First (Real) Tuna on the Curmudgeon (7/9)

[Latimeria]

I beat the heat by taking the boat out for a quick run to the local banks.  I wasn't going to go at first, but @*%! has me frazzled right now and I saw a way to clear my head when the half day cattle boats were posting up Bluefin!

It was muggy first thing in the morning.



I trolled three rods when I first got out there.  I saw some diving terns and before I knew it there were two cattle boats on me!  I kept metering things at around 20-30 feet with some occasional bait balls at 10 feet.  I threw a few macks that I made and tried the butterfly jig to no avail.  The sporties then steamed off south and I was there by my lonesome.  I put a bird/squid daisy chain on my big 100# set up and trolled a hex head and cedar plug around the area since it seemed fishy.



I heard a loud clicker for only 2 seconds and heard an ungodly splash behind me.  I turned around to see my bird and squid doing their thing and thought it might have been a mola or a mako.  BOOM!  A HUGE Bluefin over 100 pounds smashes through the daisy chain and leaps clean out of the water and the rod was still silent.  BOOM!  AGAIN and this time my clicker was screaming!  I felt him on and just like that he was gone.....

I realized on the second jump that things looked wrong and when I checked the trollers, I saw that the non-hooked squid in the chain is what got hit and he didn't take the hooked bait...  UGH..... Still one of the coolest things I've ever seen offshore.

I started trolling south and saw the fleet of boats.  I started to meter fish around 20 feet down and decided to take off the trollers and troll some Rapala Magnum 25's.  I was about 300+ yards from the fleet and my new Fathom 60 2/sp exploded with clicker sounds!  Fish on!
I worked the three rods and only had one opportunity to get a good gaff shot behind the head and I did!



I tried getting a pic from my real "Camera" instead of my phone since I didn't want to bloody it up too much, but it was all fogged up.



I saw 12 boats running full steam at me and looked down at the fish finder to see the entire screen lit up with fish marks!  I pinned on a mackerel and cast it out to get bit right away!  Unfortunately it was stripping line ands screaming across the surface where the entire school decided to come up and start foaming the water.  A Bayliner Trophy loaded with a few d!ck heads ran right over my fish and I felt his prop take up about 40 yards of my mono before I got it to snap off.  I hope he had to call vessel assist for that one.

Anyway, I started trolling again and had one more hit on the rapala.  I fought it for a few minutes before it unbuttoned on me.  It seems that a lot of boats were hooking up but a lot of boats were farming more than they were boating due to some of the size of these fish.

The biggest issue was a dozen boats would run and gun on frothing fish and make them all sink out.  Not the type of combat fishing I want to be doing.

I trolled home to see spots of tuna foaming here and there.  They only came up for a minute before sinking out, but they were moving fast.

I got home to weigh my first real tuna on the new boat and see it was a legit 35 pounder!





Well, it took a while to clean up all the tuna blood and to carve the fish up properly, but I'm a happy man. 

I would have LOVED to hook that Bluefin though.  That was still unbelievable and almost Wicked Tuna like!

Until next tide!

[Pinoyfisher]

Hell yeah Tom!! I'd love some fresh tuna right now! Stoked for you. Bummer about that Bayliner, they let any yahoo buy a boat nowadays.

[sasquatch]

35 is a nice fish.

[BenCantrell]

That's awesome! Congrats Tom!

[xjchad]

That's awesome Tom!  Sounds like a blast!
Congrats on that nice fish!!

[skrilla]

Bludgeon on the Curmudgeon!

[Eric H]

Hell yeah, im happy for you. At the same time, fuking people

I have an overnight out of seaforth this saturday. You got me excited.

[Latimeria]

Thanks guys!  That was a big load off my chest since I didn't catch any real tuna on my boat last year.  Only skippies.

Spending today at work for 13.5 hours by the time I get to leave which screwed up my plans to bring my boat to work tomorrow... well that and another long day again tomorrow.

I'm surprised that I didn't see more YFT in the count especially a Bluefin or two.  That one that crashed my Daisy Chain was CRAZY big and so cool to see happen.  I only wish he took the squid with the hook into it.  Well, a quick break-time is over and back to work for me.

[Latimeria]

Bludgeon on the Curmudgeon!

I like it.  Great tag line for the boat!

[Latimeria]

Hell yeah, im happy for you. At the same time, fuking people

I have an overnight out of seaforth this saturday. You got me excited.

Good luck Eric!  I hope you slay the tuna!

[vdisney]

Totally stoked for you Tom........................nice fish   

[1morecast]

Nice one Tom! A deck hand would have been nice, huh?

[Pinoyfisher]

Nice one Tom! A deck hand would have been nice, huh?

A good deck hand

[BenCantrell]

Nice one Tom! A deck hand would have been nice, huh?

A good deck hand

A good deck hand who can take good photos.