Sunday searching 7/13/14

[sasquatch]

 After getting beat up on the Boma yesterday, I was looking forward to getting beat up again on my friends 23 foot Parker center console. It has a nice pointy bow for going through the swells. Whoo hoo.

Jon's boat was in a slip at the yacht club so I met him at the launch ramp where we parked the truck and trailer to pull the boat in the afternoon. We went and picked up the boat, then picked up his three kids from the sailboat where they spent the night before. At least the dog didn't come. Have to hand it to his oldest. He wouldn't take seasick meds cause they make him sick. Then he got seasick. Hurled a couple times then rallied. Not another peep about it.

I was happy to hear the bait barge was back at its old location, but by the time we got there we were 7th in line. When we got our bait I looked back and saw 12 boats behind us. Good fishing does that.

We got a half scoop of nice sardines and headed for the 302.

Put the trollers in about 5 miles shy of the bank and trolled while we looked for paddys. And looked, and trolled, and trolled and looked. Saw a couple boats stopped, which was encouraging, but no paddy for us.

We saw a few nice sized mako fins that dropped out on us before we decided to try for them, so when we spotted the third, I took the boat out of gear right away. The fin disappeared again, and one of the trolling rigs went off. Got the mako, right? Nope, yellowfin. Damn. We should have thrown some baits, but we thought it was the mako.

Trolled another hour or so for nothing, until I spotted a paddy. The paddy. The only one all day.

Set up on it for a drift, tossed a few dines and saw boils. Got baits in the water and it was on. We drifted that paddy for an hour and a half, maybe two. The kids fought yellowtail til they were tired and quit fishing. Several got wrapped in the kelp, and pulled out by brute force still trailing kelp when they got to the boat. The cluster that occured when Jon and I were hooked up and the kids wanted to stop fighting there fish was comical. Well after the first few aggravating times when I had to remember they were kids and just doing there best.

Not huge fish, but willing. 8-10 pounds I guess.


Both Jon and I got bit by fish that we knew immediately were not yellowtail. Hit harder and ran deep, not straight back to the kelp. Nice yellowfin tuna. Mine went about 20 pounds and Jon got the jackpot with about 25 pounds.


We kept the tuna and 5 yellowtail, but released the rest. We could have had limits twice over for the 5 people on the boat.

Props to the boat that hung outside watching for 30 minutes without barging in. We tried to wave them over a couple times but they must not have seen. Three kids and lots of fish didn't leave time to grab the mic. I did manage to make a call out when we went back up for a reset, "Hey you guys watching us on this paddy, cruise over." but no movement on their part.

Finally after one last drift, we had enough and started to motor away, they came straight towards us and we said have fun we are tired. The thanked us and we went on our way.

Weather was great we ran home at a dry 20 knots down swell all the way home. We expected much more wind than we got. It was a nice day. I have to say there was ten times more life on the water saturday with Tom.

Pulled the boat from the Shelter Island zoo, and headed back to Jon's to clean the boat and fish.

Afterwards, his wife made sushi for all the neighbors, and grilled some sausages for me.

Slept good and was ready to rest up at work today.

[Latimeria]

It's so killer to see posts here, Steve.  Thanks boss, this is all helping out the optimization. 

[WheresMyBeer]

Right on Steve! Great action right there. Man ... August is gonna be nuts!