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Random Quote: You touched the leader its a catch! (as I cry from the bridge)
Thursday morning at 530 Willis Wharf was quiet and socked in with fog. The boat was loaded.
With radar and a good GPS trail we started off and picked our way through the markers. We encountered one other work boat on our way out. By the time we were several miles from the inlet we had a couple hundred yards visibility.
The ocean was glassy as the sun came up. Our destination was 26 mile hill where I hoped to pick up a quick blue fin. On board was my good friend Malcolm. He brought along John, who is a chef in Las Vegas, as well as John’s future son-in-law.
This was my 6th trip offshore in my boat so I still consider myself an amateur. Despite the amateur status I had a run going of never getting skunked on tuna. Even my first trip out about 6 weeks ago leaving the dock at 8 am we boated a legal blue fin tuna.
There were several boats at the hill when we got started. I’m still not set up with outriggers and I run five lines. The standard boone bird with a green machine was sent long. I had a spoon, cedar plug, ballyhoo, and something or other that was purple set out as we began our troll.
About 30 minutes into the game we had a strike or two but no hookup. Shortly after the strikes we had a solid set on the spoon and in no time a king mackerel was going on ice. Life was good. The skunk was off the boat. We were going to have a good day.
Thirty more minutes were put behind us with nothing except a king jumping across our offerings. I wasn’t marking much in the way of life down there and I had other ideas. We started trolling toward deeper waters.
Ten miles later we pulled in the lines to make some time. I figured if I headed to Norfolk Canyon I would find something. On the way out we stopped off at a piece of plastic about 2 foot square and could see fish on the surface. They weren’t dolphin but we started fishing. We were using chunks of butterfish on circle hooks. At first we were getting bait stolen by these strange top feeding fish with small mouths. Once we got deeper and chunked some the dolphin turned on. When one was hooked and brought up there were usually about 20 others with it. We had a blast!
We repeated this scene at several other stops on the way out. We had accumulated about 16 fish when I figured we might as well start some trolling. We set out the lines in about 200 feet of water and went for it. There was lots of life 75 to 100 feet down so that was encouraging. I got up to about 8.5 mph trolling speed which has worked before. Less than thirty minutes into this I spotted a white plastic bag about 200 yards away so I altered my course to take a swipe at it. The short lines produced nothing but as the bird and GM went by there was a splash and the loud clicker from a 9/0 Penn (Malcolm found this at a yard sale… Billy Gingle sold it……..) John was ready for the task of winding in what was now about 200 yards of line. Nothing too exciting so it seemed. At times he questioned if there was anything on. Other times it was obvious there was some weight on. As he got it close to the boat it preferred to stay down and showed its strength.
I gloved up and put on my best imitation of someone who knows what they are doing. I pulled the fish up to see it was a yellow fin and after a few scary runs and maneuvers Malcolm got the gaff in him and hoisted it aboard. It easily became the largest tuna we have put on my boat. We are guessing it was at least 40 lbs but the truth is we never weighed it. We were all feeling good about it and got back to the business of fishing.
After 30 or 40 minutes of nothing we decided to head back in to the 26 mile hill were I was convinced I could get a blue fin. We stopped twice along the way to watch schools of dolphin perform. When we arrived at the hill we had 30 minutes of fishing time.
Ten minutes into it we had one on and got it to the boat and netted it in. At twenty five and a half inches it went back. I knew they were there. Another 10 minutes of trolling produces a hit on a cedar plug and Joey was up for some cranking. Five minutes later I was convinced we had a large blue fin. Joey was doing some major pulling and not gaining a lot. It wasn’t long however when the fish came to the surface and we could see it was a foul hooked mackerel……. Then it pulled loose….. thems the breaks…. Time to go home!
We headed back to the dock and made it there about 12 hours from the time we left. We had a king mackerel, 16 dolphin and one nice YFT. We traveled about 160 miles and had a lot of good food. No one got hurt or sick. I was happy I could show some folks from out of town how a good Eastern Shore tuna trip can turn out.
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