radar came in and out of actual view as shadows for the 1st hour of trolling. But we were
not getting a bite.

By 10:00 am we opted for plan B. , Pick up , head to Lumpy and chunk. By now the sky had cleard and the chop had layed down. Boats at Lumpy were not too badly bunched so we opted to drift. The plan was to drift over the slope from 16f into 21f, we found a decent lane and started. On our 2nd drift dave shouts, "Did you see that?" A very large blue marlin was tailing 200 yards
off our transom in 16f of water. We were unprepared and unable to do anything about it so we continued our drift.

Next drift we managed to pick up 2 nice gaffers. OK meat in the box ,skunk has been evicted.

Time passes, sandwiches are consumed and the day wears on. Back on the slope I'm changeing rigs and looking for an edge.
"Dad, pick a lucky color balloon."
"Put a yellow on there"

He sounded pretty confident so yellow it was. 6 oz wieght 25 pulls on a stand up 50. Just as I was putting it in the holder zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I lock and he's tight.

We didn't get a look at him till an hour later. Harry is at the helm I'm attached to the fish bitching about the flys and Dave is tellling me it's been many years since he has gaffed a big fish.

"Just hit him in the front 1/3rd of his body and hold on"

So he comes to the surface, Harry swings the boat on him , the leader is
coming to the rod, "GET HIM DAVE!" but Dave hesitates and the fish takes off.

An hour later he is still dogging and I'm tiring. Like I said I'm not that old but
over 2 hours on stand up for a 49 year old aint beanbag. So I'm thinking
about the 60# leader and how much can it take. No I'm not going to force it,
but these fucking flys are killing me.

"Harry, lets start zigzagg turns and see if that works"

Well it did, he planes up rolls over and Dave nails him behind his gill so what do I do?

I just opened the door and let him in.

Bluefin Tuna 66 1/2 " 142#

Scalawag Geezers getterdone!

Bert

[JMS-ILM]

pretty work!!!

[terpheels]

Nice job on that slob. I hear ya on those leaders, it's always in the back of your mind. Not like trolling when you can put the heat on them. What boat were you guys? I saw maybe 30 so I'm sure I won't recall but we were a white hulled 31 Contender.

[Bert Rodgers]

Nice job on that slob. I hear ya on those leaders, it's always in the back of your mind. Not like trolling when you can put the heat on them. What boat were you guys? I saw maybe 30 so I'm sure I won't recall but we were a white hulled 31 Contender.

305 Albie. You guys weren't the ones that our drift seemed to have magnets on were you?

Bert

[terpheels]

Dude, that was us. I shoulda thrown you a beer. Cuz both of our noses were pointing at each other our drifts had us pushing at each other. Funny how small the ocean gets!!! That's a perty boat, much perty-er than my 84 24'er for sure.

[Bert Rodgers]

Dude, that was us. I shoulda thrown you a beer. Cuz both of our noses were pointing at each other our drifts had us pushing at each other. Funny how small the ocean gets!!! That's a perty boat, much perty-er than my 84 24'er for sure.

Harry kept saying, should we make a move or let him. I said, I'm working the baits do what you want. We saw the blue one on the previous drift.


Bert