May 13th-17th
I just got back from a week of fishing. I was hoping that the fishing was going to stay hot. But it slowed up and dropped the daily average down some. Our current dropped out and with no moving water the cudas come out in force and the tuna just shut down.
I had Blaire and the rest of the North La. gang down for some fishing on Wednesday. The trip was perfect all the tuna we caught were over a 100 and we were 100% on the bite to the fishbox. Sounds great right well not so much when you consider we only had one tuna bite all day but it whipped everyone onboard a couple of times. Back at the dock it weighed in at 113lbs.[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/005_61.jpg[/img] Here is another shot of it and three of the five it took to beat it. [img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/002_69.jpg[/img]
On this trip if it could of went wrong it did. We had weather thrown in there the rip line which has been there for a week was gone. My sounder wanted to act up and a dive boat anchored on the bait spot overnight. And to make it worse I had a dose of water in my starboard engine 70NM from the pass a filter change saved us a LONG LONG ride home. All issues were worked out on everything else and we were able to salvage a bad day offshore with a nice fish.
The following day I had Tim McGregor and some of his buddies along with their wives. They saw the catch from Wednesday and I told them we would give the tuna a shot but it might be slow. The tuna option was quickly changed as we had a pretty stiff headsea to deal with for the run out to where we have been tuna fishing. So we switched it up and butterfly jigged up some amberjacks to save the day. I tried to finish it off with some lane snapper but the ever so elusive red snapper would not leave us alone. We called it a day a little early and headed in with only our amberjacks.
Now with the fishing being slow and the weather causing some issues I was starting to feel the pressure. But when David Doughty, and his party showed up at the dock. He had a pretty unique gift for me. He had a pineapple he said it was for good luck. Perfect now we will catch some fish. The pineapple was quickly named Wilson and rode out in on of the drink holders on the console. I am convinced it lead us to the fish we crossed a perfect brown to electric purple/blue rip right outside the pass. [img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/image14_1.jpg[/img]
I started to put out the plastics and didn’t have the entire spread out before the first fish bit on a Makaira Baby Brutus in a special dolphin color. It didn’t stay hooked but it was smoking some line. The next bite cam off of the same side on the Lena out of the rigger. This fish also managed to escape also. Now I am rethinking this pineapple thing alittle and I am having bad thoughts about turning him into a rum drink. And when the third bite happened but this time only to lose on of my Lenas. Mister Wilson’s days were numbered thankfully we had only been trolling for about a hundred yards or so. Any longer and the pineapple was dead. We did manage to convert the next three bites into fish in the box. They were all very solid dolphin in the 15-20lb range.[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/image54.jpg[/img]
They didn’t pull like to mystery fish did. But at least the day was looking up. Meanwhile we lost a couple of crew members to the weather. But on the way to the next stop I got a call from Billy as he was coming in from a overnight trip and he still some livebaits and wanted to know if I wanted them. Now with a few dolphin in the box and some prime livebaits the tuna was a good possibility. No sooner than I put out the livebaits we had a double knockdown we missed one and had the other one. Well we almost had the other one. Somehow during the fight the rod man started to feel the effects of seas and decided to look over the side and call Ralph for help. Ralph wasn’t much help as he somehow managed to throw the reel into freespool and pop off tuna. No problem let’s regroup and get back to it. This time only more dolphin would find our remaining livebaits. We ended the day a little early with 7 nice dolphin and a good story about the one that got away.
The last two days of this set of trips was with John Leib brother Howard,Dennis and Frankie all in from Florida. I was still riding on the luck from mister Wilson and I even tried to get him back from a buddy who took him offshore on a overnight trip. But our paths never crossed. We managed to fight off the cudas long enough to put enough live chummers in the well and enough hookbaits in the well. I though it was game on at the first stop as we immediately double up on nice 45lb. Yellows. After that it just died we had a couple of missed opportunities. And I have to take blame for a blown gaff shot on a very big dolphin. I stuck him and he jumped off the gaff and popped the leader. I guess I should have been quicker on the gaff sorry about that one John. We made a couple of moves and picked up two more yellows and a dolphin during the course of the day. The cudas were terrible and took quite a toll on hooks and bait. We ended the day around 4:30 and headd to the pass with four yellowfin and a dolphin for the day.
When we got back to the dock mister Wilson was waiting for me on a piling by my slip. We can’t go wrong for the next day. We made a beeline to where the best bait was and had to do it quick since they were moving the rig. This day was going to be a race against mother nature since a cold front was coming down. While making bait a few fish were popping around so we cut the bait catching short and tried to get a couple real quick the cudas were just more aggressive than the tuna. We did get a double only to lose one to the other line but we did get John his tuna that we didn’t get the day before. Now this is where mister Wilson’s luck came into play as Howard decides to toss the topwater to a boil and hooks a 80lb or so yellow on the spinner.[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/008_56.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/009_43.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/014_31.jpg[/img] After a few laps around the boat a very beat fish is in the boat for the ride home. [img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/017_26.jpg[/img]
There are a few shots of Howard’s fish as he was pretty pumped up. Somehow Mister Wilson lost his head in the process and we buried him at sea but his luck kept with us. As we finished the day with a real nice dolphin of which I didn’t mess up the gaff shot this time and another yellow that everyone got a piece of in the 80lb range.[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/021_19.jpg[/img]
With three nice yellows in the box and a dolphin we headed to the house[img]http://www.forumpictureprocessor.com/pictureprocessor/images/024_15.jpg[/img]
only to get hit by the front and 25-30 knot winds as I turned into the pass what perfect timing. Thank you Mister Wilson.
Capt. Mike
